48 hours ago in Hanoi, Vietnam. (Photo: Matt Mullenweg)
“Tweet To Beat could generate help for thousands of students in high-need public schools. My colleagues and I are cheering you on!”
-Charles Best, CEO of DonorsChoose.org
The Ethical Bribe
The gist: To benefit U.S. public school students, I will bribe the entire world to follow me on Twitter for $3 each.
I’ll also be giving away a round-trip ticket anywhere in the world and a fully-loaded MacBook Pro. But first things first…
This is “Tweet to Beat”, a follow-up experiment to LitLiberation, which was a campaign by bloggers and their readers, and CEOs and their employees, to spread the power of literacy worldwide. It was a new fundraising model based on competition and social media scalability, and it funded not only US public school projects (20,000+ students) but also libraries and schools in developing countries. I’m in Vietnam with readers right now to visit two of the schools.
With zero financing or hard costs, this model ended up raising more than $250,000 in less than a month, 3x more than Stephen Colbert during that same period.
The Experiment
I think that was just the tip of the iceberg, and Twitter is the perfect laboratory for a new-and-improved approach (at least with a few variables).
It’s public and therefore accountable, it’s trackable, it allows exclusive communication with followers when needed (“protect my updates” under settings), and it’s current media popularity makes it the ideal PR vehicle for this campaign. Last but not least, though this experiment has no victims, produces no spam, nor violates the Twitter Terms of Service, this alternative use will get some purists hot and bothered.
Here’s how the Tweet to Beat campaign works:
1) For every new Twitter follower in the next two weeks, I will donate $1 to DonorsChoose.org, and an anonymous supporter will match $2, for a total of $3 to U.S. public school classrooms per follower. For now, the matching limit is tentatively capped at 50,000 new followers, though I’m open to increasing it later. 50,000 new followers would mean $150,000 to U.S. public school education, and I hope to double or triple this total with a few twists.
The goal is directly helping 25,000 U.S. public school students in low-income and high-need areas in two weeks. This timeline is half the time dedicated to LitLiberation. My current follower count is, at the time of this writing, 22,782, so we’ll round down and begin the count at 22,500.
Every Twitter follower will also get:
-6 months of RescueTime’s Pro time tracking tools for free (Normal price: $48). Just install it with no data entry and know exactly how you spend your time. Set thresholds, alarms, or use it for an entire business team. Full disclosure: I am now an investor in RescueTime, as I think they’re the best out there.
-6 months of DropBox’s Pro 50GB account for free. (Normal price: $60) This is a reader favorite. Sync your files automatically to your computers and the web; sign in and access your files from any browser or mobile device. It’s the world’s easiest back-up and syncing service.
-6 months of PhoneTag Alpha, the latest voicemail transcription service, for free (Normal price: $60). This is closed to the public and an exclusive for Tim Ferriss followers (!). Read voicemail on your mobile phone, portable device and/or e-mail. Forget about phone interruptions and suffering through long-winded voicemails.
Total value: $168 to each follower.
2) There is a simultaneous competition for those who would like to spread the word. Just do the best you can (Facebook, blog, e-mail friends, FriendFeed, add to your e-mail signature, tell local media, etc.) and detail what you did in the comments here. Tell your friends who are teachers and encourage them to do the same. Bonus points go to people who act sooner vs. later. Deadline for comments is 3/30/09 at 3:30pm PST.
If you’re able, I suggest you use a service like http://bit.ly to get a unique URL for this post so you can track clicks on your individual link as you promote it. Click-throughs are more important than “exposure”. Here are a few links you can use:
https://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/03/09/tweet-to-beat/
http://bit.ly/tldW (shortened URL for this post)
Not sure of what to say? Here’s the simple version for Facebook status and other channels:
“The Tweet to Beat – Paying $3 per Twitter follower: http://bit.ly/tldW”
Just get them to this post using curiosity and let the post do the convincing. For more promotional tactics that work, see the comments from this past competition.
The prizes:
Grand Prize: Round-trip ticket anywhere in the world Continental Airlines or one of their OnePass partners fly. This is pretty much everywhere on earth. Redeem the ticket anytime within 10 years, so no rush. If you prefer the 2nd-place prize, opt for it and the 2nd-place winner will get the round-trip ticket.
