@carterjwm tweeted Wendy’s and asked how many retweets it would take to get him free chicken nuggets for a year. We responded “18 Million.” Before we knew it, celebrities and brands championed Carter’s “cause,” getting it mainstream media attention.

As Carter began to rack up more than 2 million retweets to become the second-most-retweeted tweet of all time (surpassing notable tweets from President Barack Obama and famous pop band One Direction), we reached out to the owner of the most-retweeted tweet ever, talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, whose Oscar selfie stood atop the list for years with more than 3.2 million retweets.

At this point, we upped the ante and tweeted that when Carter’s tweet beats Ellen’s, we would donate $100,000 to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption charity in Carter’s name.

Ellen included the story in her monologue that week, and Carter even appeared on her show.

This exchange was the culmination of a refined social voice meeting the right opportunity. And it went like this:

@carterjwm: Yo @Wendys how many retweets for a year of free chicken nuggets?

WENDY’S: 18 Million

@carterjwm: Consider it done

The rest is Twitter history.

• Carter’s tweet about Wendy’s chicken nuggets earned 3.5 million+ retweets — the most-retweeted tweet ever

• Won a retweet challenge against Ellen DeGeneres, who hosted Carter on her nationally syndicated show

• Generated over 2.5 billion earned media impressions from 1,076 placements, including top-tier outlets like Fast Company, The NY Times, the TODAY Show, Time, NPR, USA Today and more

• Over 5 million online mentions of Carter’s quest for Wendy’s nuggets, also organically boosting conversation mentioning Wendy’s 376% year over year

• Other brand accounts like Guinness World Records, Twitter, Amazon, Microsoft and Google chimed in — along with celebrities like “Breaking Bad” actor Aaron Paul, comedian Andy Milonakis and T-Mobile CEO John Legere

• Twitter verified Carter’s account AND donated a custom emoji triggered by the #NuggsForCarter hashtag, used 234,000+ times

• @Wendys earned 213,000 new Twitter followers and 23.9 million visits to its Twitter profile

• Wendy’s gave Carter his year of free chicken nuggets