How to make a Tweet go viral — 12 effective strategies [2024]

One of the biggest misconceptions regarding Twitter growth is that only tweets from celebrities, influencers, and well-known brands have the ability to go viral. This couldn’t be further from the truth. 

The reality is that anyone has the means in which to go viral on Twitter, which is great news for those who take this marketing pursuit seriously, as there are an array of different benefits that can be enjoyed from tweet virality, including sales, brand exposure, prestige; among other things.

However, going viral is something that only a minority have been able to achieve successfully, and the reason why is because not everyone has a good level of understanding on what makes a tweet go viral. This means that many social media marketers are wasting their time on approaches that are not tried and tested, which in turn is resulting in lacklustre exposure, and a waste of time and resources.     

The good news is that there are several well-thought-out strategies that can greatly increase the likelihood of tweet virality, and this article will guide you through 12 effective strategies that, if followed properly, can bring you that much closer to achieving mass exposure on Twitter. 

Let's dive right in!

What is a viral Tweet?

Put simply, a viral tweet can be seen as a Twitter post that attracts mass attention across the platform, and that can be quantified in terms of thousands of likes, comments, and retweets. Moreover, it is important to note that in order to be classified as a viral tweet, a tweet must  also capture a broader audience than just your own Twitter followers.

Here is what a viral tweet would look like. 

You plan a giveaway to attract followers and make a post on Twitter. You announce the giveaway with tickets to Taylor Swift's Eras Tour concert (for example). The giveaway requires participants to follow your account, like the post, comment on it with the name of their favourite Taylor Swift song, and then tag a fellow Swiftie. Without even realising the powerhouse of a tweet you have just created, you post it on Twitter and go to sleep. Next morning, you wake up to 10K new followers, 100K likes and 7k comments. 

What happened here? Well, your tweet has gone viral! Without even realising it, you cracked the code of how to make your Twitter post go viral. But cracking the code without realising it is simply not going to work for the vast majority of people, so understanding the factors which contributed to your tweet going viral is very important.So what makes a Tweet go viral?Below are 12 tried and tested strategies which can significantly increase your chances of going Twitter viral.

12 strategies that will make a Tweet go viral

The following strategies (viral tweet ideas), although appearing simple, have been used to great effect in the past by many influencers and brands, and have resulted in seemingly ordinary tweets gaining huge traction across the social media platform. 

So how do tweets go viral?

1. Create relatable content

Strategy: First and foremost, your tweet has to connect with people. If it doesn't strike a chord, nobody will be able to engage with your Twitter post. So, your tweets should always be about something that your target audience may have experienced (personal stories), care about, agree with, or find humorous. 

Practical Approach: Apply social listening. Follow your target audience's pain points, get insights from their daily lives, and get the hang of what they like or dislike. Tools like Tweet Hunter can be invaluable here, providing insights that allow you to write tweets that echo the sentiments of your target audience. 

Benefits: The benefit here is that the contents of your tweet will mirror your target audience's reality and/or viewpoints, which in turn increases the likelihood that they will engage with your tweet; be it a like, reply or retweet.

2. Know your audience

Strategy: Understand your audience's likes and dislikes, interests and motivations. The better you know your audience, the better tweets you will create.

Practical Approach: After posting your tweets, keep track of their performance using Twitter's own analytics tools, or a third-party tool if you have the budget. The purpose here is to run checks and evaluate which tweets are performing better and why. In addition to this, you can also do an analysis of your competitors, and see which tweets have gone viral to understand what sort of people are engaging with these, and why.

Benefits: Knowing your target audience will give you a solid idea of what kind of tweets are most likely to work well, which will then allow you to produce regular content that will encourage followers and non-followers to engage with your tweets consistently. As shall be shown further below, this consistent engagement will help your tweets to go viral.

3. Ensure your timing is right

Strategy: Timing can dramatically impact a tweet's success. The best time to post is when your audience is most active, as this is when you are most likely to take advantage of the engagement snowball effect.

Practical Approach: Using Twitter's own analytics and other third-party platforms, look for patterns in engagement, and tailor your posting schedule to time your tweets accordingly. A tweet shared at the right time can catch the wave of peak user activity, making it more likely to go viral. 

Benefits: Optimal timing gets your tweets maximum visibility in your followers' Twitter feeds. This increases the chance of mass engagement, making your tweets stand out and more likely to achieve viral success. The reason why is because once others identify notable engagement, they are more likely to be intrigued by the contents of the tweet; which in turn, creates a snowball effect.