2nd-Place Prize: Brand-new condition 15″ MacBook Pro and laptop backpack with the following specs, donated by direct marketing expert Joe Polish (his Richard Branson interview here):
15″ MB PRO 2.6GHZ 2GB / 200 / SD APPLE $2,794.00
UPG 4GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SODIMM W / INSTL
ADD 2GB(1X2GB) PC2-5300 DDR2-667 SODIMM
APPLECARE PROTECTION PLAN-MACBOOK PRO $349.00
PACE 15.4″ (BLUE) LAPTOP BACKPACK EVERKI $29.99
How Little Does It Take?
I hope you choose to participate and make a difference. Karmic capitalism doesn’t take much.
Taking an hour to mentor a child, sending a single e-mail, or following someone on Twitter — remember that the small things are often what have the biggest impact, as we actually do them.
Please spread the word and further the experiment. I’ll share all of the results so others can duplicate them with non-profits worldwide.
Interested in doing more? Please consider donating a few dollars directly to U.S. classrooms near you through DonorsChoose.org.
“One of the great movements in my lifetime among educated people is the need to commit themselves to action.”
-Peter Drucker
The Tim Ferriss Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than one billion downloads. It has been selected for "Best of Apple Podcasts" three times, it is often the #1 interview podcast across all of Apple Podcasts, and it's been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many occasions. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.
Comment Rules: Remember what Fonzie was like? Cool. That’s how we’re gonna be — cool. Critical is fine, but if you’re rude, we’ll delete your stuff. Please do not put your URL in the comment text and please use your PERSONAL name or initials and not your business name, as the latter comes off like spam. Have fun and thanks for adding to the conversation! (Thanks to Brian Oberkirch for the inspiration.)
Tweeted it out to about 1200 followers. Will tweet it again the following morning via HootSuite.com
Posted to Twitter with 136 followers. Also posted to Facebook (500 friends) Also sent it over a few listservs i’m a member of here at school. Great work!!
Malcolm
Twitted from http://twitter.com/roughlyfamous
Hope this helps you towards your goal!
Tim,
Saw the pictures of the “first” school. Looks like you are having fun and doing good in Vietnam. This is a country that values education very highly and I am sure that there would be plenty of good projects and lots of people that would be willing to help with your fund-raising. I worked at an internatioanl school here and from the students and parents we raised between $20,000 and $60,000 per year for less well off schools here in Vietnam.
Hope that you find time to meet up with the fans of you and your book here in Vietnam. I moved up a business trip to HCMC to today in the hopes that you do find time to hang out and share your impressions of Vietnam.
Regards,
Colin
Hello Tim –
Super idea! After buying your book, I recenlty started following your blog and Tweets but was not set up on Twitter and had no desire to… until you offered 150,000 reasons to sign up and follow you formally (I had been reading your Twitter but not as a follower).
So here’s what I did this afternoon after reading your blog post:
1. Signed up for Twitter and selected you to follow (yea – there’s that $3!)
2. Didn’t know tweet about bit.ly but decided if you were recommending it, I would try to figure out how to use it, so signed up for that and got my own URL for your blog post to send to my peeps.
3. From within bit.ly, posted the URL to my new Twitter account and to my Facebook account.
4. Went to my blog and created a post about what I was trying to do, complete with a link to your post (via my bit.ly URL).
5. Sent an e-mail with a link to my blog to about 55 of my friends/family/coworkers. (Being in introvert, I don’t have hundreds of friends, but I did send it to everyone I knew).
I will follow up via bit.ly to see if anyone actually “clicks through.” For not being very technical, I am amazed at what I was able to accomplish today with the right incentive.
Keep up the great ideas –
Victoria
Hi Tim. I posted your link to my facebook page. I hope you have to pay lots of muulah to public schools. Lord knows they need it!!
Sarah
Google Voice: how say ye’?
Thanks
Way to go, Tim! I added your link to my signature and to my facebook
Hi Tim, I’m a teacher in NJ and posted within our BBS to all of the schools in the district and their parents. Thank you for the great work!
