I held two Twitter Games recently, and found them a very interesting and entertaining way to engage my Twitter audience - and profit in the process.

Here are some lessons from the Twitter Game experience which you might use if you wish to try out the idea yourself. It’s just one more Twitter Profit tactic to add to the others I share in “Twitter Profits - How to tweet your way to riches!“.

The Twitter Game

A Twitter Game is just something you play on Twitter. I chose to play a trivia quiz. You might pick any other. Just make sure it’s something fun and likely to interest your audience.

Give-away Prizes

You’ll want to have prizes to give winners. My first event was called the “TWITTER PROFIT Game” - and the first person to answer each question correctly won a copy of “Twitter Profit”, my ebook about effective Twitter use.

The second was the “SOCIAL WINS Twitter Game” because winners got a free copy of my ebook, ‘Social WINS’. That one is about formulating an effective social media strategy.

If you don’t have your own digital products to give-away as prizes, you’ll probably have to source them from someone or partner with a product owner. You could have physical products as prizes, but will lose the energy and momentum that comes from instant gratification.

Build Buzz

With my first ‘Twitter Game’, I emailed my list announcing the event a few hours before it began. The second time, I started tweeting about it 4 hours earlier, and repeated it once every hour. I also invited my followers on Twitter to spread the word.

If you plan a well organized pre-launch campaign, you could easily create a loud buzz around your Twitter game.

Play the Game

The Twitter Game itself was simple.

First, start with any rules or conditions. Keep it simple. My games had only 2 rules.

Then, tweet the opening question (I also mentioned that the 1st person to tweet @drmani with the correct answer wins a prize).

After a minute (or sooner), click on the @Replies tab - and check if anyone got it right. You might also use Twitter Search for this.

Announce Winners

When someone got the right answer, immediately post a note acknowledging them - and asking them to watch out for a DM (direct message) with the download link.

This serves 2 purposes. Winners are delighted to hear about it - and will excitedly tell their friends. And others won’t keep posting answers well into the next question!

Then, go on to the next question and repeat until the game is over.

Keep Players Engaged

On Twitter, most users have short attention spans. Your Twitter Game must be entertaining and engaging if you want to keep many people involved.

So even as the game is in progress, try and engage in conversation with the people in it - encouraging those who were too late to win, or even a short “Oops, that wasn’t the right answer!” to those who got it wrong.

Also, keep the game short. My first game lasted 30 minutes - and I feel it was more engaging than the next which went on for an hour.

But… Where’s the PROFIT?

So far, we’ve talked about GIVING AWAY free copies of your product as a gift. Where’s the profit going to come from?

From your MARKETING.

Yes, my Twitter Game is also a marketing vehicle. Here’s how I did it.

1. Brand your game. I named my Twitter Game by the title of the prize ebooks I was giving away. A day after the first quiz, when I did a Twitter search, I found the word “Twitter Profit” mentioned around 35 times!

2. Link to the sales page of the prize. You can do this legitimately at different stages of the game. Once at the beginning, to show players what the prize will be. And at the end, to let others know what the winners got. And as many times as you can get away during the game itself!

3. Upsell winners. By offering a related product or service at an attractive discount on the gift download page, as an upsell or cross-sell, you can get happy winners to even buy something from you!

4. Offer discounts. In both Twitter Games, I created special order buttons with discounted pricing on the gift reports. So during the “SOCIAL WINS Twitter Game”, followers could buy the report for less than half the regular price.

5. Add urgency. I created special offers that were time-limited. For the first 10 minutes of the “TWITTER PROFIT Game”, you could buy Twitter Profit for $15 off - but then the price went up every 10 minutes by $5.

And these are the obvious ‘marketing’ activities - there’s a lot more that you can do in a more subtle and under-stated style.

1. Market through your questions. For my trivia quiz, I chose to spotlight achievements by India and Indians - and picked news-worthy items about this. You could frame questions about your niche, your business, or your products too - without being too blatantly self-promotional about it.

2. Affiliate marketing through a quiz. One of my questions was about Mark Joyner’s “The Kaizen Club” - for which I am an affiliate. While sharing the correct answer, I slipped in my affiliate link! (Caution: full disclosure of your affiliate status is good practice).

3. Invite word of mouth. Get your winners excited about telling their friends they won. From time to time, remind players to tell their followers about the fun game that’s going on.

4. Build value into your offers and gifts. Tell people what your prize reports are really worth, and selling for. Reinforce the value to winners - so they realize what they’ve just won is precious.

What numbers to expect?

With very little pre-quiz buzz, I had around 15 people playing the first TWITTER PROFIT Game. The second event had more people, mainly because I promoted it more, it had 8 questions, and lasted an hour. You can expect many players if you promote your Twitter Game energetically.

Here’s what is more exciting.

I had 2 sales of Twitter Profit in the 30 minutes of the quiz. And counting upsells, the Social Wins Twitter game had 5 sales in all during the event.

That’s a whopping 20% sales conversion of ‘players to buyers’!

Why does this happen? Frankly, I don’t know. Maybe people like having fun - and don’t mind buying when it’s a part of this!

One buyer had little time to spare playing the game to try and win a free copy, and so ordered at the special discount right away. And one winner took the upsell because it extended the benefit of the gift he had won.

And don’t forget - every winner of a free copy of your product is a potential future buyer whom you can impress and delight with the solid value your gift provides.

Benefits from Twitter Games

You get to make sales. Yes, that’s nice. But not the primary benefit.

You get extended visibility. People like having fun, and tell others when they do. Your name and brand will spread widely over the Twitterverse.

You get affiliates. Folks will see your product mentioned, check it out, and may sign up as affiliates, generating passive sales and profit.

You get followers. Each time I do a Twitter Game, my following increases - and keeps growing over the next few days, in a ripple effect.

You get to have fun - and make many people happy. And if that doesn’t matter to you, you’re probably missing most of the point to playing Twitter Games anyway!

So… do you want to play next time?

Get to hear about my next Twitter Game - follow me on Twitter at @drmani

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