Moonfruit Finds Instant ROI with Twitter Campaign

DIY Web site creation service Moonfruit says it has experienced "overwhelming results" with a promotional campaign it is currently running on Twitter to celebrate its 10th birthday. The idea is a simple one: Users that include the hashtag "#moonfruit" in their tweets are entered into a daily drawing to win one of 10 Apple Macbooks.

What's surprising is how quickly the buzz has spread. By Thursday evening, Moonfruit had topped Twitter's trending searches since the previous day, ahead of subjects such as Michael Jackson, Wimbledon, "IranElection," and the new iPhone.

Although the concept of a Twitter promotion isn't a new one, Moonfruit founder Wendy White said even she had been surprised by its success. The promotion drove a 600 percent uplift in traffic to the site, and doubled the number of users signing up for trials of its services since the Wednesday launch.

"The response has been beyond belief, far more effective than other marketing channels," said White. "We wanted to drive both brand awareness and direct response, but this has achieved both in a far more personal way," she added.

White also praised the creative ways in which Twitter users have been sneaking the word into their tweets. "I wonder if #moonfruit would make my dog sick. Kinda like chocolate does?" asked one user. Another seemed happy to tweet the term without even knowing its meaning: "Would one of my lovely followers please tell me what #moonfruit actually is?"

In addition to the 10 laptops, the self-service Web site creation firm decided late last week to award an Apple iPod touch to the most creative Moonfruit tribute. So far those have included posters and a song posted as a YouTube video. The campaign will run till this Friday.

MTV ran a similar campaign earlier this year inviting users to play a game of Telephone, mimicking the game during which kids whisper a specific message to the person next to them, usually altering the original message. The MTV campaign promoted a reality program called "The Phone," and was aimed at getting people to talk up the show.

Moonfruit offers its users, including businesses and individual users, a range of tools to create their own Web sites online without any knowledge of coding.