Going Viral: How Did Tim Tai’s Twitter Account Actually Blow Up?
by Katie Meyer
“Make it viral” are words no marketing manager wants to hear. A massively shared campaign is the goal of most brands on social media — but it can’t be forced. Often, the fastest-growing social stars of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram go viral accidentally; they are discovered by independent users, without any brand’s help, and are shared across follower groups until they’re everywhere.
How does authentic virality function from the inside? In this post, we examine student photojournalist Tim Tai’s unexpected climb on Twitter after he became the unwitting centre of a national news story.
The Revolution Will Not Be Photographed
In the fall of 2015, a string of racist incidents at University of Missouri — ranging from a swastika painted in a unisex bathroom to epithets chanted at football players — sparked protests. Missouri students demanded a more adequate university response to the incidents. A tent city formed on Missouri’s main quad as students held out for the resignation of the university’s president, Tim Wolfe. “His silence is violence” became a popular chant.
Enter student photojournalist Tim Tai.
When Tim arrived at the tent city to document it on a freelance assignment for ESPN, he was turned away by protesters — and the incident was captured on video. In the video, Tim tells the protesters, “the First Amendment protects your right to be here and mine.” The protesters’ turn against the freedom of the press was unusual; protesters generally embrace journalists as part of the democratic process, as well as a vitally important presence to help document and combat police brutality. A media studies professor, Melissa Click, was also captured calling for help to push journalists out of the encampment.
For many, protesters turning away a reporter symbolized something bigger: an overly-insular, politically correct, and coddled culture on campuses around the United States. The “trigger warning” generation gone too far. A video of Tim being turned away rather aggressively hit the zeitgeist. Columns on the event rocketed to the most-read lists on The New York Times and The Washington Post.
What did all of this do to Tim Tai?
Eye of the Storm
In the year preceding the process, Tim Tai’s Twitter account (@nonorganical) received an average of 2.7 favourites, comments, or retweets per tweet with little follower growth. Aside from one popular tweet in spring of 2014, the period from November 7 2014 to November 7 2015 was quiet.
That all changed on November 8th when protesters blocked Tim from photographing their encampment, and Tim shared his frustration through @nonorganical. Tim’s messages drew tweets of support from journalists, who praised his calm reaction when he wasn’t allowed to proceed. With Crowdbabble, we pinpointed the @nonorganical tweets that ignited national interest from journalists around the suppression of freedom of the press — setting the stage for the video, yet to be uploaded, to gain momentum.
A day later, a video of the event was uploaded to YouTube by Mark Schierbecker and spread on Twitter by user @DennisDodd, with 42 retweets and hundreds of reposts.
As Tim had previously identified himself on Twitter as the journalist that was blocked by the protesters, followers were quick to link the video to his account.
On November 10th, The New York Times picked up the story and hyperlinked Tim’s name directly to his Twitter handle.
The piece opened a new flow of followers from NYTimes.com to Tim’s account, and @nonorganical gained 1,221 followers overnight. Between November 7 and November 14, Tim jumped from 271 to 10,059 followers on Twitter. The professor who called for “some muscle” to remove journalists from the protester encampment in the video, Melissa Click, became a hashtag: #firemelissaclick.
Tim’s Twitter account is an example of a real viral sensation: a sharp spike ushered in by a new, 50x larger following, with growth that slows quickly but does not decline or plateau. Below, a year in the life of Tim Tai’s Twitter account, from November 17, 2014 to 2015.
Handed a Powerful Megaphone
Tim’s approach to Twitter shifted after the video, and his account, went viral. Using Crowdbabble’s response rate tool, we can see that before the story broke on November 7 he tweeted an average of 1.5 times per day.
Praise from Twitter followers endorsing freedom of the press was lavish and overwhelming; Tim’s activity on Twitter increased markedly to cope with the onslaught of attention, logging almost 60 tweets for the week of November 7 to 14, 2015. Below, a snapshot of Tim’s posts to Twitter using Crowdbabble’s media mix tool:
During and after Tim’s time on the national news stage, each of Tim’s tweets received 257 retweets, favourites, or comments — up from an average of .6 engagements per tweet the month before, in October 2015. Within two weeks, Tim had more than 9,700 new followers and, as the centre of a national news story, a guarantee that everything he posted would be retweeted hundreds of times.
Rather than pushing his own agenda (or website, or endorsement deal), Tim used the megaphone that had been handed to him to spotlight the core messages of the protesters — who received direct threats on Twitter after the video surfaced.
Tim’s attempt to pass the megaphone backfired, as his humble tweets were his most popular, being retweeted more than average while the story went viral.
The Long Tail of Viral?
Crowdbabble’s follower growth tool shows that as the limelight around the story faded, Tim’s follower growth has slowed.
Nevertheless, Tim continues to gain followers at a much faster rate than before. Moreover, @nonorganical’s newly acquired followers have not unfollowed. Posts totally unrelated to the protests at University of Missouri continue to attract hundreds of retweets, proving that Tim’s content is highly engaging to his followers. This indicates that their numbers are unlikely to plateau or decline.
With such a large new follower base, Tim can expect this faster growth to continue — but repeating the almost 5,000% jump in followers in one week is unlikely.
Conclusion
Viral social media sensations are often accidental and difficult to force. Engagement with brand-produced content can’t match the gleeful spreading of grassroots content that hits a nerve, like the video of professor Melissa Click telling Tim Tai that he did not have the right to report on the protest. @nonorganical benefited from a few key factors in viral social hits: lucking out with the zeitgeist, a national news story, and grassroots (smartphone video) origins. Brands experiencing viral success can learn a lot from the way Tim’s account blew up, and from his response.
Tim’s tweets asking followers to refocus their attention on the main messages of the protest, as noted above, had the reverse effect. @nonorganical’s humblest tweets were retweeted thousands of times. Tim’s refusal to capitalize on his new follower-base upped his authenticity, drawing more followers to him. If he had taken a more opportunistic approach, he might have invalidated his status as a sincere and unbiased member of the press wrongfully turned away from the protest — putting followers off.
Tim Tai’s new followers are as engaged a week later as they were on the first day he went viral, and have increased his reach on Twitter by over 5,000%. What will the student photojournalist choose to do with his newfound social influence? We’ll keep listening with Crowdbabble.
Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that a swastika was drawn in a locker room on campus. It was in fact drawn in a unisex bathroom on campus.
All data visualizations in this post were made using Crowdbabble. This post is part of a series on viral sensations. Look for going viral here.
