Twitter founder credits digital signage as a key factor in their breakout success.

Thanks to a tweet by @Amdev last night, I read some super cool Quora Q&A which involved Evan Williams (founder of Twitter) and a link to the following question: “What is the process involved in launching a startup at SXSW?”

At first blush, I didn’t think much of it until I read Evan’s answer and noticed how he basically credits Twitter’s success to a digital signage & out-of-home ad campaign that they created for SXSW in 2007. I had heard that twitter’s tipping point is recognized as occurring during SXSW but had never heard how they did it. In Evan Williams own words:

“We did two things to take advantage of the emerging critical mass:

1) We created a Twitter visualizer and negotiated with the festival to put flat panel screens in the hallways. This is something they’d never done before, but we didn’t want a booth on the trade show floor, because we knew hallways is where the action was. We paid $11K for this and set up the TVs ourselves. (This was about the only money Twitter’s *ever* spent on marketing.)

2) We created an event-specific feature, where, you could text ‘join sxsw’ to 40404. Then you would show up on the screens….”

So basically to summarize, the second largest social network on the planet credits digital signage w/ a mobile interactivity component as a core impetus to their business launch success. After spending the only money they’ve ever spent on digital signage advertising, the company caught traction and took off! This further illustrates how this type of media can be so effective in connecting the online & physical world. I’m glad to hear of Twitter’s success in this way and look forward to hearing more stories like this down the road. What other companies have you heard of that have similar advertising experiences?