Nick Pope: A Twitter Sensation

How it started

You may have noticed something wild happening on Twitter last Friday – tonnes of brands were tweeting ‘Nick Pope’ seemingly for no reason, with the Newcastle United goalkeeper reaching a #1 trending spot. Even those who aren’t into football quickly ended up learning who Nick Pope is, and it all started with a simple Burger King poll:

Well-known NUFC fan account, @ToonPolls responded with an alternative option – ‘Nick Pope’. Their following then started filling Burger King’s comments with the goalkeeper’s name so we simply tweeted the following:

We took it further.

With thousands of ‘Nick Pope’ comments steadily flooding in, we quickly brought some of our other clients up to speed on this trending moment, and they were keen to get involved in the fun. We have soon tweeted from the @walkers_crisps, @deliveroo and @Dreams_beds accounts…

This set off a chain reaction with hundreds of brands tweeting ‘Nick Pope’, which by the end of the afternoon resulted in the NUFC keeper becoming number one trend in UK.  The biggest force behind this was @ToonPolls who was sharing all the branded tweets with his own following to ensure the trend continued to grow.

Everything came full circle when NUFC and Nick himself showed up to the party:

What does this teach us about Twitter?

1.) Twitter can be extremely unpredictable.  Constantly having your ear close to the ground pays off. In the case of Burger King, we saw positive sentiment increase by 252% on the platform in just one day. 

2.) A setup that allows you to react quickly sets you up for success. Tweeting ‘Nick Pope’ takes two seconds. Approving a simple idea may take two seconds too long, and before you know it you’re already too late to the trend. Brands have to move extremely fast when it comes to reactive social, and simplifying the sign-off process is a must.

If you are keen not only to seize reactive opportunities, but create them – slide into our DMs!