Jigoshop wares and the power of Twitter

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Yesterday I was casting my eye over the Jigoshop project as a whole and noticed we had 98 interested folks subscribed to our newsletter. So at 5 o clock, in a desperate attempt to hit the 100 mark before the end of the day I published a tweet;

We’ve 98 #Jigoshop subscribers, no.100 wins a prize! http://jigoshop.com/

Astonishingly we had an influx of about 20 people subscribe instantly. We had a winner before I’d even had a chance to figure out what the prize would be!

We decided to offer Steve, our lucky winner a free pick of one of our products over at CodeCanyon. Steve is now the proud and happy owner of our popular Premium Content plugin for WordPress.

There also followed a procession of excited tweets including this one from our pal Matt Kersley;

@Jigowatt how about treating us first 99? lol… you wouldn’t be at a hundred if it wasn’t for your previous minions :)

Which got us thinking. Although Matts comment was tongue-in-cheek it was absolutely right. So due to the small scale success we saw with my Tuesday afternoon Twitter competition we’ve decided to run a few similar events from now until the official launch (and possibly beyond).

We’ve nothing scheduled yet but we did just place an order for some swanky, official Jigoshop merchandise. We also have our comprehensive portfolio of products at CodeCanyon to offer, and Jigoshop itself once it’s ready so there’s plenty to give away.

But what this exercise demonstrates most poignantly is the power of Twitter. At close to zero cost on our behalf we’ve earned, as of this morning ~30 new subscribers who may very well convert into paying customers in the future. And even if they don’t, just receiving our newsletter will help establish Jigoshop in their minds which itself could lead recommendations and referrals.

But above all that, we created a short-term buzz around Jigoshop and generated a sharp spike of exposure through retweets and comments. The long-term benefits of this exposure are difficult to measure but we’re certain that it’s in our best interest that this behaviour is encouraged.

So in closing I say to you, keep an eye out on Twitter for upcoming competitions and opportunities to get your hands on some cool free stuff!