Cheers,
Jennifer
I wish I had better web design skills, but I made this page to help get new people on Twitter (to follow you and @iCanTweet).
http://icantweet.com/
Next step, driving more traffic to the page… The idea I have currently floating in my head is doing a video book review of “Emergency” with “secret notes” available in a password protected blog post. The only way to get the password is to follow you and @iCanTweet and ask for the password via DM (after iCanTweet follows back…)
(I think I have too much fun thinking about this stuff sometimes. 🙂 .)
Currently in Jordan volunteering on a sustainable aid project using Permaculture. Hoping to eventually help thousands of displaced Palestinians create true security through healthy food, clean water, appropriate housing and right livelihood. In Shalla. This fundraising idea looks really interesting as we are always searching for better ways to raise funds and awarness.
If you are interested in more info on the project in Jordan please check it out.
http://www.permacultureusa.org/2009/01/11/please-help-the-palestinian-people-in-a-time-of-tragedy/
[…] The Tweet to Beat: Paying $3 Per Twitter Follower […]
Great idea. Put it out on twitter (@jbeardsley) and Facebook. Good luck!
— jeff
Just started following you from http://www.twitter.com/bridge2science. I hope it helps.
Donor’s Choose is my favorite non profit ever. I have tweeted about this, made it my status in Facebook, and emailed it to everyone I know. Hope you get tons of followers!
Posting everywhere —> facebook/twitter/myspace/email…
Great cause!
I twittered it with the following link: http://bit.ly/info/GGSls
Outstanding! Posted to twitter and FB.
“I always wondered why somebody doesn’t do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody.”
–Lily Tomlin
@spiritualzen
Simply fantastic what you are doing here…Consider this Tweeted, blogged, FaceBooked, and whatever other means I can tap to send traffic your way for this 😉 Brilliant indeed…
P.S.-Thank you Joe Polish for putting up 2nd Prize, I owe you dinner and a drink along with Richard when I get back in town!
Caleb Jennings – “The Follow Up Master”
Sent it out to Twitter for #followfriday! 😉
@HeatherVale
I hope it’s OK that I’m giving updates as I make them. Don’t want to be too “spammy” (I’m just excited and I want that MB Pro! :D)
Here’s my latest scheme! I’m giving away my Xbox. I’ve launch phase one right now.
http://mydeadxbox.com/
Phase 2 comes Monday. I think this one is going to do better than my other thing… We’ll see. I have one more trick up my sleeve as well!
Oh! And this might help for anyone else playing along, but I found a way to track who I got to follow. For the above contest, everyone has to send “@iCanTweet blah blah #TweetoBeat” Once entering. That way a Twitter search will bring up people that entered. 🙂
OK, back to scheming…
i twittered it (which goes to my facebook too)- didn’t have a moment without children underfoot to figure out the click counter thing, maybe later. great idea- i’ve always been into “karmic capitalism” using acupuncture and the healing arts.
peace,
jade
What an amazing idea! I’m happy to utilise technology to propogate a great cause! I’ve updated my twitter, facebook status, link and also my email signature. Getting the message out 🙂
all the best!
Tim,
Re-reading the beginning of your book this week helped me tremendously. And I sliced my finger windexing the frame of our pic that’s now on my desk for inspiration.
Thanks pal. :/
Your new bloodbrother,
Me.
[…] Donating $3 for each person who follows you on Twitter? Fine in my opinion. Selling tweets for $1 and donating some of that to charity? Acceptable in my opinion. The former doesn’t cost followers anything; the latter is selling a service and donating a portion of its revenue to charity. […]
Hi, Tim. Loved the newsletter article on tips for turning weaknesses into strengths. Immensely inspiring. So many of us are preoccupied with looking for the negatives in life and excuses for not taking action.
Would love permission to turn these tips into an article for our blog which helps users set goals and stay motivated. Can you advise the most appropriate place to which to send it for approval?
@Mervin,
Thanks for the comment. Please feel free to quote from the post on turning weaknesses strengths. Just please link back to the original post and give attribution.