4. Use relevant hashtags

Strategy: Hashtags make tweets discoverable. Therefore, using them wisely will allow you to target your desired audience, as many will be looking for/interacting with content that revolves around the hashtag you choose to use.

Practical Approach: Take some time to research trending and niche-specific hashtags. You can use third-part hashtag analytics tools like Hashtagify to find valuable hashtag opportunities.  Once you've identified valuable hashtags, you can then build interesting posts around them; whilst naturally including these hashtags within your tweet. 

Benefits: Relevant hashtags can catapult your tweets into more extensive discussions, expanding their reach beyond your immediate following. This strategy can help your tweets go viral by tapping into larger, more diverse audiences. 

5. Collaborate with influencers

Strategy: Influencer collaborations can be a game-changer in amplifying your tweet's reach. Leverage their communities to strategically place yourself (or your brand) in front of their huge following. 

Practical Approach: Find influencers whose followers align with your target audience, and explore collaborations in order to set up a promotional/educational campaign. Since this strategy requires a coordinated effort, you might have to invest more time and effort, and even a lot of money in some cases. However, if you manage to find the right influencer, and their following is large, a tweet posted (or shared) by them can rapidly gain traction and prompt Twitter users to react and bring more visibility to your brand.

Benefits: Not only does the influencer introduce your tweet to a new and larger audience, but you also earn their seal of approval, which can significantly increase your chances of going viral on Twitter. The credibility you gain is also worth its weight in gold, as there is a lot of distrust on social media platforms. So having a stamp of approval from a well-known and respected influencer can certainly contribute to your chances of going viral; whilst simultaneously boosting loyalty.

6. Follow trending topics

Strategy: Following trending topics on Twitter is not only a nice-to-have, but essential for going viral on Twitter. Creating content based upon trends with 'big potential' can result in your tweets going viral. 

Practical Approach: Trends, by definition, means a general direction in which something is developing or changing. Therefore, it is important to identify trends early on rather than jumping on a trend bandwagon, and the reason why is because first movers will always have the highest chance of capturing the majority of people's attention. To help you, consider using Twitter's own trends tools, or third-party software like trends24.

Benefits: There are an array of different benefits that can be obtained by following trending topics. However, the main benefit is you have the opportunity to get in early on a trend that has huge potential, which in turn means your tweet has the potential to swallow up most of the attention that your target trend will generate.

7. Encourage user participation (get likes, retweets & replies)

Strategy: Although many marketers know this already, 'engagement breeds engagement', and once you know this, you will never shy away from this again. Therefore, ask for retweets, likes and replies, and don't feel bad about it, as not only is this a perfectly normal tactic, but the benefits are significant. 

Practical Approach: Write tweets that invite interaction in the form of a like, reply and RT (retweet). Not only is this strategy incredibly powerful (due to the sharing potential), but it is incredibly simple to carry out. However, people often need to be motivated if you want them to do something, so consider making this more gamified by launching engagement initiatives such as giveaways and contests. 

Benefits: Encouraging user participation can be akin to creating a powerful marketing army, as the contributions of followers (and non-followers) can make your tweet gain far more traction than it could on its own. But as already mentioned, the success of this marketing tactic relies on how effectively you can motivate them to participate.

8. Analyze Twitter analytics

Strategy: Remember the 'Know Your Audience' strategy from above? Well this strategy is an extension of it. Analysing Twitter analytics will allow you to identify what motivates your target audience, and this is invaluable for crafting tweets that can resonate with them; and that can hopefully go viral. 

Practical Approach: Use Twitter analytics to regularly review your tweet performance metrics, and this includes checking the impressions, likes, comments, RTs and link clicks. You can use these insights to refine your content strategy moving forward, and focus on tweets that generate the most engagement according to what the data indicates. 

Benefits: The main benefit here is that your tweet strategy can be much more data-driven, which in turn means you have a much better chance of finding a winning recipe. In addition to this, you will save a great deal of time and resources by using a data-drive approach, as trial and error is much more time-consuming; and less accurate.

9. Embrace memes

Strategy: Regardless of your industry, everyone loves a good laugh, so why not use humour to your advantage? Nothing gets people laughing more than a good meme, so if you can link it to your brand somehow, this can be an incredibly effective way of generating mass attention for your tweet. 

Practical Approach: Just like Twitter trends, you must stay abreast of the latest memes. One effective strategy is to find popular memes that have gone viral in the past, and this is so you can see if they are doing something that you can replicate; but in a way where you put your own spin on it. So if a certain photo or catch phrase has done well with other accounts, you can tweak these to reflect your own brand or message.  

