I don’t think many people have missed that Sweden, as the first country in the world, has handed over its official Twitter account, @Sweden, to its citizens. The ordinary Swedes tweeting are called “Curators of Sweden” and the Swedish Institute and Visit Sweden are the organizations behind this project. The Swedish Institute is also behind Innovative Sweden that Herringbone attended in early November at Stanford University. Read more about that here in my previous blog posts.
The quite controversial Jack Werner was the first curator to tweet and the news made it to publications such as Time, Mashable, and all over the world.
Another interesting Twitter occasion was created by Swedish Stockholms Stadsmission, which built a paywall on Twitter. During one week (December 14-21) famous Swedes tweeted under the @betalvaggen handle and all the money raised went to help homeless people. With the words “People who are homeless can’t fill their stomachs with Facebook likes. Retweets will not keep them warm at night,” followers were encouraged to donate 25 SEK (about $3.50) each. Among the celebrities tweeting were well-known Swedish characters such as author Susanna Alakoski, TV-profiles Felix Herngren and Gry Forsell, and pop singer Niklas Stromstedt. Find more information here.
Both campaigns are proofs of how Twitter can be a tool for innovative marketing techniques. When it is for a social cause, such as @betalvaggen, it makes it so much better.
Anna
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