All the best,
Tim
twittered and fb’s your cause:
using twitter for good, not evil: http://tinyurl.com/d5z97u
This is a great idea! Just created a twitter account and have retweeted your post there (and of course began following you on twitter).
Also sent a message to Amy about donating some Ripcords gear to the cause!
Keep up the great work, Tim!
http://twitter.com/ripcords/status/1327733482
Tim, I’m a big fan of yours and have been following you for quite some time. I really dig a lot of what you have to say and think your ability to tackle complex things and break them down into their simplest form is unmatched. As a fan, I often find myself running into detractors of yours both online and off. Most recently, I found myself defending you about this very initiative against someone who runs in very similar circles as you. This person asserted that the “anonymous second donor” is in fact your book publisher, publicist, agent or some other entity who stands to benefit monetarily by building your list of potential buyers of a new product or book. As I tried to disprove this theory – partly out of naivete and mostly out of respect for your commitment to good causes, such as this one, at least on the surface – I found myself not believing my own argument and backing down. See, as I continue to read your blog posts you have taught me more and more how to break down business models and how things work and unfortunately, a bit of cynicism comes with that. On one hand, I guess I can’t fault you for trying to further your own cause while doing something as noble as supporting donorschoose.org, but on the other hand I think it’s angering me that you might possibly mislead what is undoubtedly a very committed and loyal following you’ve developed. I really hope this person is wrong and has just spent too much time around “marketers”, but I wanted to ask you directly. Say it ain’t so, Tim?!?! Thanks for allowing me to be open and honest. I hope you will too.
Hi Mark,
Thanks for the comment. I’d love to know who this detractor is. They don’t have a thorough understanding of publishing economics if they think a publicist or publisher would front $100,000 for something like this! LOL…
The unnamed donor is not my publisher, publicist, nor agent. In fact, I have never even met them. This person is a supporter of U.S. education initiatives and believes, as I do, in DonorsChoose.org. That said, even if it were my agent or publisher, it wouldn’t in any respect reduce the positive impact of the funds.
Let’s the critics criticize. If you want to let me know who this person is in my circle, please feel free to respond here or e-mail amy at fourhourworkweek dot com.
Thanks!
Tim
Am following on Twitter! and posted on my blog: http://saffuric.wordpress.com/2009/03/14/one-day-ill-speak-many-languages-too/
I can’t wait to put your language learning tips to good use!
[…] Ferriss author of “The 4 Hour Work Week” presently has a Twitter campaign underway to help rasie money for the US public school system…”The gist: To benefit U.S. public […]
[…] the twittosphere, lots of people use their power for good. Like Tim Ferris, who is donating $3 to U.S. public classrooms for every new follower he receives in the next week. Or SEO Samba, which […]
Hi Everyone,
A follow up to my March 9th post. I refreshed my FB status message with the link on Friday morning, and the traffic via my bit.ly link (http://bit.ly/mGN6S) has picked up A LOT . I guess people really are working during the week. The traffic to the link from FB has quadrupled in the last couple of days versus Tuesday when I originally posted it.
To everyone out there looking to get the word out – I strongly suggest you re-post/re-email/re-Tweet – it really does work.
Tara
[…] Ferriss launched his Tweet to Beat campaign, where for every new Twitter follower over two weeks, he will donate $1 to […]
[…] Ferriss launched his Tweet to Beat campaign, where for every new Twitter follower over two weeks, he will donate $1 to […]
great idea. i have added you on twitter and am telling all my friends. facebook, digg, reddit, twitter, emailing my teacher friends and supporters, hope it helps!!
Spreading the word on msn, twitter, facebook, friendster, email sig, and by mouth!
Twittered and FBed it correctly here: http://bit.ly/LkKiE
Hi Tim,
I tweeted it and posted it to my facebook wall. Hope it helps the good cause!
[…] Estados Unidos, acesse o Twitter de Tim Ferriss e comece a segui-lo. O cara criou uma campanha, a Tweet to Beat, para doar US$ 3 a cada pessoa nova que o seguir. É um ativismo digital interessante que, como […]
Just posted on Twitter: Follow me: http://twitter.com/23Kazoos
Hey Tim, this is an awesome initiative!
