This post is one of the tests for the candidates of the LetMeGo I18N Challenge. Because of the fun and social nature of this test, we have opted to make it public.
You have 24 hours after this post is published to deliver the expected results.
Objective: To determine how agile you are with social marketing tools.
Task: To create a new Twitter account and obtain the highest number of legitimate Twitter followers you can during the next 24 hours.
Deliverable: Post a comment to this post with a link to the Twitter account that your created. You can post it anonymously if you like. Additionally, please send us the same link via email to challenge [at] letmego [dot] com. Both deliverables are mandatory. Regardless of the time of your delivery, we will count the number of followers you get tomorrow at 10 AM US Standard Time.
Rules: The Twitter account you use should be brand new. You cannot use an existing Twitter account. All the details and tweets of the account should be in the language for which you are participating: Spanish or Portuguese.
Questions? Post them as a comment to this blog entry.
Have fun!
Update: Some people have argued that this test doesn’t properly measure the Internet marketing skills of the candidates. Well, I couldn’t agree more. This test is more about resourcefulness than Internet marketing. In fact, as I mentioned to the candidates over the weekend “Initially, our main sources of traffic will be search engine optimization and our referral program. Other efforts, like PR and PPC, may also help, but I wouldn’t bet too much on them.” – As you can see, I didn’t even mention Twitter there.
Alexander is LetMeGo's co-founder and jefe. Here is his LetMeGo 
Hi there, hope the wheather is fine near You
want to join me on Twitter?
http://twitter.com/haja_sol
Hi!!!! I arrived home half an hour ago and after seeing this,I´m in totally disadvantage with the others contestants! My god!!!!!!!!!! I have to hurry up!!!!And Leonard, I´m so sorry about the call, but I was in the middle of the street and I didn´t listen the cellphone …
Here´s my link:
http://twitter.com/Vico1978
http://twitter.com/subastahotel
Still working at this…took good part of the day learning to use DreamWeaber which did not work and then SeaMonkey.org finally got my translations and now working on getting new followers to my new Tweeter acct.
Nice. I used the notepad, not as pretty but very efficient!
https://twitter.com/dimequees
http://twitter.com/LetMeGoAoBrasil
Please consider the following link:
http://twitter.com/viajandofacil
Hello Everyone,
My Twitter link is:
http://twitter.com/Quero_Viajar
Please consider the following link for the 2nd test
http://twitter.com/viajandofacil
http://twitter.com/viajandofacil
Hi There, our Links are:
Português:
http://twitter.com/LetMeGo24hours
Español:
http://twitter.com/LetMeGo24horas
http://twitter.com/paramanana
I’ve started 12 hours late! Let’s see what I can do…
http://twitter.com/DejenmeIr
http://twitter.com/PazDelMundo
Thanks!!
Below are some notes and general information. Please take the time to review and build a discussion…
I used a simple method to see how many people were generally interested in travel. I also anticipated Twitter to have down time because of the traffic they generate so I used TweetAdder this morning to build a database of users that I had planned on targeting. I created my Twitter account as MeFuiDeViaje. Please note that I avoided English speaking users and users in the LetMeGo Challenge.
My intent was to use a simple phrase that attracted attention. Ideally, I would have chosen Mefui but as expected the name is unavailable. Also, the domain Mefui.com is registered to an individual in Miami and MeFuiDeViaje.com is registered to an individual in Atlanta. I also created a separate account, RiveraRicardoA. A person also has to be cautious as to not add too many followers at once since any strange activity may alert Twitter and have them suspend your account. I only have have had three people who follow me thus far. It appears they are new users exploring the service. On a positive note it appears that I spurred one user to look for vacation deals based on her post.
Some businesses simply offer a contest where the winner receives a gift or reward; but gifting may result in a high number of rapid followers but a lower retention rate. In the end, word of mouth and brand loyalty is always a key factor in growth and I intentionally would lean away from gifts or Twitter as an aggresive marketing strategy.
One issue that poses a challenge using this service in Spanish speaking countries is that Twitter does not facilitate them with their SMS features as they do in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, UK, and six others. So a good number of users in Latin America will have limited access to their accounts unless they sign up for a service such as TweetSMS. The disadvantage is that if a user is on the go the only way for them to stay connected would be via a WIFI enabled phone or device using the Twitter Mobile site. As a result of this, an advantage emerges where active Twitter users in these spanish speaking countries will take the time to review their ‘followees’ messages when they view their account. On a side note, it would be difficult to measure the retention rate of Twitter users since it has fluctuated within the past year, despite steadily rising. Something that I know may prove effective would be taking into consideration a micro-targeting marketing method combined with the use of Twitter. Microtargeting can be costly, like those methods now being used in elections in the US, but with Twitter you’re open to an unprecedented and loyal audience at no cost (for now) other than your time.
