This time last year, we had an eye on an emerging conversation that was growing quickly on Twitter—NFTs.

This very vocal community was logging onto Twitter every day to talk about all things NFTs—the art, the artists, the market, everything. And by the middle of 2021, there were over 29 million mentions of NFTs on Twitter.

The NFT community was engaged, excited, and responsive. They were hungry for recognition, ready to be seen, and on the verge of exploding.

Celebrate Twitter's unique relationship with the NFT community by dropping 140 free NFTS inspired by Twitter's history—with a single Tweet.

Our strategy started where it always does: with the Tweets. In the first half of 2021 alone, we discovered that there had already been 29 million Tweets about NFTs. That's a huge conversation, by any standard.

From there, we dove into the Tweets to find insights, researched the conversation, and assessed how Twitter-y this opportunity was for us.

We identified through our Tweet research that cryptic teases are a big part of NFT culture. So to kick off the activation, we changed our Twitter bio to the nose fish tree emojis and Fleeted (RIP Fleets) those emojis to start to drive the conversation.

Then, we Tweeted a CTA that was clear we were giving away free NFTs, but with language that kept us in the Surprise & Delight category, as opposed to a giveaway or sweepstakes, in order to keep the entire activation organic and driven by conversation.

For our NFT creative inspiration, we drew from two truths: people love tech swag and they love nostalgia. So we outlined major evolutions in Twitter history that were driven by conversation from the people on Twitter—such as the character count change from 140 to 280, our many Larry Bird logos, the egg avatar—and designed 7 NFTs that beautifully telegraphed those moments.

Once we had all 140 NFTs minted on Rarible (20 of each design), we dropped a Tweet from @Twitter to our 59 million followers and the NFT community to let them know we had 140 free NFTs up for grabs.

Tens of thousands of people showed up in our replies to get one of our coveted NFTs. So we spent the day reading through thousands and thousands of replies, vetting in real-time, sliding into people's DMs, and ultimately transferring our NFTs into the NFT community's ETH wallets.

The instant the Tweet hit the timeline, the NFT community came running. Not only were they excited to see Twitter getting into the NFT game, but they also felt a connection to The 140 Collection as power users of Twitter. They started placing bids on them even though they weren't for sale. Bids started at 0.1ETH (~$100), and increased, peaking at a whopping 50ETH ($108k) for the Reply Guy NFT.

The NFTs were claimed and (some) were sold...for A LOT of money. One recipient bought their dream apartment. Another paid off their student debts. And seven of them even came together, calling themselves “The Besties”, to start a DAO and auction their NFTs for charity at Sotheby’s.

With a single Tweet, we were able to start a massive conversation with the NFT community and change 140 people's lives.

Numbers:

1.4 million total organic engagements

198 million organic impressions

53,000 replies