I’ve read about it and spread this as most as I could: Facebook, Twitter, blog, Orkut, Flickr…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lygiadeluca/3358256492/
http://www.orkut.com.br/Main#Profile.aspx?uid=12722560334417581357
http://lygia.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/tweet-to-beat-boa-causa-pelo-twitter/
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?id=700993577&ref=profile
http://www.twitter.com/lluca
Here in Brazil we’re amazed about it all. Hope you get your goal!
Cheers
Another fantastic idea! I’ve just posted it to my Twitter and Facebook pages and put it as my “status” line in LinkedIn. Keep up the inspirational work!
Tweeted, FB’d working on other avenues. Mother is a teacher for kids with behavioral and mental problems in a public school, my brother teaches english, my partner teaches math and science and I work for an educational non-profit (amongst other things)…Really glad you’re doing this one. Do share the whole model so we can blatantly rip off the idea 🙂
retweeted it, which means it automatically went to my facebook status, too.
great initiative, have a great day!
I really like what you are doing and I will promote at my twitter address ‘lifemasters’ and on facebook too. Many hands and minds make light the work! Bless you and best of success for all concerned.
Love and hugs,
Alexandra
I am only posting a to a linkedin account and also to a new Twitter account, I will donate anything I win to the school fund that you are helping or to the make a wish foundation. I have sent this to a few people with large networks hope it helps the kids.
Great idea! I followed and tweeted. 🙂
@lisaashby
Wonderful way to raise some flow for public schools. Already following you on Twitter, but gave some twitter love, facebook love, delicious love, stumbleupon love and most definitely some Digg love.
Thanks for what you guys are doing.
[…] Ferriss launched his Tweet to Beat campaign, where for every new Twitter follower over two weeks, he will donate $1 to […]
Great idea Tim. Tweeting it up. Thanks for being a giving person. I know many who missed out on education for a variety of social, governmental reasons withing the US and the world. I am ever so grateful for the love of education and the opportunities that have been presented to me
Tim, I liked your idea so I posted a link on my Twitter and Facebook accounts. Hope you have more success than expected.
just joined!
Great idea, what a generous give-back.
I have Tweeted and posted on Facebook.
Look forward to following the results.
Peter
[…] Tweet-2-Beat is gaining momentum at the rate of 1000 new followers a day. However, at this pace TFERRISS will fall short of his personal cap of 50,000 new Twitter followers or $50,000 in personal $1 […]
Hey Tim,
This is a fantastic plan and I have spread it to as many people as I can. I work with a middle school youth support program, and I have contacted the admin there to get the word out. I’ve also contacted my personal contacts, Facebook, Gmail status, and Twitter. I am attempting to circulate the link through various channels within my university – will keep you posted.
What a fantastic idea! As a NYC public school teacher who has had grants funded on Donors Choose (and a grant pending right now), I really appreciate your support.
Wishing you lots of luck!
Although it seems this is out of my range, I really appreciate what you’re doing, I can’t think of anything better than education and opportunities!
I’ll spread the word on FB and others right away!
Doing my bit – Tweeted about this 3 different ways – 2 w “Follow @tferriss” and one w: How to donate $3 to US Public Schools without opening your wallet: http://tinyurl.com/d9zkpl Easy peasy. Why not?
Also gave your site a “thumbs up” in Stumble.
Hope you get a million followers. (Can we ask @theellenshow to promote it?)
Best of luck,
@jaybezo
[…] Ferriss launched his Tweet to Beat campaign, where for every new Twitter follower over two weeks, he will donate $1 to […]
Followed
Tweeted : http://twitter.com/franzone/status/1346206626
Blogged : http://www.franzone.com/2009/03/17/link-bundle-march-17/
What an awesome idea, and very cool that you are raising funds for a cause.