One market concern, is whether Twitter will be actually able to turn a profit. Opening a discussion as to whether they will decide to reserve characters within each Tweet for advertising. To elaborate on a small scale, imagine a local italian restaurant with a good Twitter following sending Tweets to their loyal customers for a free appetizer with any meal. Now in these same messages sent from this restaurant you may eventually see an advertisement for Dominos Pizza should Twitter decide to move forward with this as a source of revenue. This scenario would essentially force businesses with loyal followers to pay for Twitter service. So as you can imagine how this applies to any industry large or small. Twitter will need to combine several solid revenue generating methods if you take into account the that each SMS messages has an individual cost
Whats also interesting is that more and more businesses are relying on SMS short code application providers in the US and UK for their loyalty rewards program. According to statistics these programs have a response rate from customers of at least 10% per message and does not require a computer. Unfortunately, Latin America does not have a company with a business model that reaches out to almost every business type and would prove too costly for many businesses. Since these services are becoming much more inexpensive I predict that they will become a direct competitor to Twitter in the coming years for businesses looking to reach their loyal market.Text marketing is immediate and puts an advertisiment in a users hands within seconds without the need of a computer. To find out more about short code application providers visit http://www.usshortcodes.com/.
Finally, for a long time now I’ve encountered blogs and articles on the internet about how following many users and having little followers will result in less of chance your followers will grow in number. However, I have seen no real research or statistics that would lead to this as a solid conclusion, but if you begin to look at individual users on Twitter you may believe this to be true. I did not add many users to either of my two accounts as I would prefer to build a small and loyal community first. Once my community grows I can than be aggressive and demonstrate within a calculated span of time to demonstrate that there is value and loyalty with my account. Ideally I would have my follower/following ratio to around 20% thus showing trust with more users that I begin to follow.
-Ricky
http://twitter.com/MeFuiDeViaje
Thank you for your insightful comment, Ricky!
Hi all! My twitter account is JoseMirage
Regards
Dear friends,
Here is mine
http://twitter.com/LetMeGoLusofono
I shall follow who ever follows
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Hi guys,
Me and my baby created this one
http://twitter.com/Mibebellora
Good luck everyone!
Unfortunately I am on a middle of moving of house, for what I have just seen this one 2 º test. In view of my scanty time, and that is a test that does not refer to LetMeGo, let’s see what I obtain in it stays of time. A hug to E1.
http://twitter.com/deprincipioafin
This is soooo much fun!!!
The sun is shinning out of my window
Hey guys,
Give me a hand here I was working all night
Follow me
Sigam-me
Sígueme
http://twitter.com/LetMeGoLusofono
My twitter account! http://twitter.com/LETMEGO_AGORA
Hello everyone!!!
My twitter account is http://twitter.com/amando_rio but was suspended due to strange activity.
Did you have the same problem?
Good luck!
Tini
http://twitter.com/MeFuiDeViaje
https://twitter.com/letmegoBrazil
I have just started my second task. I’m traveling back to Canada from Brazil tommorrow. And this task is time consuming for sure. But not as hard as the first one. No web programming skills here at all. Only a slight idea on how to do the markups/tags for HTML.
Working hard on this…..but Twitter is not working really well since last night, keeps giving me error when I have to find people!!!!
Lets see, its my first twitter.
http://twitter.com/interesame
http://twitter.com/sudafrica2010ar
for Portugal: http://twitter.com/ptletmego
another one cheating
This is my account:
http://twitter.com/colombiadeDios
Thanks
Hi Everyone,
You can check out my Twitter account for the challenge here: http://twitter.com/DanielNoLetMeGo
Thanks,
D
The created account for this 2nd test is:
http://twitter.com/MiLetMeGo2010
Is it possible that in less than 24 hours people can get more than 1000 followers??
I think somebody is cheating Alex.
Don’t worry Pablo. We will investigate suspicious activity.
But is not the total number of followers what matters. It’s about how creative you are with the time you had, be it 24 hours or 1 hour. So, you are not actually competing against each other, but against yourselves and, in that sense, there is no way of ‘cheating’. Or am I missing the point?
You gotta be kidding me…
Here is my twitter account
http://twitter.com/LETMEGO_AGORA
http://twitter.com/allavoy
Here it is: http://twitter.com/mvagomes
Alexander,
Here is my twitter address.
http://twitter.com/bem_instalado
http://twitter.com/melevajunto
This is the best one…… hey, hey hey…….
http://twitter.com/melevajunto
This is the best one…… hey, hey hey…….
great….
http://twitter.com/calcetin_mojado
Come on people, I’m following everyone on the LetMeGo challenge, whazzzzz up, folow me too http://twitter.com/Oestinoman
Together we stand, divided we fall.
Peace.
As requested, here is the account created for this social test: http://twitter.com/LaqueLoSabeTodo
Hola hermanos que passa. Estoy siguiendo todos en el desafío, ponga vostros dedos haciendo clic y siga yo también http://twitter.com/Oestinoman
El mundo es nuestra casa.
Olá gente boa. Já estou a seguir todo o mundo no LetMeGo, sigam-me também – http://twitter.com/Oestinoman
Boa sorte a todos.
Hi everyone,
My twitter account is: http://twitter.com/notrabajomas
http://twitter.com/letmego_now
This is my twitter account for the challenge!!!
thanks
Saludos!
http://twitter.com/IrMeYa
Here we go! A bit late and with not so many followers… I’m new on it, I did it the best I could!
http://twitter.com/Me_piro
Hi,
Wow!!! This Twitter is really a powerful tool…
Thanks for this challenge!
Best regards to all
My twitter account is:
http://twitter.com/Ana_Leamaro
http://twitter.com/GaneSoloHoy