You already know that Wendy’s social media account never misses and opportunity to be awesome.
Well, they’re at it again. This time, 16-year-old Carter Wilkerson tweeted the brand asking how many retweets it would take to receive free chicken nuggets for a year. The freezer-less brand promptly replied “18 million.”
For reference, the previously most retweeted tweet of all time was the famous photo of famous faces at the Oscars posted by Ellen DeGeneres, which has 3,438,693 retweets.
Wilkerson was confident, and replied, “Consider it done.” Then, he took to his followers to help make it happen — screenshotting the exchange and asking for help because “a man needs his nuggs.”
Wendy’s also joined in on the fun, pledging to give $100,000 to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption if he reached his goal.
Winner, winner chicken…nuggets
Although Wilkerson didn’t quite get there, he did surpass DeGeneres’ Oscar photo, with more than 3,470,000 retweets, so the brand decided to give it to the kid. They also donated the $100,000.
Wilkerson’s #NuggsforCarter campaign did so well that he began a website, nuggsforcarter.com, to sell T-shirts for the chicken nugget lover in all of us. According to the website, all proceeds go to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.
The takeaway
As a small business owner, there’s an important lesson in all this. And that’s to interact with your customers. This wasn’t a marketing stunt Wendy’s put together to sell another frosty. Instead, the brand answered one simple question on Twitter. From there, it saw an opportunity to join the conversation, by donating to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. And finally, it concluded the story by being the hero and giving away free chicken nuggets.
Are you interacting with your friends and followers on social media? If you’re not, you might be missing a big opportunity.
If you’re ready to take your social media to the next level, contact Time-Union Media for more information at 904.638.7555, or by filling out our contact form.
