In 2017, former President Obama shared a tweet quoting Nelson Mandela and it was retweeted over a million times. When it comes to going viral, Twitter has no match!
But, could small businesses benefit from this virality mechanism on Twitter?
Ever since its inception in 2006, Twitter has given many brands the power to speak and attract the right audience for achieving their marketing goals. There’s a set pattern behind this mechanism they use and luckily you won’t have to break the bank for creating yours to go viral on Twitter.
Let’s examine how an SMB owner can make effective use of this platform to go viral and establish their brand as the most active ones on Twitter.
Viral Twitter Strategies for SMBS
Twitter is a dynamic social media platform that can prove a blessing for your SMB brand or create a marketing controversy that may end your corporate journey. Before you continue reading and discover some surefire Twitter strategies for your small business, be very cautious of what you tweet about.
Come, let’s discover some cool Twitter posting strategies that can make you viral and give your brand the recognition it needs online.
1. Be Part of Conversation
If you’ve been using Twitter for quite some time, you’d have known that it hosts millions of topics having billions of opinions from its users. Big brands make use of this opportunity and hop on the bandwagon.
One way of getting viral is to find a hot topic and become a part of the conversation to divert the attention towards your small business.
The idea is to offer value, be informative, or be funny (or sarcastic).
Look at how Wendy’s doing it for years and won the title of Twitter rockstar!
It was around the time a big fast food brand (He Who Serves Hamburgers) stopped offering frozen hamburgers and there was a popular meme from a superhero movie. Wendy’s took a dig at them with the tweet and people lauded their creativity with over 63K retweets.
Have a look!
TFW yo beef’s still frozen pic.twitter.com/C0lgiNo9Ca
— Wendy’s (@Wendys) May 8, 2018
You can do the same and attract some eyeballs towards your brand on Twitter!
Just be sure to tweet something relevant that people can relate to the ongoing conversation.
2. Timely Product Personalization
Twitter is not just for tweeting memes but it can do a lot more than your imagination especially when it comes to marketing your small business.
How about you use viral posts for product launches on Twitter?
And this time you can add a little pun for engaging other users, too!
Take Charmin as an example!
Annual Fall PSA: we do not make pumpkin spice toilet paper. Even Charmin isn’t THAT basic… pic.twitter.com/oAHXhIjAqB
— Charmin (@Charmin) September 17, 2018
Basically, they tried to give this scenario a fun angle when they mocked brands for introducing limited edition products during the Autumn season’s start.
Although they used Twitter for engaging with other users and achieving their marketing objectives, you don’t need to be sarcastic.
You can watch the trends and personalize your limited edition accordingly so people would be tempted to retweet or like your product announcement tweet.
You can save your marketing budget if your tweet goes viral and starts a fusion as people start discussing your small business and recommending the product.
3. Mention the Unusual Events
One of the rules for using Twitter effectively is to know your target market and what they do with your products/services.
The more you know them, the more relevant tweets you’ll publish!
People love when they get mentioned either directly or indirectly and this could be your next idea for going viral on Twitter.
You can use Chipotle as a case study and learn the art of knowing your consumers and publishing relevant tweets.
They knew most of their consumers throw away the cups present in their orders so they explained the usage of this article with a tweet.
This tweet received 2000+ retweets and over 16K likes!
This is a great way to show how aware you’re about their likes and dislikes and they’ll respond back out of excitement. And if you play your cards right, they’ll gladly support your efforts with shares, retweets and likes which can amplify your SMBs social media reach.
4. Be Good @ Comebacks
If you think Twitter is an announcement board, only, you need to think again!
This platform is a conversational verse where you not only make announcements, share your thoughts but connect with your consumers more easily. And this two-way conversation process is what sets it apart when we rank social media platforms for marketing SMBs.
And for that, you’ll have to be very sharp at responding to all the tweets your consumers would send your way.
If you still didn’t get the idea, look at @Netflix and how they use Twitter so effectively!
Netflix: “let’s get someone who fuckin hates Gossip Girl to write the description of Gossip Girl” pic.twitter.com/BewiyilXmK
— Lane Moore👉NYC 11/16 (@hellolanemoore) December 11, 2018
They never shy away from being honest with their followers, admit what’s true and applaud honest tweets about their movies or platform’s flaws.
You need to devise a similar method for using Twitter effectively and engaging with your consumers, online. Just be cautious that you never sound rude or insensitive while responding to a tweet or else it can backfire.
5. Show Your Cooler Side
People are always attracted to smartness be it in real life or on Twitter!
While you plan to market your SMB on Twitter, you need to be cool and smart every time you tweet about your products, industry trends, or when you have an awesome experience with a customer.
This is a great way to market your business without spending a huge amount of money on it.
Look at Merriam-Webster and how they manage to be so cool with people trying to teach them what they should add and what’s wrong with a word in their data.
.@MerriamWebster why don't you just add "funner" to the dictionary you monsters
— Danny Gonzalez (@dannygonzalez) January 17, 2017
You need to locate such tweets that mention your business and respond in a cooler, funnier manner that doesn’t offend them but actually starts a healthy conversation.
Doing so will help you attract other users to join the conversation which is a good thing for your Twitter handle’s reach.
6. Turn Awful into Awesome
Twitter is a free social media platform that’s mostly used to express one’s feelings and people often target the brand they recently used. They never shy away from mentioning the awesome or awful experience they just had and that’s where you can find another viral Twitter strategy for your small business.
You don’t need to cover your mistakes all the time but you can admit it and show that you’re as human as someone could be but with a habit of accepting the mistake and making things up for them.
Sanofi US is the perfect example of how they went public via a tweet to address an awful experience that questioned their integrity.
People of all races, religions and nationalities work at Sanofi every day to improve the lives of people around the world. While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication.
— Sanofi US (@SanofiUS) May 30, 2018
It shows how much they care about the consumers more than their profits and you need to devise such a Twitter marketing mechanism, too.
7. Show That You Care
Since we’re talking about being caring as an SMB, here’s another example by KLM who won hearts with such a sweet gesture and became the highlight on Twitter.
Big thanks to @KLM and the wonderful lost+found crew who found my #amazon #kindle and returned to me before flight today pic.twitter.com/uMvipnsHeW
— Andrew Lombardi (@kinabalu) October 17, 2017
You need to display your SMBs caring side on Twitter so people can count on you not just for the products you sell but on a human ground, too. This would help your brand in establishing a positive relationship with your core consumers that they’d endorse everywhere while talking about you.
So, this is how you can go viral on Twitter and benefit your SMB while improving your social media presence.