Check it out: 'Tweetstakes,' 'Tweetaways' Pay Off for Chickdowntown.com

I don't know about you, but I get pumped at the prospect of having a chance to win a giveaway every day.

It certainly piques interest among folks following Amy Reed's tweets (@chickdowntown).

Reed is founder and president of chickdown
town.com, an online retailer of contemporary and vintage women's apparel and accessories. This past spring, Reed began tweeting and blogging about her company and her personal experiences to raise awareness of 
chickdowntown.com.

As new products are being pulled out of their boxes, for example, Reed takes pictures of them and posts them on Twitter. But she also lets followers know what color nail polish she's wearing and what music she's listening to.

"I kind of became the voice of chickdown
town.com," Reed says.

Her tweets have taken off. Since May, when Reed began tweeting in earnest, her following has grown to more than 5,000 from 300 — and it continues to increase. So to give something back to her followers, Reed started offering sweepstakes and giveaways.

Over the summer, for example, she launched a 100-day "Twilight" jacket giveaway. It required contestants to follow her and then answer fun questions, such as why they want the jacket or why they love Robert Pattinson, the lead actor in the "Twilight" movie.

She also asked more generic questions, such as, "Would you rather be the prettiest person in the world or the richest?" and, "If you could be another person for the day, who would you be?" The winners were the followers who gave the best answers.

Reed says this particular program has been getting thousands of responses. "Sometimes the responses are so great," she says, "we actually give away two jackets instead of one. And, when people win, they're very excited, and they tweet about it."

Giving to Get
This isn't the only "tweetstakes" that Reed has run. Occasionally, she posts tweets that list items and gift certificates followers can win by tweeting back why they like the items. Followers also receive friendship bracelets and are entered to win a $500 gift certificate to the site that's given out every few days.

Sometimes Reed also posts tweets that advertise exclusive Twitter sales. A recent one, for example, told followers to enter TWITTER20 upon checkout to get 20 percent off the store's vintage collection for one day only.

While bringing brand awareness to the company, Reed says the Twitter promotions and sweepstakes also build sales.

"We've found that our Twitter customers are more likely to buy than average people coming to the site for the first time," Reed says. "The Twitter customers feel like they know us and already have a personal connection with us."