This past week, Maggianos promoted a gift certificate using Twitter. All you had to do was follow @Maggianos and send the tweet “Follow @Maggianos by 5pm CST to be entered to win $100 in Maggiano's gift certificates.” Once one person tweeted about it, more people would see that tweet in their feed and if they wanted to enter the contest (and why wouldn't you NOT want to, it's free, right?) tweet it as well, because the offer was valuable for others to tweet about it. Even after the contest, Maggianos will be able to reach its followers who entered the contest by providing discounts, new menu additions or even new Maggiano restaurant openings.
For businesses who offer products or services, Twitter would be a great idea to promote a contest where entering was as simple as tweeting about the contest. The Palm Beach Post recently has been doing this as, but in the form of asking its followers trivia questions with the winner receiving free Muvico tickets.
Twitter can be a great place to learn about current news, interesting blog posts and now even win free stuff. As long as you provide useful value, there won’t be any reason why other Twitter users shouldn’t follow you.
