We've been using Twitter to promote our digital collections since January 2009 (has it really been that long?). We posted a blog about our experiences a while back. In short, we post one thing from our digital collections twice a day and call them t*breaktweets.
As a digital service manager and someone responsible for promoting our digital collections, I think Twitter is a fabulous way to get the word out about the sheer awesomeness of what the National Library collections hold.
On Thursday 22nd July, during the morning t*breaktweet, at around 10:30am, I pointed people to an article in the 11 March 1921 issue of the Ashburton Guardian in Papers Past about a librarian who successfully hypnotized a lobster:
The tone of the article was salacious and at points NSFW! Here's an excerpt:
Read the full article if you dare.
What happened next was completely unexpected and took me by surprise.
One of our followers, @Bibliodyssey re-tweeted our tweet, which was picked up by @BoingBoing who posted it on their website and also tweeted about it. BoingBoing is a popular blog that publishes interesting titbits of technology, culture and business. It’s a very popular site (I'm sure you've heard of it!), and their Twitter account has nearly 50,000 followers.
The power of Twitter took over and the flurry of conversations and re-tweets began, spreading like wildfire across the web. We even created our own meme: Lobsterotica. Check out search results for Lobsterotica on Twitter and Google. 
Comments on BoingBoing blogpost
There were dozens of comments on the BoingBoing blogpost, from comments about the article itself to someone's own experience hyponotising a lobster to praise for Papers Past.
Effect on Papers Past traffic
The number of unique daily visitors to Papers Past nearly doubled from an average of 3,605 to 6,778 on 22 July. We had over 3000 new people visit the site in a single day. That's massive.. for us!
This was, by far, our most popular t*breaktweet and is indicative of the viral nature of Twitter. It proves that if you have something interesting to show people and the right people are watching, it can be shared with thousands of people across the world.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
T*breaktweets hits the big time with Lobsterotica
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social media,
twitter
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6 comments:
I almost snarfed my coffee when i read that one. Question - did your twitter followers increase as a result?
LMFAO! @ snarfed love it... but yesssss the article certainly reads like Mills & Boon or those subtlely perverted True Confession magazines you could buy back in the '70's .... ahhh inuendo...dontcha love it! Ohhhh and Paperspast has always ROCKED! :) i use the every week - for a some years now!
Nice one fellas and fellesses
Simone - I'd say we gained about 30 new followers in the last week. But to be honest, I can't really tell how many of those people followed us because of this tweet or if they just stumbled upon us some other way. Seems like a lot of the traffic to the article came through the BoingBoing site or through their tweet and not from our NLNZ account, so that may explain why we didn't get more of a surge of followers.
Sandy - Thrilled to hear you love Papers Past! We love it too (obviously!). That Lobster article has to be one of the weirdest one's I've seen.
Indeed lobster was weird, but how about Rayner & Sons advert for £10 paid to heirs on accidental death of anyone killed while wearing Rayners shoes bought at one of their stores! http://tinyurl.com/29ux6cn Best ad i've seen on there yet!
Sandy - wow! I'll definitely be adding that gem to my Papers Past faves - along with this ad for throat pastilles with flavour-enhancers such as cocaine and formaldehyde:
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=KT19120701.2.5.1&srpos=1
Hey Chelsea:
The best thing about that ad is that it is in the nurses journal.
Here's a cocaine tip you might be able to use yourself:
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=TO18990422.2.35.1
Gordon
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