Twitter's year-in-review series has brought us 2011's hottest stories, top hashtags, most tweets per second and more. Now, the microblogging site has revealed that the Golden Tweet Award, given to the most retweeted tweet of the year, goes to fast food giant Wendy's.
In June, Wendy's sent out a tweet that said, "RT for a good cause. Each Retweet sends 50¢ to help kids in foster care." The burger chain included the hashtag #TreatItFwd.
The tweet was a nod to deceased Wendy's founder Dave Thomas, who was adopted when he was six-weeks old and founded the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption in the early 1990s.
Check out the winning tweet (below):
Wendy's message struck a chord. According to Twitter, the tweet raised more than $50,000 for foster children, although The Wall Street Journal reports that Twitter won't say how many times the post has been retweeted.
According to CNBC, the tweet is still making the rounds and continues to be retweeted several times each day.
Twitter notes on its advertising blog that this year's Golden Tweet Award is significant because it's a promoted tweet, meaning Wendy's paid Twitter for prominent placement on the site.
Twitter announced Promoted Tweets midway through 2010, and the company started putting them in users' timelines this summer, so it makes sense that this would be the first year a promoted tweet would take top honors.
Last year, the first time Twitter named a "Golden Tweet," comedian Stephen Colbert took home the honor. He did not pay for the promotion of his tweet. In fact, Twitter's list of the top ten most retweeted tweets from 2010 didn't include a single tweet from a company, let alone a promoted tweet.