About

Brands Tweeting One Word, also known as Company One-Word Twitter Posts, is a viral marketing campaign and trend started by verified companies on Twitter tweeting a lowercase, one-word description of their company. While the earliest example was posted in 2020, the trend started in September 2022 when Amtrak tweeted "trains." From there, multiple brands latched onto the gimmick, including the Washington Post, NPR and even U.S. President Joe Biden.

Origin

On July 15th, 2020, the verified Twitter^[1] account of San Francisco's BART tweeted, "trains," earning roughly 8,000 likes in two years (shown below, left). Two years later, at approximately 3 p.m. on September 1st, 2022, the Twitter^[2] account of Amtrak tweeted, "trains," earning roughly 159,700 likes in less than a day and subsequently causing a resurgence of similar posts (shown below, right).

Spread

As Amtrak's tweet accumulated likes on September 1st, 2022, roughly 45 minutes later, the Twitter^[3] account of the Washington Post tweeted, "news," earning roughly 37,900 likes in less than a day (shown below, left). Roughly an hour later, the Twitter^[4] account of CNN tweeted, "breaking news," earning roughly 197,400 likes in less than a day (shown below, right).

The trend grew rapidly on September 1st as other companies latched on. For instance, on September 1st, the Twitter^[5] account of Marvel's Deadpool tweeted, "deadpool," earning roughly 197,800 likes in less than a day (shown below, left). Hours later, U.S. President Joe Biden's Twitter^[6] account tweeted, "democracy," earning roughly 278,800 likes in less than a day (shown below, right).

Online Reactions

As more companies joined the trend, reactions surfaced in regards to the viral marketing gimmick. For instance, Twitter^[7] user waltisfrozen tweeted four screenshots of brand tweet examples on September 1st, 2022, showing a progression from Amtrak's "train" tweet to a fake Herschel Walker tweet reading, "threatening to murder my wife." Waltisfrozen's tweet received roughly 25,600 likes in less than a day (shown below, left). Waltisfrozen replied with another tweet^[8] that showed a fake Matt Gaetz tweet reading, "Sex trafficking minors," earning roughly 4,900 likes in less than a day (shown below, right).

The brand tweets received cross-platform attention as well. For instance, Redditor WeaponizedWhale posted to /r/OutOfTheLoop, ^[9] asking about the one-word tweets and receiving over 580 upvotes in less than a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References