How Hard is it to Become an Influencer on Social Media?

Posted on by Lauren Grubb

Part 1: Influence

At the beginning of the course I had just 9 followers on my new Twitter handle. I also have a personal account with 806 followers that I had been using throughout high school and college, but I decided to create a new more professional Twitter. My professional handle now has 58 followers, giving me a huge percent gain of 544.44%.

Initially I gained followers by following other people, however, I think that the major technique that helped me gain followers was using hashtags. Twitter hashtags help create communities of people interested in the same topic. Additionally, tagging key influencers in your tweets can be extremely beneficial if they engage with your tweet and draw their followers to your content. I tried to utilize rich media in my tweets and also target my tweets to my demographic of Syracuse fans and college students.

As my Twitter followers increased, as did my Klout score. I believe that this was due to my increased use of Twitter and other social media platforms, but also due to the new techniques I learned over the course of the semester. My Klout score of 12 reached 52 once I added Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn to the network contribution. By the end of the semester my Klout score reached 62, giving me a 19.23% increase. Users with a score above 60 are in the top 5% of all users in terms of social media influence. I was able to get a final snapshot of my influence via Sysomos MAP’s Detail Authority Score.

View post on imgur.com

View post on imgur.com

View post on imgur.com

Part 2: Execution

One common theme in my tweets was that those with media in them (such as images, videos, periscopes, links etc.) consistently made more impressions and had more engagements than those with just text. It’s not surprising that my tweet with the most engagements was my original tweet for the viral content challenge that I promoted through Twitter ads.

Impressions: 4,517 Engagements: 309

Although the promotion led to more impressions, the majority of engagements came from my personal promotion of the web card to friends and family. The meme I created of my sister’s dog could be used in a number of situations, however I decided to tie it with a tweet about school that the majority of my followers could relate to. Along with the promotion, the meme of the dog, funny tweet, and hashtags all helped make this tweet my most successful tweet.

In effort to gain views on the imgur link itself, I posted the meme multiple times on Twitter, but with a different tweet associated with it.

Impressions: 345 Engagements: 72

Although the second time I posted my meme it only received 1 retweet and 5 favorites, it still had a large amount of engagements and impressions. I decided to write “srsly” on the meme to make it more relatable for multiple situations, as opposed to writing out the situation on the meme. I made sure to add a black background to the image when I uploaded it to the Twitter webcard so that the entire image would be visible from the Twitter timeline.

Impressions: 792 Engagements: 79

I tweeted this when there was a shooting right off Syracuse campus and DPS chose not to alert students of the event. The department of public safety decided that because the situation was handled, students weren’t in danger and therefore didn’t need to be informed about it. I chose to jump in and tweet to the frustrated students about the situation by posting a link to a Daily Orange article, utilizing hashtags, and tagging the university.

Impressions: 988 Engagements: 18

This tweet was meant to make a difference and attract people to an issue that I think is important: animal abuse. I tweeted a call to action, asking for people to make a donation, and providing them with the link to the ASPCA donation site. I made sure to crop the photo of puppies to the correct size so that all of it could be viewed from the timeline. I also created a new hashtag to spark a conversation, as well as using old hashtags to gain attention.

Impressions: 743 Engagements: 13

For this tweet I created a Twitter list of people that I think are funny. I screenshotted the list and then tweeted it out as a recommendation for people to follow. It’s possible that the tweet was more engaging and interesting due to the media rather than simply tagging the influencers.

Impressions: 406 Engagements: 45

In order to reach a large audience, I chose to use a trending hashtag which was #PatsNation. Tom Brady had just returned to the team, and they had just finished their game. I used a funny vine as media in this tweet in order to grab people’s attention.

Impressions: 229 Engagements: 10

For this tweet I decided to use a poll in order to directly reach out to my followers. In hopes to expand the audience reached I tagged Syracuse University and used a commonly used hashtag #cusenation. Knowing my target is mainly Syracuse University students I asked a question that would be relevant to them.

Impressions: 460 Engagements: 6

For this tweet I used a commonly used hashtag #ICYMI which stands for “in case you missed it” in order to reach a larger audience than my followers alone. I tweeted the link to an article that I read from a news source about an interesting app, and the link provided an image in the tweet.

Impressions: 228 Engagements: 22

I attended the “Running for Cover” panel on the Syrian conflict, and tweeted about it to promote the event. I included an image of the sign describing the event, as well as an image during the event. Although this tweet didn’t get many retweets or favorites, it still received a fair number of views and impressions. I believe that this is due to the fact that I used the event’s hashtag and the use of media in the tweet.

Impressions: 357 Engagements: 30

I tweeted this after meeting Karen on Skype in class. I had looked up her Twitter prior to class and thought she was hilarious and also extremely successful working at a top advertising agency in NYC. I knew that I wanted to connect with her, so I decided to tweet to her after the class as a way of thanking her for skyping with us. I took a picture during class with some of her well-known tweets posted on the overhead screen. I tagged her in the tweet, and she replied back thanking me.

The majority of the tools I used in my top 10 tweets were tools that I did not know about before, such as using Twitter ads for free to create clickable cards and editing and resizing photos on your Iphone or laptop to make sure the entire photo is visible on people’s timelines. I think that all of the tools I have learned will continue to help expand my audience and make my tweets reach more of my followers by presenting information in a more captivating way.

One thought on “How Hard is it to Become an Influencer on Social Media?”

  1. Lauren-
    Your Twitter growth over this whole semester is very impressive! I really enjoyed seeing all of your tweets and look forward to continue following you as well. Your meme was definitely one of my favorites and made me laugh!

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