How I Became An Influencer…jk but this is how I improved

Posted on by Amelia Giebel

Hi. I’m Amelia and before this course I sucked at Twitter. I had 36 followers, and only one tweet…which was a retweet from the start-up I interned with over the summer. I took this course to up my social media skills, and although I’m not a professional, I’d like to think I’ve learned a thing or two. So if you’re looking to work on you #skills, here’s my experience:

PART 1: INFLUENCE

  • Twitter Followers:
    • I started with 36 and am now up to 133. That’s a 269% increase!
  • Klout Score
    • I began with a score of 27 and now have a score of 54
    • I also acquired ‘expert’ status for the topics: Adele, Adweek, BuzzFeed, Mashable, Syracuse and Syracuse University, Taco Bell, and Urban Outfitters
  • What worked, what didn’t
    • Well I think the first, and most important thing that worked was increasing the frequency of my tweets. Before this class I rarely went on Twitter, and even more rarely tweeted.
    • I also went on a follow spree. I followed every publication, company, and celebrity I could think of that I was interested in. Then I combed through their lists to follow influencers that seemed interesting and had engaging material. When I gained a follower, I’d follow them back.
    • Some of my most engaged with tweets came from when I was live tweeting an event (ie: the Grammys and the Super bowl). I think that if someone is trying to grow their influence and network live-tweeting, although a bit stressful, is a great way to do so. Big keys to live-tweeting are hashtags and tagging the handle of the brand/person/event that you’re talking about, that will encourage engagement and allow your tweet to circulate the twitter-sphere easily.
    • Another thing that I’ve found analyzing my top tweets is that most of them contain ‘rich’ media (ie: gifs, photos, screenshots, etc.) so it’s obvious that those draw more likes/engagements/impressions.
    • But, I’m not perfect and neither is my twitter. There are definitely some flops on my feed. I feel like they came from either a lack of engagement on my end- no hashtags, or tags- or from a lack of relatability. If what I was tweeting about wasn’t relevant to the people who follow me, who are either media people or college students, then it wasn’t going to engaged with.

 

PART 2: EXECUTION

Here are my top ten tweets from my Newhouse Social Media Class (hence the hashtag #NHsmc). Below each tweet, I’ve written a little blurb about the execution of each post and evaluated its engagements.

 

1. Periscope (11 likes, 4 retweets, 4861 impressions, 40 engagements):

This tweet actually has an interesting story behind it. When browsing through Periscope I found an artist and retweeted his live stream. I didn’t look much into him, but after he retweeted my tweet it got a lot of traffic from his fan club. Turns out this guy had a huge following…partially because of how active he was with his fans on Twitter. Him and I then engaged in a small conversation by replying to each others tweets. Just goes to show you the power of serendipity on social media!

 

 2. Cindy Gallop (11 likes, 1 retweet, 1613 impressions, 31 engagements):

I mean, this is just the triumvirate: tagging an influencer, popular hashtag, and a gif. Cindy Gallop is a big name in Advertising and also founded to feminist companies. So she’s a trailblazer. She also engages a lot with her followers, hence her retweet of my tweet. This totally solidified the importance of engaging with influencers on Twitter. If they even like your post, your Klout score will increase because of their popularity. Not to mention the excitement of getting response from a professional in an industry or just a really cool and knowledgable human.

 

3. @NewhouseSU convocation (10 likes, 5 retweets, 1869 impressions, 35 engagements):

Ah we’re seeing a theme on Amelia’s feed: women empowerment. I, personally, feel that it’s an important movement and when people make progressive steps to support it, I like to applaud them. Thus, this tweet was born. I think the gif really solidified the popularity of the post. It was the perfect embodiment of what I was trying to celebrate.

 

4. Thanks Charlie (8 likes, 2 retweets, 670 impressions, 136 engagements):

This was after a viral challenge we did. Charlie was supposed to try for the look on the right, buuuuuut the look on the left happened. Safe to say Charlie doesn’t really understand how to operate makeup. The challenge was a lot of fun to do, and was definitely funny. And, like I said above, it was relatable! A majority of boys are lost when it comes to makeup, and that’s funny to a lot of girls to whom makeup is second nature. That was the inspiration for our live stream video, and it worked well!

 

5. Donut Eating (8 likes, 2 retweets, 477 impressions, 15 engagements):

This was also part of the viral challenge. A donut eating contest…a walk in the park for me. The tweet probably did well because of everyone in the class watching and engaging with the tweets being put out about the challenge. It’s almost like we created a event to live tweet.

 

6. Mélange (6 likes, 187 impressions, 33 engagements):

Self-deprecating humor does very well on Twitter. Probably because it’s the embodiment of the funny, yet negative voice inside your head that everyone has. I’ve found a lot of highly popular tweets have that kind of tone. Also, fun captions on Venmo are definitely trendy with my generation right now. I’m surprised BuzzFeed hasn’t curated a post about them yet. But this tweet is based on a true story! I didn’t know what melange meant until I googled it.

 

7. After Graduation (5 likes, 199 impressions, 19 engagements):

Melon! This is my kitty and all she does is sleep. I knew this post would do relatively well because cats are cute and the internet loves them. The tri-picture thing is pretty well used on Twitter as well. I tried to curate this tweet like a meme. The hardest part was trying to figure out where to place the hashtag because it didn’t work at the end.

 

8. Fingerprints (4 likes, 242 impressions, 6 engagements):

Again, a demonstration of the power of live tweeting something. This gif/meme gets me every time though. We’ve all had those moments where someone says something and you’re just subtly taken aback. We we’re talking about the power of tech in class and I had one of those moments. It might’ve gotten the numbers it did because others in the class were feeling the same way.

 

9. #WeatherUpdate (4 likes, 1 retweet, 319 impressions, 26 engagements):

Haha this tweet was actually a lot of fun to do. Looking back on it I definitely could’ve been more creative with my choice in shots. I think the twitter clip video is really great though. It works with the attention span we’ve developed to have on social media. It hold your attention long enough to register and comprehend, and then it moves on to the next exciting thing.

 

10. Image_Hack (4 likes, 1 retweet, 249 impressions, 12 engagements):

Creating a Twitter Moment was cool! I didn’t realize until this class that normal people could create them. I think that’s a really important thing for communication professionals to know, especially if you’re doing social promotion for a brand. It’s a great tool to utilize and is super easy to do. I also loved talking about this campaign and generating awareness around it…again, women empowerment!

 

PART 3: MOVING FORWARD

Well, I’m graduating in the next 2 weeks. WHICH IS TERRIFYING! But in the future I really want to, and think I will, keep up with tweeting regularly and engaging with hashtags and influencers. As someone looking to go into advertising, I think Twitter is a great way to see new campaigns and also gage people’s reactions to them. I mean Twitter was instrumental in the pulling of the Pepsi commercial. Twitter shows the power of social media and real-time response. People can now regulate the industry directly and it demonstrates a big shift!

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