Why are brands posting random one-word tweets?

You may have logged on to Twitter recently and noticed a lot of brands such as Wikipedia and Lego are posting one-word tweets. You may think that it was just an error, especially since the edit button hasn’t been rolled out sitewide. But you’d be mistaken, as it’s not just those two. News outlets such as The Washington Post, law enforcement such as Australia’s NSW Police Force, and even NASA are on it.

If your thoughts were these brands trying to outdo each other and be “cringe” on social media, you’re wrong. Brands posting one-worded tweets is a trend that started very recently in the US and has spread throughout other western brands with a Twitter account. And while the public can try to take part, it’s mostly something that’s well executed if you are a company or organization.

But did you know that this trend has an interesting origin story? In order to know what’s going on, we need to go back in time to where it all began.

Why are brands posting random one-word tweets?

Back in April 2011, British politician Ed Balls posted a tweet with just his name in it. And before you ask, yes, ‘Balls’ really is his surname. His tweet went viral and received over 115k likes and 110k retweets. His tweet is so popular that every year on April 28, the internet celebrates what’s known as “Ed Balls Day”.

And while that is the origin of ‘one-word’ tweets, you may be wondering “but it’s not April 28? Why are brands still tweeting?”

This all started when US rail company, Amtrak, released a Tweet that simply says “trains”. That tweet received over 136k likes and 18.2k Retweets and got the attention of other branded Twitter accounts. One of them was Hyundai USA, which replied to Amtrak with “Electric cars”. Since then, it triggered a snowball effect where other brands on Twitter tweeted one word that best represent their company.

While for brands, it’s just a fun trend that was started by a transport company, others connected the dots and realized that they were trying to recreate the iconic ‘Ed Balls’ moment of 2011. And while the trend did go viral for a short period of time, none of them can compare to the influence and popularity that one British politician had all those years ago.