Posted it on twitter as @Tim Ferriss #TweettoBeat – Paying $3 Per Twitter Follower: http://tinyurl.com/c4u7m7
posted to fb & twitter ~ good luck!! http://tinyurl.com/c4u7m7
actually i might just keep posting – it would be a cool thing for folks to read about in the paper and stuff as well. you know i’m sure they sell your book at the local anderson’s in naperville (if you havent been there ~ it’s awesome 🙂 might be another way to get words out! peace & smiles~ m
I’m in the game. One of the 7 followers of tim. C’mon guys we can do better.
Started marketing through
My blog – http://www.keshavnarla.com/2009/03/tim-ferriss-twitter-experiment.html
Twitter account – http://twitter.com/imkeshav
Updated status on Orkut, facebook, yahoo messenger, gtalk
More to come.
Follow tim at twitter – http://bit.ly/3Bp3Oe
But I have no clue how Tim found me on twitter. Sent a message to you. Really would like to know.
BTW I currently have 12-18 hour work days! Embarrassing 🙂
I hope it is the post im thinking about……
Cheers from Bangkok
Jose
@ Tim you have my following, my support, and my tweet.
Thanks for all the info, I’m an avid reader.
What is twittering? I have no idea.
I know what texting is. Is twittering the same thing?
Angela
Twitter, Facebook, etc.
I notice that no one has brought it to Mixx yet, so I put it up there.
Recently in Vietnam and Cambodia, Glad to see another powerful force for good 😉 is taking an interest there.
I’d be curious if you have ever looked at trying to apply 4HWW principles to government, and how far you got with it. In some ways, they are used there all the time, but usually for bad, not for good.
What a wonderful cause, Tim! With all the budget cuts going on schools need our help NOW!
Sent your message to all my Twitter friends, added the message to my email signature and my Facebook profile. I also posted comments on a lot of education blogs for both students and teachers, and created blog postings on education blog communities’ sites. I figured getting the word to high school students is a good place to start, since they will be highly likely to use Twitter already. I also found some high tech education blogs to comment on–targeting adults who are likely to already use twitter. I also wrote on various forums and contacted the US Department of Education and asked them to help spread the word.
Finally, I focused my efforts to contact various blogs on urban areas like NYC and LA to reach the greatest number of people with the greatest need in their own schools.
http://bit.ly/oOimk
I’m shocked that there only 9 followers from morning. What’s going wrong?
[…] familiar with Twitter take a look at my prior posts here or watch the Common Craft video above. The Tweet to Beat: Paying $3 per Twitter follower is an “ethical bribe” to get people to follow Tim Ferris on Twitter. Here’s how […]
Hi Tim,
Here’s what I did to promote “The Tweet to Beat.”
1) Put your blog link in my email signature.
2) Posted the link in my Twitter status, Facebook status and on my gchat status.
3) Told my friends.
4) Pitched your idea to Dylan Tweney of Wired.com who wrote an article about you last year.
5) Pitched you to HARO’s Peter Shankman asking him to include you in his daily emails to PR professionals. He wasn’t interested.
On a side note, I just quit my first job to travel to Latin America. Looking to learn a new language, volunteer and immerse myself in new cultures. Life’s too short to work in an office all day doing something I’m not really that passionate about.
[…] a bad thing. To find out more about this ‘Ethical Bribe’ Campaign, read his article here. To directly sign up to his twitter account follow this […]
Just blogged, twittered, facebooked
http://bit.ly/YuoJy
(ofcourse then I realized I should have created a bit.ly account)
I also posted it to one of the TV News Industries water coolers.
Still going!
[…] guru and bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek is attracting new Twitter followers with this “ethical bribe”: For every new Twitter follower in the next two weeks, I will donate $1 to DonorsChoose.org, and an […]
Can we get the contest extended another week? I bet I could do exponentially more damage with one more week.
What I did is run a contest giving away my Xbox 360:
http://mydeadxbox.com/
The goal is to get the most followers for you BUT the people are suppose to be working together as a team and the person voted most helpful to the cause will be the winner.
What I did is take things out another notch and made custom pages for all the early contestants. Just like my page, but using their name. Like this one:
http://mydeadxbox.com/contest/LaughingLeaf.html
It has a different video on it as well (something more general).
I think i just got the hang of teaching people how to get people to sign up, but the weekend fast approaches and time is almost up.
