The SF Giants Take Tweetups to the Next Level

Are you looking for new ways to attract and reward your social media followers? Are you looking for ways to capitalize on social media in the sports marketplace?

Considered leaders in the sports technology/social media space, the San Francisco Giants recently continud their charge by hosting a terrific first official SFGiants Tweetup. The team collaborated closely with Twitter and Room to Read to put on the exclusive event, offering the team's avid social media followers an opportunity to experience a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity at AT&T Park.

For just $20, the team offered 600 fans a chance to attend a game, receive a limited edition "@sfgiants follow us" t-shirt, listen to a host of influential guest speakers, and enjoy exclusive access into the new Triples Alley space, a behind-the-scenes lounge area of AT&T Park that is not open to the general public. The team promoted the event via Twitter using the hashtag #SFGTweetup.

The Giants entertained their Twitter guests in attendance with a terrific panel of speakers, including:

• Erin Ganju - CEO of @RoomToRead
• Brian Murphy - Moderator (@KDBRMurph)
• Jeremy Affeldt - San Francisco Giants Pitcher (@JeremyAffeldt)
• Biz Stone - Co-Founder of Twitter (@Biz)

The event also featured a surprise guest, @Jack, Co-Founder of Twitter and the CEO of Square, who spoke about his new product, a revolutionary new tool that allows you to accept credit card payments via a 'square' device that plugs into your headphone jack to your iPhone.

The event turned out to be a huge success for the team:

• The Giants sold out all 600 reserved seats for the tweetup a few hours before its scheduled start at 5:15pm
• The Tweetup generated thousands of #sfgtweetup specific tweets and photos, with 99% of the comments posted being positive (a very rare result in the social media landscape)
• A portion of the @SFGiants Tweetup proceeds went to @RoomtoRead, a Twitter supported charity

Check out some photos of the event below:  

Check out the Official Event Invitation below:

A special thanks to Garrett McManus of the San Francisco Giants for his insights and contributions to this column!

NASCAR Lets Fans Tweet Their Way to Vegas

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Are you looking for new ways to leverage Twitter? Are you looking to create new promotional offers using social media platforms?

NASCAR recently announced that it will offer a "Tweet2Vegas" sweepstakes that will enable fans the chance to win a trip to Las Vegas to attend the NASCAR After the Lap session Dec. 2-5. 

For a chance to win, fans must correctly answer questions posted on NASCAR's Twitter page each day between November 9-15. NASCAR will post a question to all of its followers at 3pm EST each day and fans must then respond with the correct answer and list their first and last name, phone number, city, and state to tweet2vegas@nascar.com. Contestants are only able to submit one question response each day.  

NASCAR will provide the winner with a trip for two that includes round-trip airfare, 3-night hotel accomodations, and ground transportation to and from the hotel. The NASCAR After the Lap session (presented by Tissot) includes interview sessions with each of the top drivers in the Chase at the Hollywood Theatre in Last Vegas.

Here is how NASCAR (@NASCAR) has promoted the offer thus far on Twitter: