Be sure to choose that recipient carefully. When first starting out, it’s best to pick someone you know to be easygoing or with whom you converse regularly. Once your audience is accustomed to seeing Tweet Bombs dropped, it will be safer to branch out a bit. Send out a tweet alerting the rest of the community who it is that you’ve chosen, and the message that they should all send: “This week’s #tweetbomb goes to @dpacheco! Message: “You look wonderful today.” GO!” Then, @dpacheco’s Twitter stream fills up with messages from hundreds of people—mostly strangers. The messages look like this: “@dpacheco You look wonderful today.” And…it’s totally weird for the recipient. As you can probably imagine, it’s not hard to startle someone who doesn’t know what a Tweet Bomb is with a message that might do more damage than good. “I see you…” is probably a bad one to start off with. Something like “Your hair looks nice today,” might play better. Beware of the dangers, use your better judgment, and you’ll have a “blast.” #groan
Advanced Strategies Tweet Bomb Prizes The only thing better than being the recipient of a Tweet Bomb is being the recipient of a Tweet Bomb that’s full of freebies. If you’re feeling flush and have got some goodies to give away, you can add a few freebies to your weekly Tweet Bomb. This will soften the blow of catching the sudden spotlight and will encourage people to come back and play every week for a chance to participate in showering someone with gifts and attention. To give away something in your Tweet Bomb, be sure to include something about it—usually a link to a post explaining the prize—in your prewritten message: “This week’s #tweetbomb goes to @dpacheco! Message: “Winner. Winner. Chicken dinner. http://jmcd.me/AzZtCg” GO!” Then, when the recipient receives the message, they’ll have a place to go to collect. @dpacheco Winner. Winner. Chicken dinner. http://jmcd.me/AzZtCg
40 | Chapter 11: Tweet Bombs