Influencer Growth and Analysis

Posted on by Jake Zeidman

Walking into class the first day I said in my mind that my goal for the semester was to feel more comfortable using social media. I was new to Twitter and not really an avid user on Instagram either prior to taking this class. This semester, I grew in many different ways in the social media community. When I started this class, I had 1 follower on Twitter and I now have 25 followers, a 2400% percent growth throughout the semester. That is tremendous growth for me as I never really tweeted prior to this class.

There were many tactics I found that helped promote my tweets as well as many things that did not help increase my influence over the semester. The first strategy I found that worked was utilizing another form of media in my tweets. Whether it was a photo, meme, video, or link I found that additional media made my tweets more engaging and appealing to a wider audience. In general, I found that more people engaged with my multimedia tweets rather than the tweets with just words. I thought that was the fact because the multimedia tweets weren’t as boring and often shared additional knowledge to the Twitter community. Another strategy that worked was using hashtags. Using more widely used hashtags allowed me to engage with a wider Twitter audience and often brought my tweets into new communities. In addition, hashtags allowed my tweets to become more relatable and for my tweets to engage with a popular topic of the day that others were often debating. The final positive strategy that I utilized was to appeal to my audience when tweeting. Many of my active followers are sports fans or members of the Syracuse community, so I tried to engage with topics that they were following. When I posted about topics related to school or sports trends, I often saw greater engagement rates than my unrelated tweets. One of my downfalls was not seeing this trend earlier in the semester. I believe if I would have geared my tweets directly to this audience throughout the entire semester, I could have increased my overall follower total and really developed a niche audience. On the other hand, there were definitely ways I could have done better on the Twitter platform. I believe that I should have directly engaged more with other people’s specific tweets rather than the overall topic to show that I wanted to be directly a part of a specific conversation. Rather than just scrolling past the topic, I should have come out of my comfort zone and commented on their tweet or quote tweeted them to engage more with that audience. In addition, I could have done better by live tweeting during big events and tagging my audience directly in my tweets. Looking back this could have also allowed for better engagement rates and made me more relevant as an information sharer. Overall, there were ups and downs throughout the semester, but I feel that I was able to set the foundation for myself on Twitter throughout the course of the semester.

 

And now what you have all been waiting for…. My top posts of the semester.

This tweet was for sure my most successful tweet over the semester. It had 677 impressions and 11 engagements, which resulted in a 6% engagement rate. I believe there is a variety of reasons for that. It was a relatable and popular topic that my audience was interested in and it gave me the opportunity to add my voice directly into the issue. In addition, I used a trending hashtag in my community which allowed my tweet to reach a greater audience which added to my success for this tweet. Overall, I didn’t let my voice overshadow the original tweet which I believe was crucial to my success for this tweet as well.

I was really excited about getting to tweet about a sports event happening during the COVID-19 quarantine. It specifically had 337 impressions and 29 engagements, which resulted in a 6% engagement rate. I feel I was successful in this tweet because I was able to inform my audience about a niche sports event during the stay at home orders. My simple wording and commentary allowed the media and new uniforms to stand out directly in this tweet and not distract the viewers from the classic uniforms. In addition,  I was able to achieve 2 likes on this post from my avid sports audience as well on this tweet.

Continuing with the COVID-19 tweets I also took it to Twitter to seek Netflix recommendations. This specific tweet had 326 impressions and 116 engagements, which resulted in a 35.6% engagement rate. This was my strongest tweet by far in terms of engagement. I thought this tweet engaged my audience the most throughout the semester because I was asking for feedback on their end. Not only was it a funny and relatable tweet for college students, I also directly tagged Netflix to try to engage the entire Twitter community. In addition, I got a bit nervous on this tweet because I didn’t know what type of feedback I would receive; however, I was excited to see my audience engage with my content.

Another tweet that did well in terms of engagements was my tweet congratulating Syracuse’s food services department on their great use of technology. This tweet had 319 impressions and 16 engagements, which resulted in a 5% engagement rate. The factual evidence shared in this tweet allowed me to showcase alternative social media platforms being utilized in real life. Looking back, I believe I could have gotten more engagements if I would have directly tagged SU food services, but I was still able to engage the Syracuse campus community by sharing this knowledge with my follower base.

