Don’t trick Twitter!

Moonfruit, a company that offers free website building tools, recently learned that Twitter is not a passive company. They wanted to increase their Twitter following, so the proposed a contest. Twitter users who included the hashtag #moonfruit in their tweets were eligible to win one of ten free MacBook Pros. It was a clever idea and a great success netting 250 tweets per minute and surpassing Michael Jackson, Iran and Wimbledon. But all of a sudden they were dropped from the top of the trends list. Twitter had no comment on the move but Moonfruit’s own blog stated, “The campaign sets a dangerous precedent and could have implications for how Twitter is used and abused by marketers.” They seem to have noticed their error and learned from it, but it is still unclear where Twitter has drawn the line because of their lack of explanation.

The full story at Brand Week.