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New Update: Boost Social Proof with Reviews & Automation
Stacey Corrin
Stacey Corrin
John Turner
John Turner
Do you want your Twitter giveaway to go viral? Running a Twitter giveaway is an excellent way to engage your audience and drive tons of new followers. But without the perfect tweet promoting your giveaway, you’ll struggle to secure entries.
In this article, we’ll show you how to write a viral tweet for your Twitter giveaway. By going viral on Twitter, you can build a large following quickly to help grow your business.
A viral tweet is a post shared by lots of users quickly. There are no concrete rules defining what a viral tweet is, but your tweet is considered viral when it has hundreds of thousands of Twitter likes, retweets, and interactions.
When you’re running a Twitter giveaway, a viral tweet translates into:
Even better, the buzz surrounding your viral tweet helps you stand out from your competitors. Instead of getting lost in the Twitter feed, you’ll be top-of-mind with the users that matter most to your brand.
So, how do you write a viral tweet for your Twitter giveaway? Keep reading to find out.
To write a viral tweet, that helps you go viral on Twitter, you’ll need to use a combination of excellent copywriting and smart marketing tactics. If this all seems overwhelming, don’t worry. We’ll break it down into manageable chunks so you can write the best tweet for your giveaway.
Twitter used to be much stricter with its character limit than it is today. In the past, you were limited to a mere 140 characters, leaving little room for creativity.
Nowadays, the character limit is 280. But that doesn’t mean you should fill your tweet with as many words as possible.
Shorter tweets tend to get more engagement than longer ones. So you should continue to keep your tweets short, to the point, and concise.
Give your audience all the details they need to enter your giveaway without any extra fluff. You can also use images, gifs, and videos to illustrate your tweet, which we’ll explore next.
Tweets with visual content tend to get 2x more engagement than simple text tweets. So when you’re planning the promotion of your Twitter giveaway, make sure you create some attention-grabbing imagery.
Since you’re keeping your Tweet’s text short and sweet, the image is where you can unleash your creativity.
Share up to 4 images that illustrate your giveaway and prize, such as:
It’s a good idea to brand your images with a watermark or logo to keep your tweets recognizable. You should also make sure each image fits Twitter’s recommended image dimensions of 1024 x 512 pixels.
Sometimes brands get so excited about promoting their giveaway that they forget to include 1 crucial element, a clear call-to-action (CTA).
You could write the perfect promotional tweet and create stunning images, but if you don’t tell people how to enter, chances are they won’t.
The truth is, people are more likely to take notice if you ask them to do something. So, create a CTA telling users exactly how to enter your contest.
Your CTA could be a simple statement like, “Click this link to enter.” You can also double down on your CTA by including it in your images too.
Just make sure whatever you do complies with Twitter’s guidelines for promotions.
As mentioned above, there are rules and guidelines for running promotions on social media networks like Twitter. So, every time you run a giveaway, you’ll need to create a set of terms and conditions.
Your giveaway rules should include the following details:
Given Twitter’s character restrictions, the best way to give users that information is to display it on your website and add a short link to your tweet.
RafflePress offers an easy way to create and display your rules with the built-in giveaway rules generator.
In the giveaway builder, simply enter some brief information about your contest, then click Generate Rules to create your guidelines instantly. You can display your rules inside the widget on your giveaway landing page.
Then it’s just a case of adding the link to your Tweet for users to click and enter.
We’ve already mentioned the importance of telling users when your giveaway ends in your contest rules. Yet, it’s also worth mentioning your end date in your giveaway tweet and images.
Stating the end-time of your contest lets people know how long they have left to enter. This creates a sense of urgency, which encourages them to enter now for fear of missing out.
To increase the excitement, you can create a follow-up tweet shortly before your contest ends, reminding users they only have so many hours left to take part. This will result in a nice last-minute rush of Twitter engagement and entries.
If you haven’t already noticed, Twitter users have a specific tone of voice. They all use similar abbreviations designed to make the most of what little space they have. There’s also a distinct type of dead-pan humor prevalent on Twitter.
Keep that tone of voice in mind when you’re writing your giveaway tweets so you’re writing in a way that resonates with Twitter’s core users.
A few things that help include using common abbreviations like RT for retweet, DM for direct message, and HT for hat tip. Keep an eye out for popular memes and jokes too. Some brands have had a lot of success adapting these for their own campaigns.
You can also use emojis strategically to emphasize emotion and intent and to relate to your followers.
No tweet is complete without a couple of relevant hashtags. Hashtags categorize information on Twitter so users can find it easier. Without them, your tweets are almost invisible, making it harder to secure entries for your Twitter contest.
The best Hashtags to go viral on Twitter are a combination of general and specific hashtags.
General hashtags are popular and can attract a lot more attention to your tweets. For your Twitter giveaway, use popular giveaway hashtags like #giveaway and #contest.
Specific hashtags should be unique to your brand in the form of a branded hashtag. This makes it easier for you to find conversations about your giveaway by searching for that specific hashtag. Just make sure the hashtag you choose isn’t already in use.
The easiest way to create a branded hashtag is to combine your brand name with the giveaway title or prize, like #RafflePressWinIt.
Another way to increase the visibility of your tweet is to @mention other accounts. Similar to hashtags, mentions make your tweets easier to find and share.
Start by mentioning your own account. This makes it easier for users to follow you, even if you don’t explicitly ask for followers.
You should also tag brands related to your contest, such as:
It helps measure engagement with the contest and see the benefits of working with you by mentioning relevant Twitter users.
No matter what type of contest you run on Twitter, you will always have questions to answer. To demonstrate you’re invested in your community, make sure you respond to questions as quickly as possible.
Answering user questions enables you to clarify your giveaway rules, and entry methods and drive contest participation.
Plus, if users see that you’re actively responding to queries, you’ll appear more trustworthy, which can do wonders for your reputation. That’s because you’re showing you value your audience and want to see them succeed.
Smart brands don’t limit their contest promotion tactics to a single social media post. You’ll see the best results if you create a set of different posts to Tweet throughout your giveaway.
Write a series of tweets for the following stages of your contest:
You can schedule your tweets ahead of time using a social media marketing tool like Buffer. Make sure your tweets are scheduled for when your audience is most active. This improves the chances of most people seeing your messages and entering your giveaway.
You can learn the best times to post on social media platforms in this guide.
You can also use the time between your contest start and end dates to showcase the best entries you receive. This is especially useful if you’re running a photo contest that requires user-generated content (UGC) submissions.
When you share high-quality contest entries, it encourages a healthy dose of competition, spurring people to get creative and submit their best content. It’s also an excellent way to give participants ideas on what they can do for their entry.
This is even better if you pair your Twitter UGC contest with voting to choose a winner. That’s because people will retweet their submissions to secure more votes, driving huge tons of Twitter activity.
Our final tip is the most important, and that is to make sure you proofread your tweet for any grammatical mistakes, typos, and broken links.
This is because Twitter doesn’t have an edit feature yet, meaning you can’t fix any errors without deleting your tweet and starting again. Since deleting tweets is a practice that’s secretly frowned upon, we suggest double-checking everything twice.
To be extra diligent, ask a team member to sense-check your tweet before you schedule it for publication. Otherwise, you run the risk of making your brand look sloppy and unprofessional, which can harm your reputation.
There you have it!
We hope this article helped you learn how to write a viral tweet for your Twitter giveaway. By following these tips, you can craft a tweet that secures more engagement, followers and leads through viral giveaways.
Thanks for reading, and if you liked this article, don’t forget to follow us on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook for more great tips to grow your business.
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