A Richmond & Towers event trended at no.1 on Twitter in the U.K., they explain how it happened.

How to trend on Twitter (the rise and rise of the influencer)

Last week, the drinks team at Richmond & Towers organised a Tonic & Gin Twitter Tasting for Franklin & Sons, producers of a range of handcrafted premium tonics and mixers. Over the course of an hour the host, ‘ginfluencer’ Emma Stokes (@GinMonkeyUK), led a group of specially selected drinks, lifestyle and fellow gin influencers through a virtual tasting of the Franklin & Sons range. Participants paired four tonics and mixers with different gins, all from the comfort of their respective homes, with the tasting streamed through the hashtag #FranklinAndSons.

Within half an hour, #FranklinAndSons was trending across the UK: eighth place became seventh, sixth, fifth – until we claimed the number one spot at around 7.45pm, ahead of The Oscars news, The Royal Variety Show and discussion around Hollyoaks. We have hosted comparable tastings in the past for spirits brands we work with, but none were as successful as the Franklin & Sons event.

Why is that? Thanks to the impressive social following, credibility and standing of the influencers we invited.

The influencer

The key is in the recruitment of the right influencers – quality over quantity. For #FranklinAndSons, our select 11 each had strong followings, two with more than 25,000 followers. Two also had Verified accounts (the blue tick Twitter hands out to the famous and influential) and they were joined by the official Twitter accounts for the gin brands we tasted.

The result, through almost 700 tweets and re-tweets shared using the hashtag, meant that in addition to being the top trend in the UK – the tasting earned more than 6 million impressions across 102 unique Twitter accounts worldwide in just over 60 minutes (that’s 100,000 views per minute).

With the advent of the influencer, rise of social media, increase in the use of ad blockers and a steady drop in traditional TV viewership, the face of PR and marketing is changing. According to Adweek, Google’s keyword search for influencer marketing has increased more than 90 times since 2013 and shows no sign of abating.

So as we come to the end of 2016 it is important for us to look forward and continue to embrace, champion and work closer with influencers in the right way to get our clients’ messages heard. Merry Christmas