How Runner's World Raced to 300K Twitter Followers

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Runner's World recently increased its Twitter base by 100,000 followers over 100 days without buying an ad, lifting its audience on the social site to more than 300,000. It has organically picked up 250,000 followers in the last 18 months. For comparison, publishing competitor Trail Runner has 14,000 Twitter followers.

David Tratner, spokesperson for Runner's World, outlined to ClickZ how his brand has become more formidable on Twitter without wearing out its budget. Here are three tactics used by his brand:

• Runner's World treats Twitter as an extension of its news blog, tweeting information from the blog that helps consumers train for marathons. "The news blog has also positively impacted the website," Tratner explained. "Over the first four months of 2012, the number of unique visitors to Runnersworld.com is up 98 percent over the same period in 2011."

Bad month for Wisconsin races: Heat may cancel Sunday's @MadisonMarathon. ow.ly/b7E3Q

— Runner's World (@runnersworld) May 24, 2012

• It employs well-timed hashtag campaigns when possible. On April 16, the brand used the Boston Marathon by encouraging consumers to tweet "#RWBoston". Tratner said, "Monitoring the campaign via Hashtracking.com, [consumers] logged 2,300 tweets from 1,400 people, garnering 18.1 million impressions and reaching 1.5 million users."

11:15. Boston Public Library. Boston Legends panel (Kathrine Switzer, Dick Beardsley, many more) ow.ly/1KAVXN #RWBoston

— Runner's World (@runnersworld) April 15, 2012

• During live events, it tweets relevant information as much as possible. On the day of the Boston Marathon, the Runner's World social media team tweeted 66 messages. Tratner said the team has been performing similarly for other major events, including the Houston Marathon (January), New York City Marathon (November 2011), the Olympic Trials held last year, as well as other marathons and half-marathons around the country.

It's time to make the Olympic Marathon more competitive, Amby Burfoot writes. Here's how: ow.ly/a9BEE

— Runner's World (@runnersworld) April 9, 2012