AND… I’m going to the Chicago Neil S. Emergency signing today and have a similar plan lined up for my emergency review (I bought 3 extra copies and I want to give them away, entrants will need to follow @Tim Ferriss, etc.)
There’s my latest report. 🙂
@Miltown Kid and all,
The response and support from you all has been incredible. I am considering extending this a bit for many reasons that will be clear soon. More exciting stuff coming tonight or tomorrow! Keep an eye on the blog…
Pura vida,
Tim
Great idea to harness the power of social medial. Twestival Hololulu raised $7000 with just 2 weeks to organize and execute. Find your passion and just do it.
follow you @ http://twitter.com/infallin
post the message on the twitter china usergroup (1056 persons), check it out
http://www.douban.com/group/twitter/
Having started a job at the same time i started reading your book, I spent months doing mind numbing data entry and research which should have been done by someone else! And then I reached the chapter about outsourcing. I was so excited that I got on the phone and outsourced immediately and 30% of my time is now free to focus on promoting this initiative. And then it came to me. Why should I spend my time on this when I could outsource this task as well. So that is what I have done, I used elance and as we speak I have a team of marketing pro’s spreading the word on my behalf. I now spend my free time voulenteering at the Chicago Public School where my mother is a special education teacher, I also have been showing children how to help save their education/schools by joining you on twitter! I think you should extend the period for a few more days so that we can promote this with some other schools in our area! This is great! Thanks Tony Diefenbach, Chicago
I tweeted. goog luck getting 50k people
http://www.twitter.com/BrianHawkins
4 hour work week @Tim Ferriss is paying $3 per Twitter follower to U.S. public school education on DonorsChoose.org: post http://bit.ly/tldW
I think it’s a lovely idea that Tim will donate money for followers. What would be an even better idea would be to donate the money and FOLLOW BACK and ENGAGE people. Just imagine the amount of Karma there is in that!
Cool idea.
Posting to
Facebook, newsgroups, yahoo group
http://tinyurl.com/c4u7m7
Awesome idea! And I hope you raise way more than $150K by extending the deadline.
I tweeted
I donated my FB status
I added to custom message in gchat
I will tell my local school district honchos. Not sure, they totally get twitter…yet, but I know they’ll be grateful for the efforts. 🙂
P.S. Your blog is the first blog I ever read…in 2007 right before your book launched – which btw I bought as a pre-order on Amazon. You inspired me – and so many others – that I’ve been on my own wonderful 4HWW journey ever since! Vielen Dank für Ihre Mühe, Tim.
[…] Source: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/03/09/tweet-to-beat/ […]
What a nice idea, hope you get even more followers. Followed you and also shouted out about this on my blog, http://getpalmd.blogspot.com/2009/03/tweet-to-beat.html 🙂
Posted it on twitter, facebook, and made a group 🙂
Nearly doubled my twitter followers aka getting my friends to join Twitter to follow Tim (went from 47 to 91, nothing like some intense people on Twitter but % wise it’s not bad), 250+ friends joined the group to support, and 140+ clicks through the shortened link.
Great cause Tim and exciting to see how different concepts along with new media can work together for creating good Karma. Also, thank you for giving me the little kick in realizing I need to work on improving my online profile on Twitter, and blogging.
Best of luck from a Canadian living in Viking land Oslo.
What a great idea, Tim. This is how small groups can change the world. This is exactly how anyone and everyone can make a difference.
Thank you for your wonderful inspiration, again!
Posting to Twitter, Facebook and Linked In
Hey Tim,
An update: I Twittered, Facebook’d, and emailed my friends, and tried to get out the word to contacts in several educational and service organizations:
– Breakthrough Collaborative (they posted it on their website! http://teachbreakthroughs.org/)
– Teach for America (emailed the San Fran reps)
– CalCorps (emailed the executive director and the youth groups director)
– Faculty at UC Berkeley and Willard Middle School in Berkeley
I too would urge you to keep this going a few more days, for our exponential gains to kick in.
Thank you so much for your efforts.
Frank
I’am a follower.
Awesome job, if more people were like you the world would be a awesome place.
