@toomersoaks
How do you get 5000 people to converse with two dying trees on Twitter?
When a misguided Alabama fan called into a sportstalk radio show to announce he had poisoned the beloved 130 year old oaks at Auburn University's Toomer's Corner, the Auburn football community ignited in rage.
There was a good deal of malevolence on Facebook and Twitter, with people sharing the perpetrator's home address and talk of vengeance. There seemed to be a real chance of violence. We wanted to give the Auburn community a place to focus their energy, and turn it into something positive.
We decided to become the voice of the trees on Twitter.
We wrote a 100-tweet backstory, and quickly developed a following. We looked for Twitter lists of Auburn Sports-focused tweeters, and then we looked for their friends.
We deliberately avoided friending anyone in advertising or marketing for the first 48 hours - even our own coworkers. Keeping the identity secret was crucial to the character's success.
We decided our character would have a bit of resignation and sadness about its coming demise, but also that zest for life that is evident in anyone who knows their days are numbered. We created a mix of low-brow and high-brow humor, so different audiences would find different reasons to retweet.
Once we developed our following, we constantly looked for ways to reward their participation, like toomersoaks.com, a virtual Toomer's Corner where people could "roll" the trees online, and make a donation to Auburn's Trees and Traditions Fund.
Click here to visit toomersoaks.com
When the Auburn community decided to have a celebration of the trees one Saturday in February, I secretly traveled to the event and live-tweeted from my iPhone, replying to specific signs, cheers, and people who were there to pay their respects.
My absolute favorite moment was when someone included us in their Twitter list of "People I Know Personally." We got a bit of play in local press and television.
Along the way, we actually learned some difficult lessons about building a close digital relationship with fans, in that we found it difficult to wind things up - people would get worried if we didn't report in every morning. The tragic tornadoes that hit Tuscaloosa seemed like an appropriate time for us to end the levity, so that week the virtual trees went silent. The real ones are still alive, for now, and we wish them all the best.
Worth noting: the poisoning and our Twitter project took place in February 2011, several months before our friend the Bronx Zoo Cobra found his fame.