Twitterich from Twitterich on Vimeo.
What would you do with a million Twitter followers -- and not have to be Charlie Sheen-crazy or Justin Bieber-dreamy to get them?
In an experiment to test the value of social media, a few ad creatives cooked up the site Twitterich. The goal of Twitterich is to collect a million Twitter followers and give one random winner the account with all 1 million followers.
"We were thinking, could you get a Twitter account to grow super-fast by saying you would give it away?" said Neel Williams, a copywriter at the Martin Agency in Richmond, Va. "We were just banking on the idea that followers are currency."
Twitterich quietly went live Thursday with one catch: There is no catch, according to the ad man. Williams said the agency is not advertising anything or being paid, and no one will receive spam. The idea was hatched in one of those moments, he said, when creatives sit around with their feet on the desk. In "Mad Men," the inspiration might have passed in a haze of booze. But Martin, whose clients include Walmart, Geico and Hanes, followed up.
The video (above) asks you to click the "follow" button on the site, share as much as possible to accelerate the pace toward 1 million, and think about what having a million Twitter followers is really worth to you.
Said Williams: "It could end up going to somebody who just wants to tweet about what they want for breakfast or knock-knock jokes."