Twitter is veering into Facebook territory with a new Starbucks partnership that lets you tweet your followers $5 gift cards—just enough to cover the cost of a pumpkin spice latte.
The "Tweet a coffee" promotion requires you to link your Starbucks and Twitter accounts—or sign up for both, then connect them—then send a tweet that says, "@tweetacoffee to @[yourfriendhere]." That trigger sends a $5 e-gift card to your friend, which they can use by printing out the gift card, loading it in the Starbucks app, or just showing the e-mail to a barista.
Starbucks is no stranger to social media promotions. The company launched a Facebook app in 2010 before rolling out an e-gift program on the network a year later. Gift cards are big business for the coffee company, and the Twitter promotion is timed perfectly for the annual pumpkin spice craze.
The promotion is a test of Twitter's public nature—gifts are typically a private affair, but you're not direct-messaging these gift cards. Starbucks is a powerful partner to have for a beta launch, and the two companies are sweetening the deal with an incentive: The first 100,000 customers who tweet gift cards using Visas will get a $5 card in return through Nov. 6.
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