Influence Growth & Analysis

Posted on by Marissa Levine

Growing up in a generation where social media was so prominent, personally Twitter was never my most used platform. I had a profile in high school just because everyone else did, however it was used just as a popularity contest to tweet what you were doing and who you were hanging out with. By the time I reached my senior year, Twitter became less popular to use and Instagram and Snapchat took over in the area where I live.

When Professor Grygiel introduced in class that using and interacting with our very own Twitter profile will be a major part of our success in her class, I was worried to say the least. I never really grasped the idea of Twitter and how to use it to my full advantage and I never went to Twitter to check for news or to network with others. I was excited to introduce another social media platform in my life, yet nervous because Twitter is a powerful and difficult platform to manage if you do not use it to its fullest potential properly. However, now writing my last assignment for this class, I appreciate all of the lessons I have learned because Twitter is no one of the first apps I check in the morning when I wake up and I have learned that the best way to get a message across to many different people in many different industries is by using Twitter.

I started in September with a brand new Twitter, with 0 followers. In my first month I gained 14 new followers with 87 profile visits. In October I had 18 followers, with 68 profile visits. In November and currently I have 31 followers with 61 profile visits. As each month went on my impressions increased by 140.5% from when I posted my first tweet. What worked for me was engaging with my classmates because some of them already had a large following on twitter, in which some of their followers would follow me. However, I think that there was multiple things that did not work from me based on how low my follower count is at the end of this semester. Each month I would follow different news outlets in order to stay up to date with what was going on in the world politically, socially and digitally. Although, I was on top of the news, the media industry and Trumps daily outrageous tweets, none of those large outlets with millions of followers would ever follow me back. What I should have done throughout the semester was followed more micro profiles with fewer followers who actually pay attention to who follows them. I never went out my way to follow people who tweeted things that I thought was funny, such as a meme. I always just liked the tweet, however analyzing my follower count versus how much engagement I received, I realize now that the more followers I have, the more my tweets would have been seen. As far my influence, I found that I succeeded with the things I tweeted as most of my tweets were relevant or directed towards a positive subject. My

Starting with my top tweet throughout the past 3 months, retweeted and added my own tweet to Kmart and Sear’s announcement about their $2.9M donation to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. This tweet received 22 total engagements, 3,620 impressions and 11 likes. I have a heavy passion for giving back, especially to pediatric cancer as it has touched my family personally. The assignment was to make a difference in the world with what we tweeted so I felt that St. Jude was an organization that a lot of people resonate with and are aware of. Unfortunately, there are thousands of people in the world who are touched by cancer in one way or another and love St. Jude for how much they help childhood cancer patients fight their battle without ever giving their parents a bill. By tagging St. Jude which has over 430k followers and many people tweeting thanking them for what they do or people tagging St. Jude to encourage donations, I was able to reach the most likes on any tweet I have ever tweeted because I connected with those people. As a result of this post, St. Jude’s verified twitter account followed me.

My second highest engaged tweet was one that commented on the recent news about Adele and Skepta dating. This announcement was trending at the time so it was already being talked about by millions of twitter users across the world. When trying to think about what to tweet to grab peoples attention, I wanted to include the least amount of words, and just something that would grab the attention of many who were talking about this hot gossip. What worked with this tweet and gaining likes on the post, was because I used the trending hashtag along with a funny meme to grab twitter users attention about the topic. What did not work with this tweet and why I did not get as many likes, was because I should have tagged celebrity news outlets such as People, Enews or TMZ to put my tweet into more twitter users feed. This tweet received 25 total engagements and 2,112 impressions.

For this tweet, I was monitoring a trending topic at the time, #BelowDeckMed. I included the Bustle article as a deep link. This tweet received 40 total engagements and 1757 impressions.  I did also receive 7 likes from multiple people that I did not know because I chose a trending topic at the time and a well known news outlet to link. One element of this tweet that I think worked based on my analytics was tagging Bravo TV as many other twitter users were tweeting to the broadcasting company about their decision to not bring the Below Deck cast back for a reunion. I wanted to generate a sense of frustration and debate over this topic to gain more engagement but because I did not get as many likes, comments and retweets as I hoped, I should have tagged Bravo Host Andy or the below Deck cast to see if I could get any engagement from users like them with a large following.

 

Although I only received 3 likes on this tweet, I ended up gaining 23 total engagements and 523 impressions because I strategically chose pictures that would catch Twitter viewers eyes with its bright colors and also made sure to tag John Mayer, as he was a hot topic at the time with his tour still going on. However, this concert was over the summer so I brought back memories for others who attended the concert. I wanted to showcase the best parts of the concert through pictures. What I could have done better with this tweet to get more engagement is tagged Madison Square Garden and used hashtags such as #nyc or #loveontheweekend.

