My $25,000 Twitter Experiment,  #winwednesday

As I learn more about Twitter, I continue to be impressed by its viral marketing potential. For example, @micah started the #followfriday trend earlier this year and it has exploded into an international weekly event. Impressed by this, I've decided to conduct my own Twitter experiment using my own hard-earned cash.

Each Wednesday, I'm going to randomly give away $100 to one person who sends a tweet with the #winwednesday hash. For example:

RT @dekeyrel #winwednesday Say Something Witty Here!

To spread some good karma, be sure to include the username of the person who told you about #winwednesday. In addition, say something witty, humorous, or include an interesting link. We don't want to fill the universe full of crap, so be sure to post something interesting in your tweet!

Right now, I only have 70 "followers" of my Twitter profile that I started back in July of 2008. Unlike some people, I don't follow other people just to see if they will follow me back. The challenge here is that we only have 70 people who can spread the #winwednesday trend out to millions of other users. A viral marketing phenomenon must occur for this experiment succeed (or my friends are going to have very good chance at winning $100 from me each week!)

So, now you're probably thinking... this guy can't do math because $100 x's 52 is only $5,200. That's not a $25,000 experiment! As it turns out, I'm not as dumb as you think... we just need a way to "up-the-ante" if we're going to get to a $25,000 experiment.

Here's where the fun starts.

Having only 7o followers on Twitter is kind of boring. Seriously, I'm way cooler than that (no really, I have over 300 friends who don't know me on FaceBook) Nevertheless, I feel like a Twitter loser compared to guys like @mashable. So, to raise the bar on this experiment I'm going to raise the amount each week that people follow @dekeyrel. I know, it's kind of like buying friends... but I've seen worse. Here are the giveaway amounts, based on the number of my new Twitter friends each week:

Recent history with #followfriday suggests that I won't need to shell out $500 per week. While the #followfriday hash has become an international hit, @micah has not. As of today, he has only added 5,000 followers to his profile despite being the founder of this brilliant idea. If something different happens during this experiment, someone please explain to my wife that the kids' college education went to a good cause.

So, there you have it... my $25,000 Twitter experiment. Good Luck!