Twitter votes for Super Bowl light up the Empire State Building

The Empire State Building was lit up by Twitter voting last week.

@ESPN collaborated with @VerizonWireless for its #WhosGonnaWin campaign, a week-long voting series on Twitter in partnership with the landmark building owner, Empire State Realty Trust.

The @ESPN-@VerizonWireless#WhosGonnaWin campaign was first Empire State Building light show powered by Tweets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDGlWgW_amM

Video used with permission of @ESPN

Each night, the campaign posed a Super Bowl prediction question, with the hashtag #WhosGonnaWin, and fans were asked to vote for either the Seahawks or the Broncos on Twitter. The team that garnered more positive sentiment on Twitter had its colors illuminated on the iconic landmark for the building’s first light show fueled solely by fan Tweets.

“We’ve done hashtag battles, all-day live Twitter votes, and other social votes, but we’ve never done a vote of this magnitude where so many different areas of ESPN have a part of this,” said Raphael Poplock, ESPN’s vice president of games and partnerships. “This is by far our most ambitious Twitter vote we’ve done to date.”

With the ultimate question — “#WhosGonnaWin the Super Bowl?” — posed Friday, ESPN promoted the Twitter vote all day across its programming on TV, radio, digital and social platforms.

ESPN.com, with the help of Mass Relevance, featured the campaign in a specialized ad module on the top of its home page that included a live vote count.

Image used with the permission of @ESPN and @VerizonWireless

All day, different ESPN Twitter accounts encouraged fans to vote for #WhosGonnaWin on Twitter. @ESPNMondayNight, @ESPNNFL, @SportsCenter and @ESPN all tweeted throughout the day promoting the campaign.

SportsCenter was among the programs that showcased real-time voting updates. The show unveiled the winner during its 6pm EST broadcast — and the vote turned out to be spot on.

Do you know of other innovative uses of Twitter? Write to mediablog@twitter.com.