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Last month, 16-year old Carter Wilkerson from Reno, Nevada, tweeted Wendy’s, asking how many retweets it would take to win a year’s worth of free nuggets. The restaurant’s response: 18 million.
Wilkerson accepted the challenge — and while he hasn’t been retweeted 18 million times yet, the Wendy’s fan now holds the record for the most retweeted tweet of all time with 3.42 million retweets.
The tweet has garnered much attention for Wendy’s — earning engagement from celebrities and brands alike. Microsoft, Amazon and Google, among others, all used their Twitter feeds to help Wilkerson reach his goal.
In honor of earning the most retweets ever, Wendy’s reconsidered the 18-million number it first tweeted, and the company has given Wilkerson a gift card for one year’s worth of free nuggets, in addition to donating $100,000 to the Dave Thomas Foundation in Wilkerson’s name.
HELP ME PLEASE. A MAN NEEDS HIS NUGGS pic.twitter.com/4SrfHmEMo3
— Carter Wilkerson (@carterjwm) April 6, 2017
According to Twitter, the tweet has helped Wilkerson grow his number of followers on the site from 138 to over 100,000. There is also now a #NuggsForCarter custom emoji of a box a Wendy’s nuggets.
It took just over 30 days for Wilkerson’s tweet to surpass the number of retweets earned by Ellen’s famous Oscar selfie — a tweet that has reigned as the most retweeted since 2014.
Twitter shared the following graph showing how the highest number of retweets happened during the first 15 days.
Wendy’s CMO Kurt Kane told Twitter his brand could not be more excited about Wilkerson’s accomplishment.
“We love Twitter because it lets us talk with people in real and fun ways, and they have been loving us back as a result,” says Kane on Twitter’s blog post announcing the milestone.
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