Why not get a free Samsung phone from Twitter?

Apple’s iPhone 4 is undoubtedly a great gadget, phone and with the right app almost anything else you want it to be. But it came under fire from the press when it transpired that Steve Jobs has omitted information about a little antenna issue – Samsung were quick to take advantage of this.

Samsung released its Galaxy S around the same time and didn’t get half the press coverage, despite getting better signal than the iPhone. The company quickly realised that it wasn’t going to be the top story on traditional news outlets so turned to a viral campaign.

Using Twitter’s advanced search feature the company looked for anyone complaining about their iPhone’s signal, performance or the amount of money they’d spent.

They set up a dedicated Twitter account and replied to these people with a message close to: Sorry to hear about your iPhone, PM us your address and we’ll send you a free Galaxy S, Samsung.

As you can imagine this went viral quickly, but faded away equally quickly. Although during its short couple of days in the limelight the company did give away about ten of its smartphones and received a large boost in interest and sales.

This was because bloggers and vloggers posted videos about the campaign and in one case about how they were given a free phone just for complaining.

This was a great tactic. It showed the company’s willingness to adapt and capitalise on new mediums of promotion and marketing.
They only gave away ten phones but from the way the bloggers talked about the campaign they were giving away hundreds. This then caught the attention of traditional news outlets that ran the story in the online version of their newspaper/magazines.

Viral campaigns are hard to sustain. By their very nature they come and go with the tide of people willing to post about them or pass them on. And that’s how it should be. If they were dragged out people would get annoyed and the whole system would be reversed leading to negative press.

Samsung has shown how giving a little can result in a lot of returns. By thinking just a little outside the box they were able to generate thousands of pounds worth of marketing, positive PR and sales. We can all learn a lesson from this – in social media, when you give something away for free you’re richly rewarded.