With Twitter becoming more and more popular with businesses and individuals I thought I would take a moment to share an innovative way I have seen twitter used recently.  Many of you probably aren’t familiar with the dark subculture event Bats Day in the Fun Park.  The annual event, which celebrated its 10 year anniversary last year started with a small group of about 80 dark subculture scenesters going to Disneyland and has grown into what is being called the premiere event on the West Coast, if not the world, for the Gothic and Industrial subculture of all ages.  In 2009 Bats Day in the Fun Park will wrap up its “Year of a Million Screams” celebration which began in November.  What does this have to do with Twitter you ask?  Everything.

As part of the “Year of A Million Screams” celebration Bats Day in the Fun Park began giving away “scream prizes” for simply being at Disneyland during the event.  The process for a chance at winning a prize was simple; Follow Bats Day on Twitter and have the Twitter messages sent to your cell phone. On Nov 9th, throughout the day at Disneyland, event organizer Noah Korda would send out a Scream Prize Alert with a code word and hint to a location where he was. If you were the first person to find him and tell him the code word, you would win 1 of 15 Scream Prizes.

In addition Bats Day used twitter to announce a super secret event that would be held on August 24th at Disneyland.  This would be the first time event organizer Noah Korda would use the Scream Prize system and the first use of twitter to connect with Bats Day event goers from Disneyland.  An unannounced Scream Prize alert was sent out with a hint as to where Noah was and how to get the prize.  The concept was a success and was put into full swing at the main event 3 months later.

During the 2008 Bats Day in the Fun Park event on November 9th a total of 15 scream prize alerts were sent out.  Each featured a location hint and a code word.  Prizes were given to those twitter users who followed the directions sent to their phone from twitter and arrived at the location first.  The game was again a success and all 15 prizes were claimed throughout the day.

Since then Noah has continued to send out scream prize alerts via Twitter during various visits to Disneyland, all of which are announced on Twitter a few days before he plans to attend.

This is by far the most innovative way I have seen anyone use Twitter and I believe it goes to show just how powerful Twitter can be for your business or any endeavor you might be pursuing.

Are you in real estate? Real estate SEO John Jones recently shared in his Five Twitter Marketing Strategies for Real Estate post  an inovative way to use Twitter through sharing Open Houses.  You could also announce price reductions and new foreclosures to your Twitter followers.

Are you a musician?  Share exclusive content or information with your Twitter followers.  Announce secret shows or release Twitter exclusive songs.

An e-commerce site? Give special discounts and promotions to your Twitter followers.  This not only gives incentive for people to follow you and your business on Twitter, but it gives you a great way to reach out and show an appreciation for those who are following you on Twitter.