Bus firm wins ticket to tweet

EAT your heart out Stephen Fry and Sarah Brown.

The actor and the prime minister’s wife may have more followers, but Oldham’s bus ticket sellers have taken the honours at Twitter’s Golden Twit Awards.

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as “tweets”.

Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers.

System One Travelcards, the organisation which markets tickets to ride on all of Greater Manchester’s buses — including Oldham-based First — won gold in the Public Service category at a ceremony held at London nightclub, Fabric.

The Golden Twit Awards have been designed to test originality and creativity, “re-tweet-ability”, brand noise and sentiment, flair and creativity across a number of sectors, including private and public organisations.

Entrants were asked to write tweet submissions detailing why they deserved an award for their Twitter streams.

Judges found such tweets as “Another autumn shower don’t let that stop you, grab your umbrella and explore Manchester with a DaySaver” simply irresistible.

Allie Johns, head of marketing at System One Travelcards, said: “We have only recently started using Twitter as a way of cost-efficiently extending its brand reach and so we were delighted to be recognised for our efforts so far.

“It’s enabling us to share news about upcoming local events, as well as promoting our partner offers and communicating the benefits of integrated public transport ticketing in a fun and down-to-earth way.”