How to Grow your Personal Influence (with examples and best practices techniques)!

Posted on by Mary Roselle

Part 1: Influence

When I started tweeting for the class on 1/17 I had 439 followers. Over the past few months, I was able to grow the number of followers I have to 470! Additionally, my Klout score when we first checked it was 30, and as of today, it was 32. I believe my Klout score grew by 2 points because I started off with a decent amount of followers, but continued to grow my influence by actively tweeting and continuing to grow my followers.

I was able to grow my following by utilizing a number of techniques. First, I tweeted consistently which helped increase my exposure. One technique I used was tweeting at various times each day. I didn’t always tweet just at night, I made an effort to tweet in the morning and afternoons as well.  I believe this helped to further increase my exposure because I wasn’t just active only at specific times each day when other inactive users could potentially miss my tweets. Instead, I tried to tweet actively throughout the day.  I also interacted with others, by favoriting and retweeting their tweets as well as replying back to them. Additionally, I made sure to include rich media in my tweets, such as videos and photos that were aesthetically pleasing. I realized that my engagement rates were significantly higher when I attached a photo or video because people were much more likely to either favorite or retweet my posts, but also reply back to me. Another technique I utilized throughout the semester was using hashtags (including our class hashtag) as well as mentioned people, places or brands involved in my tweets. Other people who don’t follow me were able to find my tweets because of the hashtag. Also, when I mentioned people, places or brands I noticed that they were very likely to engage with my tweet, which also helped grow my following because it helped increase the number of impressions I received. I also tried to post content that was relatable. This is a best practice technique because people are more likely to engage with your tweet if they relate to it as well.

One of my techniques that wasn’t that effective was when I asked questions in my tweet. Sadly, very few people replied back to me. I think it might be because people usually scroll quickly through Twitter and don’t really have the time or energy to reply back to my tweets, especially if they didn’t have a particular passion for what I tweeted about. Instead, I’ll continue to implement polls on my tweets. Twitter polls are an easy way for people to interact back with me because it requires less work since they only have to select a button.

Part 2: Execution 

In this part of my blog post, I’m going to analyze the techniques I used on Twitter and other social media platforms throughout this semester by creating a collection of my top 10 Tweets this semester.

Tweet 1: Syracuse University photos

First, my top tweet of the semester was a photo collage of some of my favorite photos I’ve taken throughout the years at Syracuse University. I believe this tweet performed so well for multiple reasons. First, I mentioned the Syracuse University Twitter handle (@syracuseu) as well as used their hashtag, #SyracuseU. @SyracuseU favorited my tweet soon after I posted it, and I received a lot of favorites (25 to be exact) and five retweets as a result. Additionally, the majority of my followers also attend (or attended) SU so it was a tweet that a lot of them connected with. Including four photos of different places on campus also made this tweet perform well. I tried to include the best photos I’ve taken, so I think they were all very aesthetically pleasing and stood out when people were scrolling through their timeline. Below are analytics that shows how well my tweet performed.

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Tweet 2: Kylie Jenner

This tweet is about the video Kylie Jenner posted about the birth of her daughter. Of course, I had to watch the entire video which was 11 minutes long because I instantly got sucked in. I retweeted her tweet of the video to my followers and added a comment expressing my shock at how I just spent 11 minutes watching that video that wasn’t all that interesting. I believe this tweet received 6 favorites because it was relatable and relevant since I tweeted this soon after the video came out. Regardless of whether you’re a Kylie Jenner fan or not, everyone was talking about how she ‘hid’ her pregnancy and gave birth to a baby girl! I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who ended up watching the entire video even though there was nothing too special in it. Later on, I watched the video again and then replied back to myself updating my followers that I now watched it for a second time, wasting 22 minutes of my life in total. This tweet also performed well because it was funny, and again I’m positive there are other people out there who did the same thing! Below are the analytics that shows how well this tweet performed.

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Tweet 3: Life inside a snow globe!

I posted a Twitter video of the view from outside of my house when we experiencing yet another snowstorm at the beginning of February. I posted this as it was snowing, which was fun because you could see how hard it was snowing! This tweet performed well for me because I feel that people enjoyed the video aspect since I usually only post photos. I also believe people may have enjoyed seeing footage of what the weather is like in my neck of the woods, especially if they don’t live in Syracuse, or live in a place where it snows often. Additionally, I also thought my tweet was fun because even though I’m not actually inside a snow globe, it sure does feel like it sometimes here. Looking back, I would have added additional hashtags like #SyracuseU or #SnowyCuse in order to increase the number of views. Below are the analytics that shows how well my tweet performed.

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Tweet 4: Promoting Myself!

For one of the homework assignments, we were instructed to promote another one of our social media accounts. I decided this would be the perfect time to promote my food account, Westchester Bites! I created a food account around a year ago and run it with my friend from home. We post a lot of different photos of various types of food, so I decided to take a screenshot of some of the most colorful foods we have posted on our account. I believe this tweet performed so well because I included rich media by posting a photo of what the Instagram page looks like instead of just posting the account name without any photos. As a result, I believe people were more likely to go and follow the account because they enjoyed the preview of what the page looked like. I also included a link where people could click to go and see my page and included two hashtags. Below are the analytics that shows how well the tweet performed, including 426 impressions and 94 total engagements. I had hoped to get more impressions but was satisfied with how many favorites and link clicks I received.

