My Social Media Growth and Analysis

Posted on by Jennifer Castro

Influence

Social media is an incredibly powerful tool to utilize to communicate with others. At the beginning of the semester, I started out with 624 followers. Throughout the course of three months, I gained 30 more followers to increase my total to 654, with a percentage growth of 4.81%. In between that time period, I acquired a bunch more followers (I would say about 50 others) but blocked them because they were questionable and I didn’t feel comfortable with them following me.

At the end of August, my Klout score was 33.61, and by the end of November, it had increased to 45.42. I am happy with my increase and aim to work on increasing my score even more in the future.

In terms of what worked to gain more influence and followers, I’d say that it centered around tweeting more frequently and relating my content to a lot of my followers. With the #NHsmc hashtag, I was definitely tweeting more often than I typically had been before this class began. Tweeting more will clearly gain more traction and followers, especially with the usage of more hashtags, which is part of what I incorporated into my account this semester. Hashtags allow users to cater to and attract certain audiences, and depending on the hashtag, it can skyrocket your influence, follower base, and power within the social media platform. With the #NHsmc hashtag, I aimed to create content that my followers could relate to in order to increase engagement, and I am confident that I succeeded in that regard. My tweets also represented who I was in terms of my personality, so I was happy that I didn’t augment that or stray away from my ‘personal brand’ to gain more followers or influence.

In terms of what didn’t work, content and timing could have been a factor. While we utilized and learned about Follwerwonk early on in the semester, I should have used it more when deciding when and what to tweet. With my tweets, I just wanted to be original and focus on content that described me and things I could relate to. Possibly trying to cater even more to my audience instead of staying closer to my ‘personal brand’ could have increased my influence and engagement. In terms of timing, a lot of my tweets were posted mid-day. Lots of people are on Twitter then, but at the same time, others are at work, in classes all day, or focused on other things. Posting later in the day when things were winding down could have worked better. According to Followerwonk, more of my followers were posting and paying attention to Twitter at this time. I also stopped posting as frequently in the November month, as we were catering our posts more towards Instagram and Snapchat. This most likely made my Klout score fall off a bit. Staying consistent in terms of tweeting is important to keep followers engaged, so I will continue to tweet regularly.

Execution

Tweeting with the #NHsmc hashtag throughout the semester was a fun way to engage with new people, learn more about my classmates, and create a following around a centralized hashtag. Here are my Top 10 Tweets as well as a bit of analysis surrounding them.

1. Jay Bilas!!!!

This encounter was without a doubt one of the coolest things to have ever happened to me. One of my idols, ESPN Sportscaster Jay Bilas, responded to my tweet in which I reached out to him regarding the college basketball season. This took fan-girling to a whole new level. With Jay being a basketball analyst, I was curious to see what he had to say about frontrunners for this year, so I thought I’d give it my best shot and tweet at him about it. It worked!! We learned throughout the semester to target those with a smaller following in hopes to get their attention, but Jay’s 1.92 million followers didn’t stop me!

  • Impressions: 53,226!!!!!
  • Total Engagements: 852
  • Profile Clicks: 448
  • Huge engagement!!!!

Here’s Jay’s response:

Jay’s response to me:

  • Likes: 371
  • Retweets: 97
  • Comments: 26

2. Beagle Freedom Project

In class one day, a task of ours was to tweet about a subject or topic we cared about to try and get some engagement on it. My group and I decided to use the Beagle Freedom Project, an organization that aims to rescue beagles from being tested on different types of products and bringing to light the brands and companies that do such a thing. We’ve learned that directly tagging a brand, organization, or person makes it more likely that they’ll notice us, so I tagged the organization, got them to retweet my tweet, follow me, and increase my engagement!

  • Impressions: 7,447
  • Retweets: 26
  • Likes: 39
  • Total Engagements: 89

3. Halloween Candy Challenge

Our in-class Periscope Challenge project involved two of my team members trying different types of Halloween candy while blindfolded. This way a fun way for viewers to interact with with us and watch along. We were taught to preface our competition with tweets as to inform viewers of what was to come, and my tweet was successful in garnering likes and views on our video. We also learned throughout the semester the value of including a media portion in tweets, so here, I posted a picture along with the tweet to get viewers more engaged and inclined to watch. Without the picture of our contestants, followers would have had a harder time unveiling the purpose of our video.

  • Impressions: 283
  • Likes: 4
  • Total Engagements: 37

4. LeBron Meme

One of our class projects allowed us to create an original meme of our own. Mine related to LeBron James and how he’s commonly referred to as a crybaby. This tweet was my first form of promotion of the meme aside from posting it on Imgur. This one in particular was a Twitter Web Card; this way, my followers could visually see a portion of the meme and be more inclined to click on the Imgur link to view the whole thing. In this instance, a visual was helpful. Just the link to Imgur wouldn’t have been as appealing because people wouldn’t have been able to have a sneak peek into what the meme was. Throughout the semester, we’ve learned the importance of timeliness. With this tweet and meme, LeBron and the Cavs weren’t doing well at the time, and the NBA season had just begun, so it was very relevant.