Wish I could give more but sadly I’m one of the poorer people.
Good luck
Unfortunately there is really no way to accurately track the results of this but take a look at this way to exponentially increase your amount of followers on twitter. It is called Twitter Getter. It takes just two seconds and is completely free.
The only way for this to work to it’s full potential is for Tim to tweet it first then for everyone to tweet from his link and not the one listed here below.
Encourage tim to tweet this then retweet it from your accounts and together we can do more than we could alone.
And in the process you (everybody other than tim) can also bring yourseelf some more followers as well.
Suggested tweet:
Paying $3 pr Twitter follower, you Get 19,530 new twitter followers in 30 days. Free and takes two seconds…http://bit.ly/moretwitter
The perfect combo, people get to donate and we help them increase their followers!
Tim you need to go to the site and retweet this!
joined twitted, following you, tweeted about it, fb, and told friends. Good luck!
I would like to see a global movement towards the automation of the education process. I think you, and the people who have read your book are the exact type of people to make that type of massive change. One of the main problems, especially with the US school system is that students are taught, almost entirely, by people who couldn’t get more than 45 minutes away from the district.
We are in a position, technologically, to use software solutions in many subject areas. We are also easily capable of using digital media to use experts in their respective fields to give lectures to millions of students at a time.
Ask yourself: What’s better
varying lessons in subjects like Math and Science from teachers that can result in student’s grades fluctuating more than 20% year to year.
OR
software and game based learning systems that can be consistently tested and refined across large population samples
Think of how a 500 dollar laptop and 350 dollar rosetta stone can teach you just as much of a language as most people learn in 4 years of high school foreign language.
I think it is time for a MASSIVE shift in the way we educate our youth and I’d love to hear from anyone who agrees.
Here’s my latest report:
RESULTS
As of right now I’ve logged 300 click-throughs from my bit.ly link.
METHODS
1. Posted (and regularly re-posted) to my Facebook status message brought a total of 149 click-throughs over two weeks. I chose different taglines (“Technology for Social Good”, “Tweet to Beat”, “Ethical Bribe”, “Karmic Capitalism”,”Last Day”, etc) each time.
2. Put a note and a link about the project in my gmail email signature. I’m very active in a few communities, and a very active emailer, so I got a lot of click-throughs this way.
3. I also put my bit.ly link in my gtalk status message and Tweeted.
4. I also did a little ethical bribe of my own. My sisters are active people with their own large networks, so yesterday I made a deal with them that if they helped spread the word by posting to their FB and gtalk statuses I would buy them each a Snuggie.
5. There were a few other things I put out there which didn’t pan out.
For more status on my bit.ly link, go to http://bit.ly/info/mGN6S
(a note if you’re checking stats after 9pm PST; I’ve found that bit.ly has slightly glitchy behavior due to Daylight Savings; the stats temporarily miss clicks between 9pm PST and 9am PST)
[…] far, the Tweet to Beat experiment has increased Twitter count from 22,500 to 29,276, which means $20,328 to U.S. public school […]
Mr. Ferriss, you rock!
Tim,
It’s nice to join the effort. I have posted to Twitter, Facebook and my blog. I created a simple URL as you recommended. A sample of my Tweet on March 23:
I know many teachers who tell me the urgent need for funding. Follow this Tweeter @Tim Ferriss and prompt a $3 donation to US schools.
Facebook’d once and twitter’d twice about your proyect today (I’ve been following you some weeks but I thought it would be better strategy to talk about now to support you in the last week 😉 I know my followers, also :P). I’ll retweet myself next days.
Today’s twitts (in spanish) are this:
http://twitter.com/EleOcho/statuses/1378581372
http://twitter.com/EleOcho/status/1379029355
Stadistics for the 2º tweet link are here -> http://tr.im/statistics/hIqg
It ain’t a lotta help, I know <_< But hey, consider I’m a spanish speaker tweeter and some of my followers don’t speak english. I do what I can to erase lenguage frontiers xD
Good luck in this charity experiment.
– L8, mexican amateur designer
Great contest! I’m following you now and will tweet about this!