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Tweet 5: #FollowFriday

For one of our homework assignments, we were instructed to use the hashtag #FollowFriday and mention a person (or people) we enjoy following. I decided to mention my favorite anchors from the Today Show and included a photo of them together since I knew that rich media tweets have much higher rates of engagement. I also mentioned the Today Show handle as well so other fans of the show could hopefully find my tweet. Natalie Morales, one of the anchors that I mentioned in my tweet, favorited the tweet. Soon after, I received 13 other favorites and a mention from another fan who saw my tweet because of Natalie. Below are the analytics of my tweet so that you can see how well it performed. It ended up receiving over 2, 500 impression which was shocking to me!

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Tweet 6: #LoveYourPetDay!

When I saw #LoveYourPetDay was trending on Twitter, I knew I needed to post photos of my two dogs! I believe this tweet received more engagement just because I included the two photos. If I only included text, I don’t think it would have performed well at all. I also believe this tweet performed well and received 6 favorites because I know people love to see dog pictures. I’ve noticed that photos of dogs always receive a lot of likes on Instagram, as well as favorites on Twitter. I believe I could have received more engagement on this tweet if I included the hashtag #dogs or even #cutedogs. I’ve included the analytics that shows how well this tweet performed below. I received 457 impressions and 48 total engagements.

View post on imgur.com

Tweet 7: Girl Scouts coffee!

For this tweet, I retweeted and added a comment in response to @AdAge’s tweet announcing that Dunkin’ Donuts was rolling out three new flavors of coffee that are inspired by Girl Scouts. Since I was a former Girl Scout, I was so excited to try new flavors inspired by some of my favorite cookies! I tweeted this soon after the news was announced so it was very new, which is why I believe it received 7 favorites and 684 impressions. So many of my followers are coffee lovers and fans of Girl Scout cookies, so I think it was a very relatable tweet that excited people. Additionally, there was a photo in the original @AdAge tweet that showed the three new coffees with the cookies they were inspired by that was aesthetically pleasing, so I think that helped grab people’s attention to the tweet as well (I’ve attached a pic below for reference). Also below is a photo of additional analytics so you can see how this tweet performed.

View post on imgur.com

View post on imgur.com

Tweet 8: #BrieAndWaffles (a unique hashtag)

For one of our homework assignments, we were instructed to create a unique hashtag. As soon as I saw this video from Boar’s Head Twitter handle, I knew this would be a perfect hashtag that hasn’t been used yet on Twitter. The original Boar’s Head tweet showed a video of how to make homemade waffles with brie cheese, chicken and raspberry jam (photo below). This is definitely something I would try to make myself, so I instantly became interested in the video. I retweeted the tweet along with my own comment expressing how great it looked with my original hashtag and the #NHSmc hashtag. Boar’s Head favorited my tweet and also tweeted me back saying to be sure to let them know if I tried it, which was really great to see them interact back with me. This tweet utilitizes my best practice techniques because it includes rich media (the video component) and also 2 different hashtags. I received 521 impressions, which was really great! Additionally, to increase the number of impressions/engagement this tweet received, I could have added more hashtags like #brie, #chicken, #food or #BoarsHead so more people could have seen it. Also below, I’ve included a screenshot of the analytics so you are able to see how this tweet performed.

View post on imgur.com

View post on imgur.com

Tweet 9: Dog meme

This tweet was the Twitter ad I created to promote my meme, so to be completely transparent I did spend $5.00 in order to promote it so the impressions/engagement this tweet received are not all organic. I created a Twitter webcard where I attached a rich photo that showed part of my meme since I wanted people to click on the link to see the full photo. I created a “call to action” by encouraging people to click on the link if they love cute and funny dog memes. I received 661 organic impressions and 1,582 promoted impressions. However, I only received 27 link clicks which was disappointing since the main point of this tweet was to get people to click on the link to view the full meme on imgur.com. However, I do think it helped grow the visibility of my meme since I ended up tweeting out the link a few more times after this and received more clicks from my organic tweets. Additionally, I also received one retweet and 12 favorites from this tweet. Below are the analytics that shows how well this tweet performed.

View post on imgur.com

Tweet 10: Syracuse University’s Own the Dome!

Another one of my top 10 tweets was about SU as well! I volunteered at Own the Dome and there were lots of signs encouraging people to tweet about the event with the hashtag #OwnTheDome2018. I included a photo of what the event looked like so others could see and also because rich media tweets perform much better than tweets with just text. I also tagged our class hashtag so others in our class could see it, and mentioned the Syracuse University twitter handle. I ended up receiving 12 favorites and one retweet as well my tweet appearing on the jumbotron at the dome! I believe this tweet performed well because the photo was aesthetically pleasing and also a lot of my followers have a connection to SU. Additionally, I also think that others like to see what people are involved in. I was really excited to volunteer, so this was fun for me to share with my followers. I’ve also included a screenshot of additional analytics so you can see how well it performed.

View post on imgur.com

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