Benefits: Memes can make your tweets entertaining, relatable, and memorable. And here is the benefit - if the contents of a meme evokes laughter or resonates strongly with people, people are much more likely to share it on their own Twitter profile, which in turn can increase the chances of it going viral. 

10. Leverage visual content

Strategy: You should use visuals (images, videos or gifs) in every tweet that you post,  and this is because visuals are a great way to stand out from masses of tweets with no visuals, and to also get noticed because they appeal to a deeper part of your audience's senses. 

Practical Approach: Get high-quality images, GIFs, or videos and include them in your tweets. Visual content can make people engage with your tweets and share them with their friends, thereby increasing the reach of your Twitter profile.

Benefits: Visual content adds an extra layer of engagement, making your tweets appealing and more likely to be shared. This can be a highly effective way to make your tweets go viral. What's more, visuals contribute towards the Twitter algorithm, which determines whether your tweet will be shown in the feeds of thousands of users who don't follow you.

11. Write valuable copy

Strategy: The impact of a tweet often lies in its value to the reader. Put simply, many people browse their feeds hoping to see tweets that provide value. So once you have identified your target audience, your tweets should aim to be valuable to those who come by them, and the more valuable they are, the higher chance they will be shared.

Practical Approach: Before you write a tweet, it is advisable to first go to the drawing board, and see whether there is anything valuable you can share with your followers. Just remember, you must share something that is unique and of value to readers, so much so that it will get those who read your tweet to like or retweet it. How you go about this is up to you, but it should ideally be related to your brand, offering, or industry. 

Benefits: Tweets that offer value not only make your followers stay engaged with your content, but they also get new people to like and share your tweet. They also make you come across as a thought leader. Just be aware that if the topic is quite in-depth, then you might want to make a Twitter thread, as this will allow you to expand further on your original tweet.

12. Be consistent and patient

Strategy: Last but not least, it is crucial for you to remain consistent and patient with everything you do on Twitter. Going viral is not something that always happens overnight, and will require you to consistently put in the work over time for you to finally crack the Twitter algorithm. 

Practical Approach: Develop and adhere to a content calendar. Maintain a consistent posting schedule to keep your Twitter feed active and engaging. Understand that building a following on Twitter and achieving viral tweets often takes time, hard work and dedication. But if done right, you will start to notice a steady uptake in your engagement levels, and before you know it, you can have a tweet that goes viral when you least expect it. 

Benefits: Not only does a consistent approach help build a loyal and engaged following,  but it will greatly enhance your chances of having your tweets going viral if you get all the aforementioned ingredients right.

Now that you are familiar with these strategies, let's have a look at some tweets that went viral.

Examples of viral Tweets

Below are some examples of tweets that have gone viral. Feel free to examine them, and try to see whether they employed any of the aforementioned strategies.

#1 Viral Tweet by @danielleweisber

This tweet by @danielleweisber was posted on December 6, 2023, and has since garnered 1.6 million views. It has also received substantial engagement, as indicated by the 7,985 retweets, 310 quote tweets, 47.1K likes, and 1,205 bookmarks. 

Whilst this tweet looks rather ordinary, and has no visuals accompanying it, make no mistake, it has done a wonderful job of connecting with a broad audience. What @danielleweisber has done is tap into themes that most people can agree with, and that is that the internet is largely bad, the real world is not great right now, and how there are few options to deal with the mental toll this causes. It is important to note that she has an impressive existing community, and it is very likely that she managed to get lots of initial shares, which then allowed the algorithm to show this to a wide audience. 

#2 Tweet that made @SketchesbyBoze go viral On Twitter

This tweet by @sketchbyBoze was posted on April 2, 2021, and has since accrued 25k likes, 4,1k retweets and 325 bookmarks.

This tweet is a fantastic example of how incorporating visuals can make a tweet go viral. It features an amusing and whimsical image that perfectly complements the text, which talks about "getting wild" post-pandemic by becoming a spaghetti-cooking village witch. This creative blend of text and imagery captures the audience's attention and encourages shares and likes due to its unique and humorous content.

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Conclusion

By using some (or all) of the 12 strategies mentioned in this article, there is no doubt that you will be increasing your chances of going viral on Twitter. However, it is important to be aware there are many variables involved that can have a big impact on success, so how to go viral on Twitter will ultimately come down to consistency, and your research, creativity and execution. Remember, the art of writing viral tweets isn't just luck—it's a deliberate craft.

The good news is that producing Twitter viral tweets is now much more attainable, and with a powerful ally like Tropee in your corner, the question isn't how to make a viral tweet, but when your tweet will go viral. 

How to make your tweet go viral is now down to you, so best of luck!