The overwhelming response to Oregon Chai's "Give Me Oregon Chai" promotion this weekend that caused them to run out of samples in four days was thanks to social media!Timeline:
Thursday: Oregon Chai has budgeted a certain number of free samples for this promotion. Stacia sends me an email asking me to push out the word on the social networks first, so that our friends there will get first dibs.
Friday, 10:45 AM: We send the word out to freebie bloggers and promo trackers on Twitter.
Friday, 11:45 AM: Second notice posted on Twitter and Facebook.
Friday, 1:40 PM: Third notice posted on Twitter and Facebook.
Friday, 3:15 PM: Fourth and final notice posted on Twitter.
Saturday and Sunday: The http://givemeoregonchai.com is retweeted dozens of times and two dozen Facebookers "like" and comment on the promotion.
Monday, 11:00 AM: Judy gets a call from Oregon Chai saying that the promo web site has been swamped with visitors requesting samples. More than four times the number (and it was a large number) of samples budgeted were requested just on Monday. Stacia, who is the account manager, had not circulated the press release yet. "What did you guys do?" Judy asked me and Stacia. The wonderful folks at Oregon Chai said they would try to get more samples ready and shipped.
Tuesday, 8:00 AM: Oregon Chai called to say they had been able to scrounge up enough samples to meet the extra requests but would have to shut the promotion down, just four days after it went live. The http://givemeoregonchai.com web site was updated to say:
"So it seems a lot of people love Oregon Chai as much as we do. Due to a wonderful, overwhelming response for free samples, this promotion has ended...for now. Keep your eyes open for future offers from Oregon Chai. And in the meantime, visit your local market or oregonchai.com to get your hands on some 'me time.'"
Few things are tougher than ceasing a viral message. We put out the word today on the social sites, but people are unlikely to spread around the message in the same way.
Lesson: Social media is FAST. If you plan to promote something virally, you need to be ready for high demand over a short time. Fortunately Oregon Chai was happy and able to step up its offer and accommodate those who had already requested samples, and ended up shipping out almost SIX TIMES what they had originally planned. Love those guys!
-Adrianne (@msfener)
