But on Twitter, one show has not only competed with them, it has crushed them.

Next To Normal is now up to 618,703 followers (and growing), besting so many other seemingly more “popular” people.  It’s ranked as the 205th most popular tweeter on the web!

How’d they do it?

N2N used this new technology the old-fashioned way, with tried and true unique and interactive content unavailable anywhere else.  They tweeted the entire musical in twitter-ese, the actors have been tweeting what they’re feeling behind-the-scenes, and now, the composers are asking all 600k of those followers for ideas for a new song for the show.

Pretty great, right?  Without a doubt, it’s the best use of Twitter by a musical since the technology was born.

But before we go celebrating just yet, let’s remember the most important question to ask yourself when you engage in any marketing campaign:  what has it done to the box office?

Obviously, it hasn’t dropped 600,000 butts right into the seats of the Booth Theater, but that’s not what it was meant to do, and luckily the smart folks behind the campaign know that.  Twitter wasn’t designed to be a direct response tool.  Pushing a ticket offer out to that group on a repeated basis would be a sure-fire way to disengage all of them and fast.

Social media was designed to be . . . well . . . social.  And a campaign like this builds brand awareness inexpensively and at the same time, revs up your passionate users like nothing else could.

And that’s why there’s a long line at the box office every morning for Normal rush tickets.

You can’t bet your brand on social media.  It’s not going to make you or break you at the bank.  But done right, it’s a way to get your brand mentioned in the same sentence as the big boys.

And that certainly can’t be bad.