Check out how I tried to become a social media influencer

Posted on by Zachary Palmer

Influence

Twitter Growth:

Beginning followers: 35; Ending followers: 60; Percentage growth: 71.4%

As soon as I began to tweet regularly and with purpose for this class the followers started to roll in. While I still only have 60 followers, the percentage of growth I experienced throughout the semester has been impressive at 71.4 percent. Most of these follows came in September and November. I followed a bunch of people after I began tweeting in September, and got a fair amount of follow backs explaining my 17 follower growth that month. November was slightly different however. I received a few follows from people interested in the kinds of topics I typically tweet about (cars), and also because of one tweet that went “viral” for a short span of time one day. One pattern I found was related to the quantity of my tweeting. The more tweets I sent out, the more followers I ended up getting. I never tried asking people for follows, but that strategy looks like it could work as well.

 

Klout Growth:

Beginning score: 13.3; Ending score: 41.01

Until one tweet at the beginning of November went crazy for me, my Klout score was relatively steady and slightly up from where I started the semester. The graph below shows exactly what that tweet did to my social media influence – it skyrocketed to nearly double what it was beforehand. I can see the clear link between creating engaging content regularly with the Klout score as well. As soon as I began to garner more attention on the timeline with my frequent tweeting, my score went up. However, the best thing for increasing social media influence is to have something go viral according to this Klout graph. That one tweet had over 180 likes and over 50 retweets that caused a large, instant uptick in my Klout score unlike anything else. Since then I’ve been able to generally maintain my score even though it has been trying to dip back down on me.

The “viral” tweet:

Execution

 Top 10 pieces of content:

 

1.

This tweet performed well because it was catered directly to my audience on Twitter: cars. Honda had recently come out with an autonomous lawnmower that looks a bit like its new Civic Type R, so making a joke about whether Honda would make a lawnmower to go with the just revealed Urban EV ended up being a perfectly timed joke. The use of images made the tweet work as well, so everybody could understand the reference I was making. Finally, I used a couple key hashtags surrounding the release of the Urban EV at the Frankfurt Motor Show to draw in some outside audience. If I could have changed something it would have been the crop of the photos; I would have made the full “vehicle” visible without having to click on them.

 

2.

Here’s another post about cars that performed well for me. This post took a bit of extra effort to make work because I had to create an original gif since this video had just been released right before I tweeted it. It got the attention it did because the content was fresh and the gif made it “rich media.” Once again, I’m tweeting out to my personal audience who is interested in car content, and the hashtag #hoonigan most likely pulled in plenty of Ken Block fans interested in his latest racing creation. The amount of impressions are high on this tweet, but the actual engagement level is lower because it’s a gif and not a photo or video that you can interact with.

 

3.

Here’s my post using the native Twitter video feature that ended up getting a bit more attention than I thought it would. After reflecting on it, the richness of the media here definitely helped me, because people are genuinely interested in an original video on Twitter. I spent some time planning out exactly what my shots were going to be and executed them to my satisfaction. It worked out fantastically, and ended up giving me lots of engagements. Video is definitely a viable strategy for pulling people into your content if executed well it appears. However, I think more key hashtags might have helped this video do a bit better than it did.

 

4.

This post was one of the first I did when I was still trying to figure what works and what doesn’t work. Most everybody enjoys picturesque shots of nature, and they certainly enjoyed this one too. The photo is most deserving of credit to this tweet’s success, but the number of impressions are quite low compared to the number of likes it received. Most of my other posts with this much positive feedback receive far more impressions, so this tweet did well for the number of eyeballs it eventually got to. It goes to show that sometimes really great content can make almost anything perform well.

 

5.

This tweet was my promoted tweet for the viral meme campaign, and it did exceptionally well for a promoted tweet according to the analytics. It received nearly 4,000 impressions from paying $5, and completely destroyed almost all of my other tweets because of it. While it’s not the most liked or retweeted off my timeline, lots of people saw it, which was vital to racking up views on Imgur. The photo of the Obamas helped grab people’s attention most likely, and a few key hashtags could have helped pick up a bit more audience than the general ad buy did. A call to action might have helped this tweet perform better.

 

6.

This post was part of the flash campaign we attempted to make work in class a couple weeks ago. Our campaign was to reduce waste in general, so my strategy was to encourage people to stop using plastic water bottles they throw out right after finishing. #EcoMonday is a new hashtag trending for that topic, and there’s a good chance that hashtag pulled people in. My use of the green leaf emoji helps communicate my cause on a visual level without actually using a photo or gif as well. The amount of impressions on this post was great for a basic text post, so I’m very happy with the results.

 

7.

While this tweet is lacking in engagements, it has one of the top impression counts of all my tweets at nearly 1,000. It’s not exactly clear why there are so many impressions, but tweeting @jmgrygiel could explain it if the tweet made it to your timeline through the algorithm. People go out and search tweets related to certain individuals, and tweeting @ someone could be a great strategy for being seen. The photo of the car gives someone something to stop and look at, plus my emoji finger pointing at the car (it points the right direction in the actual timeline) gives the post a playful vibe.

8.

This was my most successful Instagram post of the semester in terms of likes. I created a new account for the class, so getting this many likes was a bit surprising given the fact that I had no followers. The photo is basic, but it’s of an Acura NSX, a supercar the likes of which many car enthusiasts pine over. It’s not surprising this car got a lot of attention from hashtags on Instagram, because it gets that kind of attention when I’m just driving it around in real life. People really appreciate a well-thought out photo on Instagram, so the beautiful backdrop and wide array of hashtags were definitely the reasons behind this Instagram success.

 

9.

This was my second most successful Instagram post of the semester, and arguably the most engaging because of the five comments. Many people can relate to having car problems and this was one of those times. Viral content isn’t typically sad, but this post bucked the trend to a certain degree here. The use of sad emojis on the photo and in the description help communicate the feeling of the owner to the audience and they can sympathize with them. Once again, hashtags ruled the day on Instagram because almost all of those likes came from people who weren’t following me.

 

10.

This last tweet is a classic example of a funny and surprising gif that most people in my audience can relate to. I combined both a car reference and school reference in one tweet, and it performed quite well. The car veering into the crowd at a Cars and Coffee event is a Mustang, (notorious in the car community for its owners to lose control of it) so car enthusiasts can get a chuckle out of the classic Mustang owner stereotype. At the same time my classmates understand the pain of an assignment coming out of nowhere and hitting them. This tweet had a high engagement rate and rewarded me for my efforts in trying to be relatable on several fronts.

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