I came into this semester fairly new to and not extremely comfortable with Twitter. I created a brand new Twitter account with zero followers and a Klout score of 1 so I could measure my growth from a blank starting point. For those who do not know, a Klout score is a score between 1 and 100 (the higher the better) that reflects how influential a user is on all of their social networks by taking several variables into account, including followers, engagements on posts, etc.. I was able to increase my Klout score (only account attached was Twitter) and my follower base through trial and error of several techniques learned in and outside of class.
In an attempt to initially grow my follower base, I followed around 20 accounts that were suggested based on my email and other information. This resulted in my follower base growing by 13 within 2 days of creating the account from follow-backs. This increase in followers brought my Klout score up to a 10. Another technique that consistently worked well was including widely used and/or trending weekday hashtags in my tweets. For example, on Monday, September 21, 2015, I tweeted out a New York Times article (below) and included the hashtag #MotivationMonday.
Don Pellmann, at 100, Is Still Breaking Records http://t.co/VmetkCsVVr via @nytimes #motivationmonday #NHsmc
— Emily Muscarella (@enmuscarella) September 21, 2015
This tweet received a total of 5 engagements–2 of which were hashtag clicks–and resulted in 3 follows (according to my Twitter notifications). On September 22, my Klout score increased to 14.82.
Tweeting about events using the event hashtag also helped increase my influence. One event I tweeted about that notably increased my influence was News Engagement Day. My tweets surrounding that event received some of the most impressions and highest engagement rates of any of my tweets this semester. These tweets brought my Klout score up to a 23.34, my 90-day high. Tweeting out different content (i.e. links, photos, etc.) also increased engagement on the tweet and on my profile.
Unfortuantely, not all of my attempts to become more influential and grow my network were successful. For example, only tagging the handle of an account with a large follower base did not lead to any new follows or increase in Klout. I think this technique could have been more successful if I had included a relevant hashtag as well because while I did get some engagement on these tweets, I think more users would have seen the tweet (and hopefully engaged) if I had included a hashtag.
I also tweeted out content that span across several different subject areas. Each subject area only received one to three tweets, which was an attempt to gain followers from the follower bases of various subject areas. Doing this was not as successful as I had hoped because while I did get a significant amount of profile clicks from these tweets, not many resulted in follows. I think if the content I tweeted had been more focused on a few specific topics versus a wide range, I would have received more follows from users who are interested in those topics after viewing my profile and reading some other tweets.
Ultimately, I ended with 31 followers and a 90-day high Klout score of 23.34. If I were to do this again, I would definitely follow more people initially to try to get as many follow backs as possible. I would also tweet about events or anything trending more often using trending hashtags because those tweets are where I got the most engagements.