Tweeting the Bill of Rights

I am always looking for creative ways that museums and libraries are using social media to engage their audiences. Today’s fine example comes to us from the National Archives, who challenged their blog readers and Twitter followers to tweet in 140 characters or less the Bill of Rights! You can read the winning entries here.

This contest is a brilliant social marketing strategy for several reasons:1. It is a clever idea to get blog readers involved in and thinking more deeply about a content area – in this case, the Bill of Rights.

2. It then takes those blog readers and sends them over to the Archive’s Twitter feed (@archivesnews) and likely gets them to become follower.

3. It encourages active participation on Twitter and capitalizes on that participation with the use of a hashtag (#BillofRights) where people can follow along.

4. It encourages people who discover the contest via Twitter to hop over the the National Archives blog to follow along and read other posts…and maybe even plan a visit to the Archives!

5. It also encourages people to follow along for daily winners on both Twitter and Facebook – so they are maximizing their social media exposure and are also picking up Facebook friends in the process.

Kudos to the National Archives for thinking outside the box and finding a great way to optimize your social media channels while providing thought-provoking anf fun user-generated content!