I even had success this semester when I was engaging directly with my top Twitter follower. This type of tweet had 286 impressions and 17 engagements, which resulted in a 9% engagement rate. By sharing Mychael’s article, I got to stay on top of trends with U.S. senators, but also further promoted her content. My use of hashtags and tags really allowed me to have success with this tweet. I was able to reach audiences following blood donations, the Red Cross, and COVID-19 followers all in one tweet which allowed me to achieve a high number of impressions.

Staying on top of national trends was quite successful for me as well. My Kobe remembrance tweet got 250 impressions and 5 engagements, which resulted in a 2% engagement rate. This tweets popularity is attributed to the trending nature of Kobe Bryant passing away and also the fact that I engaged the MSG audience. I learned that keeping on top of national trends and trending Twitter topics is a great way to boost viewership. The content of this tweet really showed what NY was doing to remember Kobe. That made my tweet emotional in nature which helped boost engagement.

This tweet not only did well because it documented what I was watching on a Saturday night, but also due to the topic of relevancy. The tweet got 240 impressions and 42 engagements, which resulted in almost a 20% engagement rate. It was successful because I was able to engage with a topic that many people were talking about, The Together at Home concert and its great fundraising efforts for COVID-19 victims. I’m glad that I was able to chime in on the conversation as well as give my audience a glimpse at topics that I am passionate about at the same time.

I also had success with sharing trends that were occurring in the XFL. This tweet specifically got 237 impressions and 23 engagements, resulting in a 7% engagement rate. Specifically, this tweet allowed me to ask my audience if they were still engaged with the XFL while also being able to show my audience what the public thought about the topic. I think that I achieved great engagement rates because I was able to engage with popular hashtags, topics that my audience was interested in and by sharing a graph with my audience. The graph definitely made my tweet much less bland than a common tweet with only words and allowed my audience to actually visualize what was going on with the XFL in terms of user engagement.

Engaging in cross promotion was definitely a success for me as well. When cross promoting my Instagram on Twitter I got 225 impressions and 18 engagements, which resulted in a 8% engagement rate. Cross promoting allowed for me to gain 3 new Instagram followers who followed my Twitter, but not my Instagram. I think the line “never miss a moment” was key to this success. It allowed me to show my loyal follower base that they can see content from me on multiple platforms and gave them a direct link to my Instagram. Overall, this post allowed me to further engage my audience and gave me an opportunity to engage that audience on a different social platform.

Lastly, my tweet promoting my first blog post was highly successful. It received 226 impressions and 6 engagements, resulting in a 2.65% engagement rate. It fared well in terms of being able to bring my Twitter audience to a more professional blog post where my audience could really see my writing, I feel the topic of memes, relatable to what college students often search for, was a reason for the number of impressions that I had. Including the class hashtag was also helpful as it drove my classmates directly to the link here they could also learn about relevant content. What I’ve learned throughout analyzing all my posts throughout the semester is that I should have added more hashtags to this tweet to relate to a broader audience, but I was still satisfied with my engagements received.

Overall, after analyzing my tweets, I feel that I have executed the strategies successfully that we have learned throughout the semester. I’ve not only grown as a social media influencer, I now also feel comfortable engaging with my audience on social platforms. Overall, I am pleased with my improvement and now have a professional platform which I can utilize in the future.

 

One thought on “Influencer Growth and Analysis”

  1. Jake,

    I really enjoyed reading about your influencer growth journey. I was the same way; when I decided to enroll in this class, I was very new to Twitter and wanted to learn the best ways to grow my following. It’s crazy that you grew from 1 to 25 followers, and I’m sure it will only go up from here! I agree that it’s helpful to appeal to your audience when tweeting, whoever that may be. I noticed when I tweeted memes about college life, or even about missing my dogs, I got way more engagement than when I tweeted about more personal experiences or things for different classes. I looked through your Twitter account and think you did a good job of mixing up your content, from pictures, to quote tweets, to regular tweets, and you had great use of hashtags, something I definitely could have used more of.

Leave a Reply