Last Friday was a busy day with a fun surprise that caught me completely off guard! The surprise came as a random act of kindness by a Twitter friend, Dee Stewart.

Unbeknownst to me, Dee waged a Twitter campaign to help me reach 2000 followers. A meeting in Charlottesville had me off the grid for most of the day. When I returned and checked my email, tweetlater digests containing my Twitter user name filled my inbox. And my Tweetdeck revealed that Dee had been busy.

Here’s how it started.

dees-2k-campaign

And here’s how it continued. (Read from the bottom up.)

Throughout the day, Dee tweeted and her followers retweeted (RT), asking people to follow me. And they did. Crazy! Thanks to Dee’s efforts and the efforts of her followers and others, I gained nearly 50 followers in one day. 48 to be exact.

And remember, all this was while I was in an out-of-town meeting, clueless to what Dee was doing. She created a conspiracy of delight and others participated!

So what are the takeaways?

  1. Helping others is good. Shameless self promotion is bad, especially in social media. If I had said, “hey guys, help me reach 2K followers today,” I’m quite certain that more than a few people would have been turned off.
  2. Don’t be afraid to ask. Do you need help accomplishing your goals? Or even better… Do you have a desire to help others? There’s power in numbers but you’ll never know if you don’t ask.
  3. Engaging people pays off. I’m hoping that Dee offerered this kindness to me because I’ve been about being real, interacting with others and adding value along the way. If I were “Leisure Suit Larry,” Dee would have probably unfollowed me a long time ago. Don’t be that guy!
  4. On the social web, people reach out to help others, often without any ulterior motives. Like Laura Fitton’s tweet for World Water Day or Susan Murphy’s 12 for 12 project or Connie Reece and Susan Reynolds‘ frozen pea fund.
  5. Social friends’ opinions matter. People have always acted based on the recommendations of their friends. You ate at a certain restaurant; you used a hairdresser or babysitter because someone you trusted recommended them. Today, that principle is magnified through the use of social networks. You buy a book, watch a movie, use a web designer, consider using gmail for your corporate email client or more. It’s really quite astounding. (I suspect that Chris Brogan and Julien Smith’s upcoming book, Trust Agents might just have a lot to say about that. You should buy it when it comes out!)
  6. And finally, if you’re on Twitter, follow Dee!

What do you think?
Are you engaging people using social media? What can businesses, chambers of commerce and churches learn from all of this? Give it some thought and leave me a comment. Let’s broaden this conversation.