  • Impressions: 483
  • Likes: 4
  • Total Engagements: 60

5. Bleed Orange!!! 

One of our assignments related to tying two pieces of video footage together within a tweet. I decided to choose areas within my room that represented my love of Syracuse. Learning about catering content to your followers is something I took into account here. Instead of just a regular tweet with words, it encompassed tangible video footage. It also related to Syracuse, and many of my followers are students here, too. One sports broadcaster who works at NBC Sports Boston, the company I interned for this past summer, liked the tweet. He’s a Newhouse alum so it was cool to see that engagement.

  • Impressions: 258
  • Likes: 3

6. J.J Watt’s Voice

J.J Watt has been a prominent NFL figure not just for his talent on the field, but also for his work in helping to raise millions of dollars for the Houston Hurricane Relief Funds. The total number raised through his social media posts and media coverage topped $37 million. Here, I quote-tweeted a tweet that showed fans’ applause for him as he was recognized before one of his games. It was a relevant topic at the time, right after the horrific hurricane had occurred and there was a lot of coverage on it. Back to the whole ‘relevance’ and ‘timing’ aspects, this tweet exemplified the importance of that and I took that into account when deciding the content.

  • Impressions: 232
  • Likes: 3
  • Total Engagements: 10

7. Social Media Post

Our first blog post related to social media and its influence on our society. I posted this on Twitter with a direct link to the piece and got some decent engagement (4 likes) on it. With the prevalence of social media and the need for more positivity, this post was a relevant one in terms of where we’re at today. Again utilizing relevance and timing as key tools to remain successful and influential, this tweet proves that these items are important. The two hashtags, #socialmedia and #positivity also garnered more engagement. As long as the hashtags are relevant to the content, they’ll definitely help the post.

  • Impressions: 175
  • Likes: 4

8. Google Ngram Viewer

One of our assignments related to utilizing Google Books’ Ngram Viewer to analyze attention geared towards items of our choosing. I decided to compare the NFL, NBA, and NHL, as those are some of my favorite topics and are ones that are constantly focused on in the media and in books as well. The graph shows the NFL as the most frequently talked about subject of the three. Again, there is a tangible photo along with the tweet, so that helps garner engagement. These topics are common and popular ones, too. Not sure if comparing carpet to wood floors, for example, would be as relevant or exciting. Choosing relevant options is always a great way to attract followers and engagement. There was a lot of engagement on this tweet, most likely because of the key words, Google’s brand tagged, and #ngram as a hashtag.

  • Impressions: 324
  • Likes: 2
  • Total Engagements: 13

9. Melo Sarcasm

At the beginning of each NBA season, ESPN announces its annual rankings of top players within the league. Controversy and frustration ensued when Lonzo Ball, a rookie in the league known for his father’s outlandish comments, was ranked above Carmelo Anthony, a league vet. I decided to quote-tweet this Twitter Moment with a bit of my sarcasm and personality unveiled in the tweet’s content. It was also relevant in terms of Melo’s face in the Twitter Moment (looking unamused). I related this tweet back to Syracuse as well, as Melo played here. The rankings were also relevant, as the NBA season was just about to start at the time.

  • Impressions: 128
  • Likes: 2
  • Total Engagements: 7

10. Moo Business Cards

Our business card assignment was an exciting one. We are able to use these tangible items in everyday life during interviews, meetings, and daily occurrences. I tweeted out a picture of my business cards once I received them in the mail (also making sure to hide personally identifiable information…something else we’ve learned in class!). I tagged Moo, the company I ordered from, in the tweet, and they responded! They said, “You’re doing great at this adulting thing!” It was cool to see their engagement with me. It’s always fun when brands and companies engage with customers. My picture could’ve been more visually appealing in my opinion, and the picture was cut off strangely in the tweet itself, but other than that, providing a picture of the business cards was a good way to increase engagement and show off my creative side! This tweet gained a lot of impressions as well.

  • Impressions: 450
  • Likes: 1
  • Comments: 1

Throughout the semester, I learned a lot in terms of the power of social media, the uniqueness of utilizing a single hashtag to center my work around, and the various ways in which to promote content and engage with others. Many of my other tweets that did not center around the #NHsmc hashtag garnered a lot more engagement, like these:

Regardless, I am grateful for the opportunity to have taken this class and learned so much more about social media tactics, new applications to utilize, and the powerful and influential digital world in which we live in.

#NHsmc, out!

Leave a Reply