With this tweet I wanted to highlight my weekend with my best friend visiting me by using tweet threading. This tweet gained 43 total engagements and 323 impressions. I think that worked best for this tweet was the content and my friend also liking and retweeting the post, however I should have tagged Clemson or used a trending hashtag from the game that weekend. I could have also used hashtags that had to do with friends such as #BFF and #sister. At this point of the semester, I was still very new to Twitter so I was unaware of the importance of what you tag or hashtag, as I know now that it makes an impact on where your tweet is presented on other users’ feeds.

While creating this tweet I was trying to execute a twitter moment. This well presented (and ridiculously overpriced) sushi in New York city is a familiar picture for many New York sushi lovers. I wanted to connect with New Yorkers who spend a lot of money on their lunches, even if it is just two rolls, because New York is an expensive place to live, work and eat! This tweet gained 8 total engagements and 269 impressions. I think I had a great idea and a great image to grab users attention, however I did not use efficient hashtags at all. I missed a large audience without hashtagging things such as #newyorkers, #sushi or #lunch. I also definitely should have tagged the sushi place, @Bondi, in hopes that they would see my tweet and like or even retweet it to their page.

This was one of my favorite tweets that I thought I would have gotten some engagement on. However, it only gained 6 total engagements and 197 impressions, but no likes, comments or retweets. While creating this post I wanted to highlight a large and well known area in Wegmans. I love cheese, as per my twitter bio (most likely indulging in a cheese board.) So I thought that by showing a popular section of Wegmans that a lot of people pass and think that they have never seen so many types of cheeses and connecting my interests to the tweet, that it would be successful. Clearly, I did not execute this post in the best way, considering most of my followers saw it. Wegmans in Syracuse is something that my followers relate with because most of them are college students who shop there every week. Looking back now, I feel that I could have made the tweet more relatable to them with scenarios like going shopping as a busy college student or trying to be on a college budget. I thought that tagging Wegmans was enough, but because of my low following and their high following, there was no way I was going to get much engagement with that.

—

Shifting to Instagram, I found that I had a lot better success with my Instagram posts as I had a larger following. I am more comfortable using Instagram so I feel that I was able to generate better content on a platform that I use way more in my life. I made a separate profile for this class and started with 0 followers. Currently, at the end of this class I have 44 followers.

This was the first post I made on my new account for this class. I wanted to choose a picture that would grab peoples attention and something that would tell my followers about my personality and interests. This picture of me paragliding in Switzerland represents that I am fun, adventurous, love to travel and clearly not afraid of heights! This post was one of my most engaged ones receiving 10 likes and 3 comments. What worked best with this post was the unique picture and my relevant hashtag, #studyabroad. A lot of college kids, have gone abroad and use that hashtags to see posts about the best places to go and around that time, juniors were deciding where to go. I wanted to place that picture in the study abroad feed.

My other most liked and engaged post was this one from the Mercato della Boqueria in Barcelona Spain, where I studied abroad for 4 months. I chose to post this picture because it contains a shocking amount of candy, presented beautifully with brought colors. Even though the assignment asked to use filters, the filters were not even needed! With this post, the hashtags worked great with gaining me likes and comments. General hashtags with over thousands of posts such as #instagood and #throwback, placed this image in a pool of other great photos. However, I think that this post stood out because of its bright colors. This post received 10 likes and 3 comments.

—

Linked In is one of my favorite social platforms these days. As I worked in Public Relations for two summers, I learned that Linked In is such a great way to push out important content or announcements. This past summer I worked on American Express through a PR agency. We worked on the announcement of the new refreshed Green Card. When I received this assignment I wanted to make sure that I was keeping my Linked in profile consistent with my line of work and my industry. I made sure to tag American Express and I shared their latest video introducing the new card to the community. I also have hopes that one day I will work at the American Express office. I thought that by posting this, I would receive likes from some of my American Express connections and I did. I also got some extra kudos from my agency in slack for promoting a client! This post received 10 likes.

View post on imgur.com

 

I am so glad that with this class I was able to bring in Twitter as another platform in my life again. I now know how to create content that people will see and engage with. I plan on keeping my Twitter profile after this class ends to further grow my following and keep up on current news in and out of my industry. I have learned that Twitter is such a great way for me share what I want the world to know and another way besides Linked In to connect and network with other people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leave a Reply