Tony Hawk Treasure Hunt hits Twitter

Screen grabTony Hawk fans will look to Twitter on Saturday for his Twitter Hunt clues.

He's not a bunny. He's the Birdman. But in the spirit of an Easter egg hunt, Tony Hawk will be hiding goodies worldwide this holiday weekend for his tuned-in Twitter followers to find.

Hawk, who has a whopping 2,379,821 followers on Twitter, will begin tweeting clues Friday to the locations of 100 boxes of loot located in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, South Africa and across Continental Europe. Not all the packages contain the same stuff, but some of the big-ticket items include copies of Activision's Tony Hawk: Shred video game, skateboards, bikes, helmets, clothes and various food and drinks.

This is the third annual Tony Hawk Treasure Hunt on Twitter and the rules are simple: Follow along as Hawk tweets clues beginning Friday. Identify the location, hustle to be the first to find the goods and tweet Hawk a picture with the package in hand.

An early adopter of Twitter, Hawk created an account in 2008.

"It's not that I shied away from other social media," he said. "But it's not as effective or interactive. When I found Twitter, I saw instant, real-time feedback."

Soon he envisioned innovative ways to connect with his legions of fans worldwide. In 2008 while driving to his office, Hawk had an idea: He parked in a cul-de-sac, got out, stuck his skateboard behind a bush and tweeted the location. By the time he arrived at his office, someone had found the setup and sent a return tweet with a photo of the board.

"I saw how much excitement it created, how wide it spread," Hawk said.

In 2009 Hawk created his first full-fledged Twitter treasure hunt. He hid the goods and monitored tweets more or less single-handedly. "It was an overwhelming responsibility," he said. Others have since picked up on the practice for marketing promotions.

To pull it all off this time, Hawk has three people working with him at his office monitoring Twitter, and helpers worldwide hiding the packages.

During the course of the weekend, Hawk will also send clues to the location of a family-friendly bash to conclude the hunt. The event, where he plans to skate, will be held somewhere in the San Diego area Saturday.

On Friday morning, Hawk sent a salvo to the faithful: "WARNING: Tomorrow I will be blowing up timelines with #THTH. If I have to explain it to you; you'll never understand."

Replied @djalanross: "@tonyhawk lot of people off work today with time on our hands. Any chance you could tease us with 1 today?"