• by Amy Corr , Staff Writer @MediaPostOTL, May 9, 2011

Do you have a Twitter account? Do you use all 140 characters when tweeting? If not, have you thought about the unused characters wasted per Tweet? Neither have I, but Ben & Jerry's has -- and plans to put unused characters to good use.

With World Fair Trade Day approaching on May 14^th, Ben & Jerry's has launched "Fair Tweets," an initiative that takes unused Twitter characters and replaces the dead air with Fair Trade messages.  The company is a huge supporter of fair trade, having transitioned all possible ingredients in support of local farmers.

Visitors to the site, created by Amalgamated and Stink Digital, can sign up to become Fair Trade supporters. Automatic messages will then start to append themselves to a person's tweets, regardless of how many or how few characters remain. If you simply Tweeted "I ate a cupcake" to your followers, your remaining characters would say something like: "I didn't use all 140 of my characters so I'm using all my leftovers to promote #FairTrade. #FairTweets http://fairn.es/z21"

Even Tweets with as few as six characters remaining can promote Fair Trade with the addition of a #FT hashtag.

"Ben & Jerry's has been using word of mouth marketing to support our social mission programs for decades," said Noelle Pirnie, senior global marketing manager at the company. "Now with social media, we have the tools to amplify our voice like never before. Five years ago for World Fair Trade Day, we may have held a rally in front of 100 or so people, hoping the media would come out. Now we can reach our fans around the world and truly engage them in the conversation to understand that every purchase counts."

Fair Tweets is being promoted on Ben & Jerry's Facebook page, website and via retail partners. Check out a demo video here.

The campaign was originally slated to build awareness for World Fair Trade Day, but given the campaign's popularity, Ben & Jerry's is now looking at ways to continue the effort past May 14^th.

"We wanted to engage consumers to spread awareness themselves, keeping the message approachable and personal, but also make it fun in a Ben & Jerry's kind of way," concluded Pirnie.