Becoming A Media Influencer

Posted on by Payton May

Part 1: Influence

The world of media influence was more of a trial and error task than I had initially realized. Although many influencers do just “get lucky” with a specific post that ends up going viral, there are certain tips and tricks that are more likely to get more attention from an audience. These tricks can be carefully executed and tracked in order to gain more of a following.

I started out my twitter account with 4 followers, and over the semester grew to 30 followers. That increase is a 650% gain, which is extremely substantial. My instagram account went from 39 followers to 50 followers, which was an increase of 28.21%. I was impressed with both of my gains in audience across both accounts.

For my twitter account, the most beneficial tips were tagging people who had larger audiences and embedding media into posts. The more engaging my tweet was visually, the more it gave people incentive to interact with it. Another thing that worked often was specific trending hashtags. Some of my best tweets had hashtags that were trending at the time, so it’s important to optimize what’s already going viral on twitter. What didn’t work was content that wasn’t as strategically formatted to my audience. My followers are mostly journalists, so I didn’t get as much engagement when I was posting meme’s or tweets that journalists wouldn’t be as interested in. On the opposing side of that, entertainment news tweets did do very well because it probably brought some lighter news into the feeds of some of the journalists who follow me.

For my instagram account, the most beneficial thing was adding animals into my media and posting professional posts (such as my internship media). My following on that account is more of a journalist audience as well, so it would make sense that journalists would want to see posts that are more tailored to what they’re used to doing. What didn’t work or seem to make much of a difference was what filter I used in the posts. It didn’t seem to draw in more engagement when I switched filters.

Part 2: Execution

The most success I had between the two platforms was over Twitter. Not only did my following grow, but the amount of engagements, impressions, and media views were so much higher than I’d ever had.

The tweet that got the most media attention was at the beginning of the weeks of events that happened on campus regarding vandalism of racial slurs in the Day Hall bathroom and the university’s decision to cover it up. This tweet got engagement because of visual media involvement, inclusion of the student newspaper that already has a large following, and a hashtag that was already trending. Since this event went under a lot of criticism by student journalists who thought the campus should be notified of this horrible news, I thought my journalist audience should know about it. This tweet also did well because it was made during the group viral hashtag exercise, so my group was promoting my tweet across their accounts as well. This tweet had 1,526 impressions and 80 total engagements, which was a very large influencer post.

The reason this video did well over social was because of the fact that it had an interactive component, watching a video. Along with that, it was a monumental moment for the #NotAgainSU protest as people were chanting outside of Hendrick’s Chapel just after the Chancellor said he would not sign the demands. At the time I was doing a thread of tweets, but this one was one of the most watched tweet with 88 media views, 456 impressions, and 34 engagements. I think it helped that people were following around my live news thread, which was something we mentioned in class and thought I’d try.

This tweet was also during my thread during the Hendrick’s Chapel address of the situation at Syracuse. The people who were following my thread were engaging with my tweets, but this one was successful in particular because of the content. This was a very important moment at the event and the journalists following me wanted to know what was going on live so that they could keep up and write about it. This tweet is just another clear example of how important tweet threads are (especially live). I ended up with 348 impressions and 15 engagements.

Tweeting out one of my moments ended up being a successful tweet for me. I think my media content was very relatable to people who struggle getting up and being productive on Monday’s. With a mostly college audience, I used a phrase that only college students would use regularly but still sound like it was coming from me to go along with tone and voice. I don’t know if this moment tweet would have performed just as well without being a moment or with a different caption, but I think the main factor was relatability. My final count was 373 impressions and 7 engagements. When people scrolled through dreading their Monday, they definitely understood my message.

This tweet had 152 impressions and 7 engagements but ended up with an even better result. My biggest twitter accomplishment was when Suzanne Malveaux followed me. She has a HUGE following and also is one of my female journalist role models. Our class assignment of trying to engage with people with larger followings worked perfectly. All I needed to do was tweet at her to get some kind of response. I think it helped that my account is professional and I do cover politics, so a political journalist was more willing to follow me; but I really wasn’t expecting it.

This post was more of a fun and entertaining tweet to try and get people to laugh. I analyzed my audience and most of the people who follow me are around my age range. “The Amanda Show” was a popular television show when I was growing up, so I think my followers got the pop culture reference and it hit a point of nostalgia. Along with that, the gif added something that people wanted to watch and repeat, so I got more impressions. I think overall it was most important to relate to my generation and curate my content to make sense to my audience. I ended up getting 356 impressions, 62 media views, and 3 engagements.

An exciting moment happened after this tweet when the Chipotle account responded to me. The tweet itself was engaging because of the media attached that had already gone viral and the fun guacamole day caption and emoji, but I think tagging Chipotle and bringing them into my message incentivized more people to look. For Chipotle it was more of a promotional response, but it worked trying to engage with an account with a higher following. I think this kind of tweet would probably work with other food chain/ restaurant accounts because those accounts are always trying to promote their brand. It’s more of a win/win situation for both of us though because I ended up getting 208 impressions and 4 engagements.

For this Instagram post, I think it did well because of the usage of a video along with some kind of animal component. People love animal accounts, and seeing an interaction with an animal people aren’t as used to being in close contact with (cows), probably made it like worthy and memorable. Along with that, I was doing my standup for a news package, so the journalists who follow me probably related to how difficult it is to film cooperative animals. The timeliness of this photo also was important since I was feeding cows a pumpkin close to Halloween.

This photo somewhat surprised me of how much engagement it had. I think the main reason was that it’s an aesthetically pleasing photo that shows my professional life in a more creative way. My audience is comprised of many journalists, so posting a photo that shows my news internship probably related to a lot of them. I benefitted from using female journalist hashtags such as #mmjane, because I knew that that’s a tight-knit community of social media users who would look at my photo through the hashtag.

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#ICYMI Ariana and Pete #nhsmc

A post shared by Payton May (@paytonmmjmay) on

This photo did well on all accounts because it goes along with pop culture. People recognize celebrities and celebrity couple costumes often get a lot of media attention. This photo didn’t have an engaging caption, but I think the content was very spot on to Ariana and Pete Davidson, so people enjoyed it. Along with that, I posted it around Halloween so people were more willing to scroll through photos of costumes to maybe get ideas about theirs. The photo slide component also worked well for me because it was easier to compare my photo to the real one. The “copycat” photo trick of posting something that people already enjoy worked well.

Overall, my influencer growth greatly benefitted by adding video components, using hashtags, and carefully assessing my audience. Overtime I presume I will be able to increase my engagement by using those techniques.

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