Previously I wrote about our upcoming Twitter campaign, #WhyIDitchedDairy. The goal of this campaign is to get the public educated on the cruel reality of the dairy industry. My hope is that vegans are able to get #WhyIDitchedDairy as a trending topic. It’s really difficult to get a topic trending, but it’s possible if we all contribute. In this post I want to rehash what I previously wrote about successfully getting the topic to trend, and also give some new information about it.

The plan is to start tweeting with the hashtag on the morning of February 6th. The earlier in the day you start tweeting with the hashtag, the better.

Some Tips to Get the Hashtag Trending:

• It’s not just the number of tweets with the hashtag but the number of different people tweeting with the hashtag. Two people tweeting our hashtag out 100 times each is not enough to get it to trend. The Twitter algorithm favors how many people are tweeting about a topic more than just the number of tweets, so we need to have many different people tweeting with the hashtag in a short amount of time. It also helps to have geographic diversity.
• This is why we should schedule tweets. People in the UK and other parts of the world involved in the campaign will start tweeting hours before those of us in the US are awake. So, for people like me who are in New York, we should schedule tweets to go up in the early morning. I recommend using a tweet scheduler like Twuffer.
• Retweets matter too, but I can’t emphasize enough that we need to get those individual tweets out there.
• If you’re sharing articles, make your tweet personal. Don’t just copy the headline and add the hashtag. Add your own thoughts in a way that gets people to respond. If you’re sharing the same article more than once, make sure your tweets aren’t the same, otherwise you will be seen as spam.
• We should tag each other in our tweets. Some vegan accounts participating in the hashtag have a very high reach. Tag these influencers in your posts. This is especially helpful if they are a verified account.
• Additionally, we should be tagging brands as well. We can make posts boosting relevant vegan companies (for example, tagging Oatly) which will increase the visibility of the hashtag if they respond.
• Get people to interact with the tweet by doing things like polls or asking questions. Reply to people. Interaction is very important. In your replies to tweets use the hashtag!
• Also, reply to people you don’t know. The vegan community on Twitter is quite large. Don’t reply to the same tweeps that you always do. Find new vegans and interact with them with the hashtag – this creates a wider group.
• Apparently visual content gets more retweets. Use evocative (not necessarily graphic, otherwise you risk getting reported) photos for this campaign.
• Make your tweets personal. Yes, we all know the dairy industry is cruel. But what specifically? Was there a particular article or image that made you change your mind? Was it a person?
• Avoid foul language. The Twitter algorithm will pick up on it and block it from trending. I know we are all angry about the way animals are treated but for this campaign please don’t use curse words. And it should go without saying that we shouldn’t use offensive words, like ableist or sexist language.
• Avoid piggybacking off of other hashtags. Tweets that co-opt other hashtags will be filtered out. For example, if something random about sports is trending at the same time, don’t use that hashtag too. Stick to relevant hashtags if you add any. I plan on adding the #Februdairy hashtag to mine.
• Tweet consistently. We need to have a good amount of people tweeting consistently with a peak in popularity.
• DO NOT TWEET THE SAME MESSAGE REPEATEDLY! Your tweet must add “value to the conversation.” Change it up – send out new links, new photos, ask new questions, use a poll, etc.
• If you’re participating in the campaign, please add a photo to your account and something to your twitter bio. Accounts who have been newly created, that have little or no information, and/or have not interacted or tweeted much will not count towards a trend. So fill out that profile and get some tweets out before the campaign.
• For the algorithm, it’s novelty over popularity. The good thing about our hashtag is that it seems to have never been used before, which helps.

So, to summarize…

• Tweet out many different, visually engaging tweets; avoiding foul language.
• Personalize your tweets. Craft them in a way so that people will respond.
• Engage with accounts new to you, not just the accounts you typically engage with.
• Always use the hashtag #WhyIDitchedDairy, even in your replies.
• Make sure your Twitter account has a bio, a photo, and some tweets/interaction before the campaign starts.

With this in mind, we will hopefully get the hashtag trending. But it’s fine if we’re not successful at getting the hashtag to trend because we’ll know that we’ve educated the public about the cruelty of the dairy industry. Ultimately what’s important is not that the hashtag trends but that people see it and realize that the dairy industry is not something to support.

Remember, get ready to tweet out why you ditched dairy on Wednesday, February 6th! Please reach out to me @ThePawReport on twitter if you have any questions.