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MTN celebrates 10 years with a social media campaign
By Mola Kalejaiye, Online PR & Knowledge Management
18th Aug, 2011
MTN Nigeria marked its 10th anniversary last week and announced that the
celebrations would last till December.
With all the „stuff‟ MTN are doing offline to mark the anniversary, we at Playhouse
thought it would be interesting to gauge what people‟s reactions to them was in the
cyber world – was the general public rejoicing with MTN? Lo and behold, it then
turned out that they were also running a social media based promotion -
#10/10/100.
What is #10/10/100?
Quite simple really. MTN announced that they would be giving away 1 recharge
card of N1500 every hour for 10 hours for the next 100 days on both Facebook and
Twitter. It‟s basically a game of fastest finger – so MTN tweet the code and the 1st
person to enter it wins the recharge. But here‟s the catch, to take part, you have to
be one of their „followers‟ on the relevant platform.
What you need to know
New research from Toluna and Econsultancy of 4,000 UK and US respondents has
shown that over a quarter of consumers now have a Twitter account with 52% of
these following brands and companies on Twitter, illustrating the potential of the
channel for business. Not necessarily reflective of Twitter‟s penetration in Nigeria,
but what was also interesting from the research is why people follow brands on
Twitter. The main reason is to find out about deals.

2. How’s the promo going?
As the graph below shows, in terms of numbers, there has been a steady increase
in MTN‟s number of followers: on Twitter, over the last seven days, its „followers‟
has increased by 46%.
Interestingly however, on Facebook, one doesn‟t have to „like‟ MTN to take part in
the promo. Of course, when MTN posts the recharge code onto its Facebook page,
it is those who „like‟ the‟ brand who get notified first.

3. Has the promo had a positive effect?
Well on Twitter, a random snapshot of the comments doesn‟t seem to indicate that
people are now raving about MTN. Comments still tend to be primarily complaints
about the service.
I think Facebook might give a better indication over the lifetime of the promo. Since
you don‟t have to „like‟ the page to take part, we could surmise that any increase in
the number of „likes‟ is because people are feeling more positive towards the brand.
FYI
After initially saying that he wasn‟t involved with the MTN promo, the next day, Don
Jazzy tweeted the following:
“so MTN decided to yarn better in my ears, who say twitter no get power.
Osheeee IDJA”
“Tweeps pls download D‟banj‟s new single #OliverTwist as your caller back
ring tune. Just text 1, 2, or 3 to 4100. MTN subscribers only 4 now”.
Smart move MTN. Tying in Don Jazzy and also managing to get Dbanj‟s next
single as a caller tune before it was officially released.
And finally...
As mentioned, the promo lasts for 100 days. It‟ll be interesting to see if the rate at
which people are „following‟ continues, if interest from the general public endures
and if the promo is a „success‟.
We‟ll be monitoring it and providing regular updates on the progress of the promo,
with a full report at the end.
Ps
MTN is also running another promo to mark its 10th anniversary is by creating a
special anniversary album. Early last week, they tweeted
“We‟re looking for Thank You songs from MTN to the people of Nigeria. If
you‟re a music producer, singer, or songwriter, get into the studio and record a
„Thank You‟ song for us”.
What‟s at stake? Well, the top ten winners will win N500, 000 each, blackberry
phones and will stand a chance to feature in the MTN @ 10 Music album.
Wondering how MTN is spreading the word for this competition? Yep, you guessed
right – Facebook and Twitter.
About Playhouse Communication Ltd
Playhouse is a full service digital advertising agency. If you would like to find out
more, visit our website at www.playhousecomm.com, email us at
info@playhousecomm.com or call us on +234 (0)13205232.