Marsha Wright, a US-based serial-entrepreneur, CEO of PromoNation.co, author and Twitter influencer, is also the creator of the trending and inspiring hashtag #ThinkBIGSundayWithMarsha. She tells us how and why she started this hashtag.
In your words, who’s the ‘Real Marsha Wright’ in 280 characters?
Marsha Wright is a serial-entrepreneur, CEO of PromoNation.co, author and influencer with 500,000+ social media followers. Wright has appeared in newspapers, magazines and on television internationally, advising businesses on marketing, growing profits, and brand-building.
How and when did you begin #ThinkBIGSundayWithMarsha and what has been its impact?
#ThinkBIGSundayWithMarsha is considered a popular, inspiring and uplifting hashtag that started on Twitter late November 2014. The short story is I was really unwell and I had started posting positive quotes on the weekend and realised people liked them a lot. The engagement increased. The following weekend I was too unwell to keep finding and posting the quotes, but I figured I could still RT others who did. I barely had any energy. So I quickly thought of the #ThinkBIGSundayWithMarsha hashtag and posted that. If anyone sent positive quotes, I’d RT them to my followers. Soon people were getting involved every weekend (and posting during the week too). I’ve heard from three people that #ThinkBIGSundayWithMarsha gave them a sense of community and helped them battle suicidal thoughts. In the last five years of political turmoil, countless people have heralded #ThinkBIGSundayWithMarsha as a beacon of positivity in an otherwise negative social media world. Audiences garner thousands of impressions when they participate. It’s free exposure and many refuse to miss out on it so I pre-schedule their posts using social media tools.
How and when did you learn the power of collaboration on Twitter? After what point did the hashtag start trending and what was the reason?
I started taking Twitter seriously in 2013 as it was linking me directly to my fanbase, and to new audiences and connections. I wanted to nurture that. Within 12 weeks #ThinkBIGSundayWithMarsha had garnered over 107,000 shares and boasted over 4,000 participants, weekly sharing, retweeting and favouriting on the hashtag. The reason for its success lies in the emphasis on collaboration. I retweet over 95 percent of original posts, and participants retweet/favourite/follow and engage with each other, leading to a synergistic ecosystem. Another reason for its success is the limiting of possibly inflammatory topics such as politics, religion, social issues etc.
Tell us one way you have used social media for social good.
I helped run a campaign which went viral and helped garner over 40,000 signatures to get mental health into schools as a compulsory subject for young people in the UK. Due to this campaign, it went to the House of Parliament and the debates resulted in the successful deployment of the project. No other charity has gotten as many signatures to force the UK government to consider a matter. One of my proudest achievements.
Two hacks that Marsha Wright uses every day to build her Twitter followers?
Post at least five times per hour 24/7. This helps your tweets to be seen as they have a short shelf life. Use popular relevant hashtags in posts.
What is your Twitter posting regimen on a good day and how many in your team work on the posts?
On a non #ThinkBIGSundayWithMarsha day, probably four-eight tweets per hour over 24 hours. Balancing topical news/info/articles, positivity, and other things, I might be doing brand collaborations. We have a full media team at PromoNation.co and we own over 30 different Twitter accounts with cumulative two million followers.
As for #ThinkBIGSundayWithMarsha, it is well moderated and takes a team of four to six people to overlook and manually moderate the event covering 36 hours every weekend starting 12 am Sunday morning (Singapore), which is the Saturday afternoon in USA), right through to USA 11:59 pm Pacific time Sunday night.
Quick facts
● It started before the #MondayMotivation hashtag was created
● It will be seven-year-old in November
● The main reason why people join in is for the sense of community. It allows you to meet new people and get exposure.
● There have been over six million hashtag shares, billions of impressions, and it has trended over 5,000 times in cities, countries and worldwide (many times in India too)