Scotch Egg challenge shows the power of Twitter

It recounts the story of the ‘Scotch Egg Challenge’—a cook-off between two London pubs to see which could produce the best Scotch Egg. The battle began with banter on Twitter between The Ship in Wandsworth and the Alexandra in Wimbledon, and ended with The Ship hosting the culinary showdown for these and around 30 other pubs.

In between, news of the contest spread like wildfire on Twitter, using the hashtag ScotchEggChallenge. After more than 1,000 tweets, news of the event reached around 300,000 people, and prompted news coverage in the Evening Standard and Guardian. The cook-off was eventually won by the Devonshire Arms in Chiswick, with a haggis and Burford Brown recipe.

The Blackboard says the event is a great case study for Twitter, and proves the value of engaging with likeminded people and initiating conversations that people will want to join in with. “In our fast paced industry, there are often times you have a brainwave for a special event, but you think there isn’t enough time to promote it. But as The Scotch Egg Challenge shows, social media gives you the tools to build exposure fast if you can get passionate customers on board and engaged.”

For the full story, see The Ship’s Scotch Egg Challenge Cooks up a Storm on Twitter.

For the Guardian’s coverage see A Scotch eggstavaganza, and for the Evening Standard’s see Down the Cakehole: Scotch eggs.