How to Go Viral on Twitter

With over 300 million daily users (per Softonic stats), Twitter’s potential for social media reach and engagement is still pretty impressive (in spite of the recent controversies swirling around the platform), especially if you’re looking to reach the Millennial and Gen X age groups. A single viral tweet can start conversations, grow your followers, and get your Twitter account plenty of attention. Whether you're a content creator, influencer, brand, or business, going viral on Twitter, aka “X,” can really amplify your online presence. 

We’ll dig into exactly what makes a tweet go viral, provide you with some strategies to increase your chances at virality, and check out how powerful all-in-one creative business sites like Fourthwall can strengthen your Twitter game!

What’s a Viral Tweet?

A viral tweet, which is simply a social post that’s placed onto the social media site Twitter, is one that spreads rapidly across the platform, gaining thousands of retweets, likes, replies, and impressions. Tweets that go viral are the ones that resonate with users in a big way. 

Viral tweets often transcend their original audience and get reach far beyond the first person to post it on their Twitter profile. Tweets that go viral can be retweeted thousands of times, can appear on other social media platforms, and can even hit the Trending Topics sidebar on the Twitter app.

The exact metrics of what constitutes a viral tweet often depend on the size of the Twitter account. For smaller Twitter accounts, a tweet that gets several thousand likes might go viral in its own niche. For larger accounts, brands, or businesses, virality can hit at around 25,000-50,000 views; anything over 100,000 is definitely in viral territory, and if your post hits a million likes - you’d better keep an eye out for the offers that’ll be coming in! 

Some of tweet virality also depends on how quickly a post hits those high numbers; a tweet featuring BTS band member Jungkook’s (@BTS_twt) new hairstyle snagged a whopping 1 million likes in under an hour. So as you can see, Twitter virality and the engagement around it can vary wildly.

Become a Twitter Expert

Your best chances of getting a tweet to go viral start with you tapping in to the current vibe on Twitter, which means you should also be an active Twitter user so you can better “read” the happenings on the platform. 

Viral tweets often fall into one of a few popular categories: humor (funny tweets are some of the most retweeted content on the platform); relatability, like shared experiences or universally-pertinent quotes; and timing, when you align a tweet with a trending topic or cultural moment, like a major sporting or entertainment event. 

There are different styles of tweet formats to work with, as well. You can write text-only tweets; post single image or multi-image tweets; or Twitter threads, in which you start a single tweet, and then carry a longer thought or storyline through multiple connected tweets. Keep an eye on your Twitter Analytics and your past tweets, to see which are most successful and start learning what makes them more apt to go viral.

Understanding how Twitter works and which factors set down the foundation for viral tweets will help you create tweets that are well-positioned to go viral on their own!

8 Strategies That Can Help Your Tweets Go Viral

1. Time Your Tweets Carefully

Timing is an important factor on Twitter, with studies (via SproutSocial) suggesting that mid to late morning and early afternoons are when you’re likely to get the most engagement on the platform. Posting during those times can help your tweets collect more engagement and replies from your followers throughout the day, as can leveraging Twitter’s Trending Topics, which can be found both on the sidebar and under the “Explore” tab. 

Taking a trending topic or trending hashtag and putting your own spin on it can definitely attract some attention! So keep an eye on real-time current events, post often to keep your Twitter account on your followers’ radar, and be ready to create tweets that align with current happenings to maximize your visibility.

2. Use Visual Content

Great visuals are another component that can really help your tweets stand out and possibly go viral. Adweek points out that tweets with images get more clicks, more favorites, and 150% more retweets than text-only tweets do. 

Share striking, eye-catching images like travel or fashion shots to accompany your tweets; sharing humorous memes and trending on-topic gifs with your followers can also lead to an increase in interactions, comments, and retweets, to add to those possibilities of going viral.

3. Leverage Trending Hashtags

Hashtags are essential on Twitter for discoverability. Twitter users searching for specific topics, fandoms, gifs, or current events will often use hashtags to sort the tweets they might want to view. 

Choose hashtags for your tweet that are relevant to your content, but avoid overloading your tweet with tags; stick to just a few (2-4) hashtags that make sense alongside your tweet. You can also create your own branded hashtags and encourage your followers to use them, which is another way to boost the visibility of your Twitter account.

4. Engage Emotionally

Emotion is a potent part of virality. Tweets that go viral are tweets that make people laugh, evoke nostalgia, tug at the heartstrings, or make them immediately want to retweet and share. These are some great content targets to aim at if you’re looking to go viral on Twitter. 

Tap into relatability between yourself and your followers - what are some similar ways you might react to specific situations, holidays, inspirations? - and tweet with those relatable thoughts in mind. Relatable content that reflects common struggles, funny situations, or joyful moments resonate well with others, and create more replies and stronger connections between you and your Twitter audience.

5. Collaborate with Others

Collaborating with fellow content creators, Influencers, brands, and business can amplify the reach of your tweets and give them better shots at going viral. Seek out collaborators who align well with your own niche, and work on creative ways to craft tweets that highlight both sides of your collaboration. 

You can also use “Twitter takeovers” as a tool, allowing a fellow creator to tweet from your account and vice versa (usually for a specified amount of time, like one afternoon or a single 24-hour period), introducing your respective Twitter audiences and followers to each other. And don’t forget merchandising collabs; creating custom merch on a site like Fourthwall in collaboration with a great Twitter artist or graphic designer can boost both of your accounts, and maybe your merch will even go viral!

6. Add Calls to Action

CTAs, or calls to action, are how social media encourages replies, retweets, and likes, and are a very effective way to start pushing your tweets toward going viral.

Including simple CTA prompts for your followers like “retweet this if you agree!” or posting polls in your tweets invite plenty of follower interaction, and tweeting open-ended questions (“what’s the weirdest food combination you secretly love? Tell us in the comments!”) can really get the conversations going to crank up your Twitter views.

Quick Examples of Viral Tweets

1. Humorous Observations

Taking ordinary everyday situations and turning them into comedy - especially if that comedy is relatable to a large amount of people - is a great way to craft tweets with a high probability of virality.

2. Emotional Commentary

Heartfelt comments and stories about common life situations and emotional responses can go viral with lots of replies and retweets, as they resonate well with people going through similar. Sincerity is the key here - share in a genuine way, and your followers will generally react in kind.

3. Timely Reactions

Whether it’s a music or movie release, a sporting event, a political situation, or an awards show like the one referenced in this tweet, throwing in your thoughts on current events as they’re happening - bonus points if you add humor! - is another excellent way to get your tweets to go viral.

4. Questions and Polls

Twitter polls and wide-reaching general questions both attract views and engagement while sparking debates - and those debates can really fill up your comment section and help your tweets get a better chance of going viral.

Maximize the Advantages of Going Viral with Fourthwall!

Going viral on Twitter is about strategy, timing, and understanding your audience, learning to craft tweets that engage and inspire your followers, pushing them toward virality. You can ramp up your chances of going viral even more by offering your Twitter followers extra benefits through the all-in-one ecommerce platform Fourthwall, where content creators, influencers, and businesses can continue growing their audiences.

With Fourthwall, you can connect your social media accounts and offer your followers and fans lots of extras, from your own website with exclusive memberships to a merch store filled with great custom merchandise of your own design. Giving your Twitter followers a dedicated place - like your Fourthwall site! - to go after they catch one of your viral tweets will help you build up your audience of fans, and get your success moving even faster. Start up your Fourthwall account today!