This is the most involved, time-intensive project in this book. Therefore, I’ve saved it for last. I can only recommend this project for established companies with a devout audience and a substantial prize to give away—like a car, vacation, or sizable cash prize. If you have the time and resources, and you want to make a splash in the world of social media, I challenge you to take on this project. And, if you do, I’d love to hear about it.
The basic idea of a scavenger hunt is simple. You lead people around a designated area using only clues you release to them on Twitter. When a participant reaches the final destination, he wins. The wonderful thing about scavenger hunts is how well they scale up and down. A scavenger hunt could be limited to the backyard at an 8-year-old’s birthday party, or, as in the case of the Iron Butt Motorcycle Rally, it could span the continent and several days.
The scale of your scavenger hunt should make sense for your business and your audience. If you’re attending a conference housed within a single hotel, you could lead your participants around the venue—from the meeting rooms to the buffet to the pool. If you own a chain of restaurants in Atlanta, it would be fun to lead your participants to all of your locations, maybe using the city’s history for clues. If you own a national chain of outdoor outfitters (congratulations!), you could lead your participants to all the national parks in a month-long, well-advertised, well-documented race.
The first step in running a successful scavenger hunt is to pick interesting locations along the route that make sense when coupled with your business. Obviously, if your venue is limited, then your options for appropriate locations will be limited. “Over by the fern tree” may not make sense for your business, but it may make one heck of a great hiding spot.
Next, put together a list of compelling clues that will lead people to those various locations. Be sure to come up with more than one clue for each location in case you’ve accidentally thrown in a real stumper and no one figures out the original clue.
Put together a list of phrases for people to tweet out to prove they’ve reached a location. These phrases are a great promotional moment, so be creative! For example:
| “Running all over Atlanta to win my favorite burritos from Sal’s Burrito Hut #myscavengerhunt” |
| “This conference is the best ever. You should come! #conferencetag #myscavengerhunt” |
| “Chicago to LA in 20 hours. I need some JOLT COLA! #myscavengerhunt” |
Finally, you need to choose a prize. The prize will need to be substantial enough to make people want to jump all the hurdles you’re placing in their way. (I recommend giving away something more creative—and more related to your audience—than just the latest product from Apple. Unless, of course, you’re Apple. Hi, Apple.)
Write up a blog post, flyer, or booklet detailing the rules. They should go something like the following, but feel free to tweak where needed.
Rules:
All participants must follow @myusername on Twitter to be eligible. All participants must also follow the clues in order, beginning with the first clue, which will be sent as a tweet out at the designated starting time to participants using the hashtag #myscavengerhunt.
Once you arrive at each location, find the card within the (blue, red, white, etc.) envelope and tweet the saying written on that card out to your followers, along with the hashtag #myscavengerhunt.
Once we receive the tweeted location phrase from you, we will send you a private direct message on Twitter with the clue for the next location.
If you come to a location with a sealed envelope, you are the first to arrive at the last location. Open the envelope and read the question on the card. Take a photo of yourself in front of the last location and tweet the photo along with your answer to the question on the card. If you are the first to publicly tweet the correct answer to the question on the last card—along with your photo and the #myscavengerhunt hashtag—you will have won the (car, vacation, money, handshake, Carl’s voice on your home answering machine, etc.)! Congratulations!
Once the scavenger hunt is over and you’ve given away all your prizes, use the winner’s tweeted photo for some extra post-hunt write-ups about how much fun you had. Invite more audience members to play next time, and remind them about your weekly Twitter events—discussion groups, contests, giveaways, etc.
This project is fast-paced, incredibly fun, and makes a lot of positive noise about your company. But, as you can see, it also requires a lot of time, thought, and energy. Therefore, for most companies, it can’t become a weekly occurrence. Try it out at your annual conference, at a trade show, a sales event, Black Friday, Arbor Day, or what-have-you. Happy hunting!