Although a few credit card commercials may beg to differ, you have to admit that money can buy just about everything, up to and including happiness.  So it should come as no surprise that bribery also turned out go be a good way of getting followers on Twitter.

People play the lottery against astronomical odds for a shot at getting never-lift-a-finger rich.  What independent bloggers or small companies can do is offer a smaller reward within a comparatively tiny pool.

Michael Gray established one model by offering people a shot at $100.  He gained 300 followers as a result, and most of them didn’t leave after the contest was over.  A semi-permanent link to consumers was formed.

Jeremy Schoemaker tried something else, offering physical prizes like small camcorders and a laptop.  He wrote afterward, “Picked up about 2k followers the first 2 days then it tailed off.  This is probably partially because I went to las vegas for 4 days.”

Consider running a contest of this sort, then, and make the most of it if you do.  Send lots of messages once things have started.  Require people to retweet your name and/or contest details.  Maybe even see if you can get some other bloggers to spread the word, too.

That’s assuming you haven’t spent all your cash on happiness in the form of chocolate and puppies, anyway.

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