Check out this recent contest he had on his Twitter stream:

Step 1.  Bait your followers:

Step 2.  Give people a reason to follow you. Larry does a great job with opportunities for for fans to “win” something.  With Larry baiting fans, he  makes them pay attention to his Twitter stream.  (It doesn’t always have to be about controversy and getting fired over Twitter with athletes!)

Step 3.  Make it fun – He makes it fun for his fans, and makes them “earn” it, not just “reply” back with an answer or something.  I use to love when Shaq did this, and made people find him, or go to some crazy location.  It keeps fans on their toes and makes them connect better.  It’s brilliant!

Step 4.  Ever wonder how to bring sponsorships in without being obvious? This works great.  Good for Larry, and good for Coldstone!  Who knows if this really was planned by the two, but its awesome.

Step 5.  Getting people to interact on your Twitter stream – Uploading pictures, talking about you – all of this is making you more popular, and I promise its getting Larry more followers.  This works for everyone, of course it may be on a smaller scale for us normal people that are not superstars, but the basic concepts are still there – if people are interacting on your Twitter stream and talking about you, other people will want to know you and follow you.

Step 6.  Wait for it. Drag it out, why not.

Step 7. Kick Ass Prizes – If you are going to have contests, then make sure your prizes are kick ass.  I would take 2 tickets to the Vikings game please … and you know they are good because they are Larry’s tickets! (Oh, AND I get a signed jersey – yes please)

Other professional athletes should take a lesson from Larry.  He is doing social media right.  He gets Twitter, and understand how powerful it is to connect with and find new fans.  He is an Arizona Cardinal, but did you notice that it was a “nationwide” contest.  The NFL can take a lesson too from Larry, They need to stop banning players from social media and help them better understand it.

We can all learn from this too, its basic – give people a reason to follow you, be interesting, get them talking and gain new followers.  It really is brilliant.