My Personal Growth and Top 10 Tweets

Posted on by Rebekah Boulos

This semester in COM 427 Social Media for Communicators, I learned a myriad of skills that have helped me grow my personal following on various social media platforms, primarily Twitter.  I began my journey in this class with only 183 Twitter followers, and over the course of the semester I have grown that following to 274.  This makes my growth rate over the semester 49.7%.  I also tracked my Klout score over the semester beginning with a score of 17, and ending with a score of 30.

Over the semester I’ve experimented with different techniques and strategies for expanding my following on social media.  I found that “Follow Fridays” were quite successful for me.  Through posting a simply tweet that promoted various people on Twitter to my followers, I was able to gain some followers of my own.  I also had success with posting content consistently.  Prior to taking this class, my tweets were sporadic, however I noticed that by posting consistently I was able to truly connect with my audience and engage with my followers.  Another strategy that worked for networking in the social media space is responding and engaging with people in my field that I look up to.  For example, I reached out to a journalist at CBS that I admire on Twitter by asking her for advice she would give to young journalists.  This simple tweet sparked a conversation that eventually led to her following me!  Another very effective way I was able to gain followers was through utilizing Followerwonk and Twitter analytics track my current followers’ user habits, and content they liked.  By tailoring the content I produced and curated to what my existing followers like, I found that they were more apt to share that content, and in turn I gained some followers.  Lastly, posting tweets with related hashtags and tagging appropriate brands and influencers garnered some followers for me as well.  As far as what didn’t work for growing my influence, I found that tagging too many people in “Follow Fridays” made it feel impressional and thus had less success on those.  This course has challenged me to make content that is both engaging and share worthy, in order to grow my following.  Below are my top 10 tweets for the semester, along with a detailed analysis for each.

I noticed that tweets with rich media like photos, videos, and gifs had a high amount of engagement.  My first tweet contains a picture with an added element of an emoji over it.  I created the photo via snapchat and promoted it on Twitter.  I’ve learned how to utilize elements across different social media platforms to create even more engaging content.  I also found success in crafting and refining my tone.  This tweet has a light and fun tone that is relatable to many of my followers who are currently students.  This tweet had 33 engagements, and 5 likes.  Although I didn’t get any retweets or comments, I consider this tweet, and the skills I utilized to be a success.

My next tweet was also very successful.  This tweet varies from all of my other top 10 tweets, in that this one doesn’t contain any “rich media.”  However I found that people love using emojis and this tweet contains a call to action that prompts the user to respond.  Becuase of this, the tweet become interactive and engaging.  This tweet had 42 engagements, with 4 likes, and 15 comments!  This tweet was successful becuase it managed to connect with my followers in a way that made them want to respond.

Twitter polls are also a great way to create engaging content.  This poll I created is fun because nearly everyone loves birthdays and cake!  This skill could potentially be very useful to me in my future career as a journalist too becuase I could interact with my audience and gage how they feel about a particular topic or issue.  This tweet had 21 engagements.  Although I didn’t get any retweets or likes, 17 people voted.  I may have been able to improve this tweet had I tagged a brand like pillsbury that sells cake mixes.

This tweet had 56 engagements and 6 likes.  It didn’t receive any retweets or comments, but it still garnered a significant amount of traction.  I found that it worked to tag the Syracuse University Twitter account, and they liked my tweet!  Posting pictures of pretty architecture or nature was a big hit on my account.  Like we learned in class, brighter pictures are usually more successful on social media.  I think I could have improved this tweet by making it a bit brighter, but all in all I think this tweet was good.

Next, I have my Twitter moment tweet.  This was my first time creating a Twitter moment and I thought it was a lot of fun!  I found that my followers love encouraging, and positive tweets, so this was perfect.  During midterms people get very stressed, so it was great to put together a collection of inspiring tweets, rather than posting just one.  This tweet had 32 engagements, and 4 likes.  It didn’t get any retweets or comments.  I think it would have been helpful to include a few more hashtags, to expand my reach even further, but overall this was a success.

This tweet was unique in the sense that I created my own hashtag.  #YoungFeminisim didn’t exist on Twitter until this tweet.  I think the gif added a dynamic element to the tweet and thus attracted more attention.  I also found that my followers are passionate about social justice issues, and this tweet fit in quite well with that theme.  This tweet got 16 engagements, 3 likes, and 1 retweet.

This tweet, according to analytics, is my most successful tweet of the semester.  Although the only hashtag I included with this tweet was the class hashtag, I received a 155 engagements, 14 likes, and 2 retweets!  I think the funny picture along with the relatable theme really resonated with many of my viewers.  My tone here is witty and sharp while still creating something that my followers wanted to share.  Big success for me on this tweet!

My next tweet is a collage.  Like we’ve mentioned in class, people love babies and animals, so this tweet highlights that truth.  I was cognizant to frame the pictures in such a way that they could be nicely viewed from the timeline.  The slightly sarcastic tone was fitting here, and I was able to incorporate pictures from snapchat as well.  This tweet got 34 engagements, and 4 likes.  It didn’t get any comments or retweets, but I definitely could have included more hashtags to expand my reach.

This tweet includes a video that pokes fun at college life, and the struggles of having no free time and no disposable income.  I also found that the video created an engaging piece of content.  Here I learned how to use the native twitter camera to capture this video.  It was easy to use the camera right in the platform rather than uploading a separate piece of media.  This tweet had 18 engagements, 4 likes, no comments or retweets.

Lastly, I have the gif that I created.  This skill is very useful, because prior to this I had no idea how to create my own gif.  Although this tweet wasn’t my most successful, I thought It was fitting to include in my top 10 because it’s a skill I will definitely come back to.  This tweet had 9 engagements, 2 likes, no comments or retweets.  However this is a personal success becuase I was able to create content that I had never been able to do before!

 

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