The Think eBiz Blog

@BronxZoosCobra: A Great Example of Viral Twitter Marketing

Have you been living in a zoo cage? You do know about the Bronx Zoo's escaped Egyptian Cobra, right? However, were you aware that this cunning cobra has been tweeting about her escapade through NYC? Meet @BronxZoosCobra, a viral marketing genius.

"Checking Google maps. RT @sesamestreet The @bronxzooscobra is visiting places around NYC. Can anyone tell it how to get to Sesame Street?"

Within days, this sssssly snake gained over 200,000 followers and appeared on the Piers Morgan show with the founders of Twitter.

"Hey @piersmorgan, @jack and @biz, What does a snake have to do to get this account verified?"

Soon after, she was mentioned on CNN and Fox News and more. And her followers began to retweet and join in the fun at the hash tag #snakeonthetown.

"Enjoying a cupcake @magnoliabakery. This is going straight to my hips. Oh, wait. I don't have hips. Yesss! #snakeonthetown"

Magnolia Bakery along with Ellis Island, Guggenheim and many other NYC attractions received  great (and we presume free) viral publicity. Not to mention the publicity for the Bronx Zoo.

The BronxZoosCobra lives on after her recent capture...

"Just regurgitated my iPhone. Oh, it's ssso on now. You'll never guess what's coming. #freethebronxzooscobra"

What can business learn from the Celebrity Cobra's twitter campaign?

The Cobra struck fast; being the first to enter the Twitter jungle. Her tweets were topical, humorous and relevant - visiting interesting sites in New York City. A few copy cat snake Twitter accounts came online; and fell flat. There was room for only one small snake in this big city.

And most importantly, the ssssneaky snake did not try to monetize it's adventure; at least not right away. She established an interested base of followers building trust and credibility. Has she began to monetize her adventures?

"Even while incarcerated my reach extends beyond my 20 inches. I have hijacked Ryan Seacrest's Twitter. See for yourself @RyanSeacrest"

Twitter can be an incredibly powerful tool in your social media marketing campaign strategy. Even for a 20" escaped snake: BronxZoosCobra.

#hashtags: Creating a Viral Buzz on Twitter (#w2e, #hashtag #viralmarketing)

One of the funniest keynotes at the NYC Web 2.0 conference was by Baratunde Thurston: "Everything I need to know about social marketing, I Learned From Being @the_swine_flu". Baratunde demonstrates the incredible power that could be leveraged on Twitter, all done 140 characters at a time. He is profane and perhaps politically incorrect, but look past this - and you will see a highly effective campaign.

View Baratunde's - being @the_swine_flue presentation at the Ignite NYC session. <For a longer version of Baratunde' Swine Flu Viral Marketing Experiment - he begins the hashtag talk at the 2:50 time mark>

More to the point, Baratunde's experiment prove that Twitter can be applied to business to create a viral marketing buzz - a digital word-of-mouth. Another Twitter'r brought to my attention that Kodak did just this in April, to name a new camera. Unfortunately I could not locate the actual tweets onTwitter: the hashtag was  #nameakodak (view one Twitter's entries). Another B2C viral #hashtag campaign was with Moon Fruit (#moonfruit). In both cases, the winner in these campaign's won a prize.

Viewing Baratunde's YouTube video will give you a sense of the depth of thinking that is required to make this campaign work. In the case of a B2B/B2C campaign - the rules that exist for bloggers and other social media programs must be kept in mind. Keep it real. Be honest and upfront and try to make it fun. Of course you are advertising your company's product, however make it engaging, and where possible, informative to the participate. A blatant Twitter viral "advertisement' will fail and may in fact be a detriment to your brand.

Think Ebiz will try to duplicate Baratunde' campaign and we will report the results. Please Tweet me or comment if you know of other Viral Twitter campaigns. I am @sph001.