O.A.R. used Twitter to engage fans by inviting them to submit lyrics to @ofarevolution (image by Neek11 via Flickr).

Contests and giveaways are becoming a popular way for many marketers to help create buzz for their presence on Twitter. Depending on your company’s goals, these promotions can be extremely effective ways to add followers or encourage deeper engagement. While there have been quite a few Twitter contests that have received attention lately, there have been two in particular that captured my interest: Orbitz’s free ticket giveaway and O.A.R.’s songwriting contest.

If you viewed the Orbitz Twitter page on June 24, you would have been come across the following tweet: “We’re giving away a free airline ticket today! FOLLOW @Orbitz & RT this msg to be eligible to win.” By encouraging people to retweet the message and offering a significant prize, the travel Web site created quite a bit of viral spread for the one day promotion. The promotion spiked the number of Orbitz followers by over 10,000 in a single day (according to Twitter Counter).

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