Today I’m feeling pretty amazed by Twitter and its capacity to sneeze word of a story, need and message far and wide.
In response to the bushfires in Victoria Australia (where I live) Sitepoint (a previous sponsor of Twitip) decided to put together an offer to raise money for the many thousands impacted by the fires. They are offering 5 of their books for the price of 1 for the next couple of days and donating every cent from the sale to the Red Cross.
Yesterday I went into the offices of SitePoint to see how I could help get the word out. We worked out a simple plan and about 16 hours ago from now I tweeted the offer. I’ve retweeted it myself a few times since so that my followers in different timezones see it – but other than that have left it to the Twitter community to spread word.
This morning I woke up to hundreds of retweets of the message. I count over 270 of them on Twitter search for the exact message and know that there are quite a few more with other versions of it where people added their own words. Add to that the many retweets of SitePoint’s on announcement tweet and those of many others who heard about it in other ways and from what I can see the link to the offer has been retweeted around 700 times in the last 16 hours.
The link is the most retweeted link on Twitter on both RetweetRadar and Retweetist.
I’ve always known the power of Twitter to spread a story or news and have experienced it to some degrees previously but this has been an amazing ride and one that I want to thank the Twitter community for jumping on board with. You all are amazing – thanks.
update: the goal of this project was to raise $50,000 for the bushfire appeal. It’s just been announced that in less than 24 hours it has already raised $75,000!
@brandonacox
Darren, this has been on my mind today as well – I’ve seen it go viral all day and have re-tweeted it myself. Definitely quiets the skeptics who speak of the “uselessness” of Twitter (and other forms of social media).
@MomMostTraveled
I agree; in lieu of a personal testimony, it is all because of Twitter that I am aware of the brush fires. It is “real” to me now, and I’m emotionally vested.
The appeal for donations on twitter was more impactful to me than seeing an impersonal request on the nightly news.
@Jakrose
Very inspiring darren. Badass. I gave a little. Very cool to see all the twitter giving recently. With twestival too
@digital_artist
Indeed. Twitter is the only reason I know about the brushfires. I retweeted myself and my thoughts are with the people and families of the area.
@danielando
During this terrible time here in Victoria, Twitter has amazed me with the amount of responses all over the globe in regards to the fires, not only that but retweets etc and also advice on who to follow to keep updated is quite extraordinary.
@RobboM
Our thoughts and prayers are with those who are suffering in regards to the fires. Yes, the power of Twitter- people conversing in 140 characters is amazing. Microbloging has alerted us to the bombings in Mumbai, the need for assistance in Victoria, earthquakes in California in a way that works locally, but thinks and acts globally. Hopefully the 12th of February the plight of Clean Water and http://twestival.com/ will bring more action and compassion. Thanks Darren for your service to others.
@geehall1
This particular campaign really didn’t go down very well with those of us manning and monitoring and updating the #bushfire hasttag for important information. You really picked a wrong time for a viral campaign and a few of us even wonder how you could divert money that was better off DIRECTLY donated to a fire appeal charity.
It clogged up #bushfires while we still had more important information to get onto that hashtag search.
Try and be a better corporate citizen next emergency, please.
@TweetSocial
My prayers go out to all those affected by the tragedy.
This is an amazing opportunity to learn some new web development skills while helping a tremendous cause. My hats off to SitePoint.
I’m especially eying the “Flipping Websites for Profit” and “PHP Anthology” books.
George – I trust we’ve resolved your concerns with our emails but for other people’s benefit:
Using the #bushfire hashtag was something in hindsight that I wish I’d not done.
1. I was not aware that the tag was being used to get information out about the fires to those in danger. When I first came across it, it was being used in a more general way to tag any kind of comment on the fires.
2. we didn’t realize that our tweets would be retweeted as much as they were – clogging the hashtag as it did.
In terms of the ‘diversion’ of money – I’m not sure I quite understand that. Sitepoint was going to donate $5000 of their money but decided to try raise more through selling their books and donating the proceeds. In doing so the money sent to Red Cross will be well over $100,000 – there’s no diversion at all – it’s purely Sitepoint leveraging their reach to raise money for people in need.
Lastly – my advice to anyone who is using a hashtag for important dispersement of information is that when you see someone using it in a way that it wasn’t intended to be used – let them know. 24 hours after we started using the tag in this way I was told by one of my followers that you and others had this concern. I really wish you’d just shot me an email, reply or DM and I would have done something about the problem very quickly.
I suspect most people had no idea that there the tag was started with a narrow focus or for an important reason.
Anyway – I think we’re straight now – we’re not using the tag any more and Sitepoint has also agreed not to.
@geehall1
Update to previous comment: Darren and I had a discussion about the best way to manage both sets of goals, information flow in the bushfire hashtag and how SitePoint can make a huge difference with what will be a good donation to the appeal. It has been resolved amicably and we can get on with the ultimate goal of helping our State in its time of need.
@rumford
Darren,
Great blog post. I have authored several case studies that go into analysis regarding the spread, reach, amplification, impressions and call to actions delivered from retweets.
The other point that you failed to mention is that sitepoint also integrated a “Tweet This” on the right side of the landing page and they were also displaying tweets related to the topic. This was a very smart move and thus drove the content being pushed back into the twitter eco-system very easily. This is where my retweet came from and how I discovered the opportunity to share via RT the content easily.
Additionally, the fact that this was integrated into the email marketing campaign/landing page that they pushed to their email list helped to drive velocity and retweet behavior. This is a very smart move.
This is a great example of how good headlines, execution, valuable cause, relevant content and twitter all come together to drive serious marketing results for business. Kudos to you and Sitepoint for a job well done. This is just a peek of what is truly possible with twitter.
I just published a report a few days ago on why Retweets fail, best practices and tips for maximizing RT content spreading as well as the results of user RT behavior from a survey of over 300 users. You can download a free PDF copy here: http://www.twitterbusinessbook.com/2009/02/why-your-retweets-fail
Cheers!
Rodney Rumford
@thebenchs
This its surprising how twetter have reach to that level i juts image if it would have all the amount of people facebook have, or might be it have the same amount willing to tweet about what they are doing.
Thnak you for the post.
@ShayneT
I think Darren has cover the # tag use well, as lesson learnt by all. I just thought I’d provide a quick update on the initiative. So far we’ve raised over USD $125K/ AUD $195K with plenty of time left to grab a bargain. For everyone that already has – from the bottom of my heart – thank you.
@britishredcross
We launched an appeal on tuesday to help the Red Cross in Australia on twitter using the #bushfires tags. Thanks to some retweeting to Stephen Fry, who then retweeted it, we got around 800 visitors to our appeal . No where near as popular as the sitepoint books but still pretty amazing! All thanks to the power of twitter!
@ModernPainter
Thanks, hadn’t heard about the hashtag yet, great of you to raise the money. The power of Twitter amazes me.
Gabriel