After a well-performing tweet, it seemed as if overnight, everyone had to get their hands on this sandwich.

Craze over the chicken sandwich grew to be so large that Popeyes ran out of chicken, drove sales up 16%, rose profits 13%, and caught the eye of their competition. Additionally, the response was so great that competitor Chick-fil-A got involved.

… y’all good? https://t.co/lPaTFXfnyP

— Popeyes Chicken (@PopeyesChicken) Needless to say, Chick-fil-A’s response to Popeyes’s turn in the chicken sandwich spotlight backfired.

Viral best practices: Use social media user-generated content to spearhead a campaign.

In essence, the CEO was right: they were just lucky. One viral tweet about the chicken sandwich inspired others to post their reactions, participation from competitors only helped, and online tutorials were popping up everywhere.