Every year, Twitter announces the Golden Tweet Award. It is given to a tweet, which has not only been the most retweeted one, but also the one having major impact in terms of a larger social good. This year, the honor has gone to a tweet from Wendy’s that prompted its users to retweet for a cause.
An official post mentioned of the Wendy’s Tweet that it was indeed noteworthy since it was a Promoted Tweet, part of a Twitter ad campaign ran to mark Father’s Day in June. The campaign’s call-to-action encouraged users to #TreatItFwd, something which was immensely successful. In fact, another Tweet from the very campaign emerged as the year’s second most retweeted Tweet.
Each of the retweets incidentally sent 50 cents to a charity named Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption. It seems like offering help to foster children has proved to be a major motivation to make people to retweet. The Wendy’s tweet helped raise an impressive sum of $50,000 for the charitable cause, that’s not less than 100,000 retweets. Giving an idea into the premise behind setting up the Golden Tweet award, Twitter mentions that one of the most powerful aspects about the networking platform is how easily and smoothly Tweets can be shared.
The most widely retweeted Tweet, one of over 60 billion Tweets that people shared in 2011, drew their attention for its intention to donate a fixed amount for every retweet. Everyone spontaneously responded by sharing the noble Tweet. An official post elaborates:
“This Golden Tweet is noteworthy because it came from a company, not an individual. Last year’s Golden Tweet award went to Stephen Colbert, for his Tweet about the plight of oil-soaked birds in the Gulf of Mexico. Wendy’s Tweet is also notable because it was a Promoted Tweet, part of a Twitter advertising campaign that Wendy’s ran in June to celebrate Father’s Day. That campaign, whose call-to-action encouraged people to #TreatItFwd, was so successful that another Tweet from the same campaign was the second most retweeted Tweet of the year.”
Incidentally, Twitter has developed Promoted Products for amplifying this domino effect in order to mirror the way people already make use of Twitter organically. As the winner of Golden Tweet award this year testifies, any company or for that matter, any individual can leave an indelible impact by creating meaningful message that strike chord with others, Twitter concludes.
And this exactly is what makes the 2011 Golden Tweet Award winner stand out. It’s not about a brand message or direct promotion; it’s about a broader social message to create goodwill about the brand, something which brand promotion strategists and marketers need to consider, while devising their social media plans for small businesses, in particular. It’s just a matter of click for you to share messages, which make users or think or laugh, or ones that you feel all your followers should ideally know about.
