Influencer Growth and Analysis

Posted on by Clare Toner

Part 1:

Taking COM 427: Social Media for Influencers redefined the way I looked at social media. Despite being an avid social media user in my personal life, I had never thought about utilizing it to enhance my professional life. In my past internships and other professional experiences, I tweeted using the organization or company I was employed by’s Twitter but never worked toward building my own voice online.

Before taking COM 427, I did not have a Twitter. Learning how to tweet effectively and efficiently was an especially beneficial part of the course for me. When I began the course, I had zero followers on Twitter. Now, I have twenty-nine. At first, most of my followers were my classmates but over time, my profile began to get noticed by other Syracuse students. I gained my followers relatively steadily throughout the semester, with 5 new followers in January, 10 in February, 10 in March, and 4 in April.

My main takeaway from this course is the importance of learning to establish your own voice on social media, staying yourself but also keeping things professional. This definitely contributed to the overall success of my tweets. When I first began tweeting, my tone was very serious in comparison to my personal social media accounts. Over time, as I became more comfortable on the platform, my tweets became much more ‘Clare.’

I also noticed that the use of hashtags greatly influenced the number of favorites or replies my tweets received. On my personal social media, I hardly ever use hashtags. So, in this course, becoming more hashtag-savvy was definitely a big step for me.

Part 2:

Top Tweets

Even though it did not receive the most likes, my tweet about Google’s ad in the Superbowl received the most impressions and engagements. This tweet had 295 impressions and 5 total engagements. This is likely because of the relevance of the tweet. After the SuperBowl, Google’s ad had emotions running high and received lots of traction on social media. However, after taking this course in full, I definitely would have added more hashtags to gain even more impressions and engagements with people from outside my network. This tweet was also the first time I experimented with emoji usage.

My tweet promoting the blog post I wrote on memes also proved to be one of my most successful. In total, this tweet had 258 impressions and 4 impressions. I think this is because it can be exciting to read what your followers have written beyond Twitter and, in this case, my followers seem to agree! I also used the hashtag #memes, which is relatively generic and likely searched many times a day.

My video tweet followed closely behind with 235 impressions and 18 engagements. Like I mentioned earlier, my tweets had a bit of a serious undertone when I first began using the platform. This was the first tweet in which I broke free from that and used my own voice, which to me seems like that was why it was especially successful on my Twitter.

My tweet promoting my Instagram received 229 impressions and 10 engagements. Similar to the last tweet, this tweet was written in a tone that is very much indicative of my voice. This tweet was also worded very casually in comparison to my tweets prior. In this tweet and others, my followers seemed to be much more receptive to casual tweets than rigidly worded, serious tweets.

My tweet about President Obama’s favorite music of 2019 playlist was one of my earliest successes. In total, the tweet received 210 impressions and 5 engagements. I think this is likely because President Obama is so loved, especially in the Twitter-verse. Bringing back old content–especially content that was widely popular when it was first released–proved to be very successful for me. I made it even more relevant using the hashtag #juice, referencing Lizzo’s recently popular song ‘Juice.’ But again, looking at the tweet now, I would love to add other timeless hashtags to increase the impressions and engagements even more.

My tweet about Eminem’s Oscar performance received 281 impressions and 2 engagements. For someone like me, who doesn’t particularly enjoy watching the Oscars because I am not a movie buff, Eminem’s performance really spiced up the night. I wanted to bring that energy onto Twitter to see who else enjoyed the rapper’s surprise appearance.

My tweet about the Syracuse v. Duke game received 249 impressions and 4 engagements. I think this tweet likely stuck out to my followers because many are Syracuse students themselves. This was just before the classically popular Syracuse v. Duke game and played into the rivalry between the two schools. I even used hashtags like #goorange and #beatduke to attract the attention of Syracuse fans, or even duke haters (we all know they exist), outside my network.

My tweet about Mary Cain was a topic I feel very passionate about. As a female runner, Mary Cain’s words really stuck out to me. Many of my followers are my teammates from high school and college, so this tweet received lots of support and engagement from them. In total, this tweet had 240 impressions and 8 engagements. I think that it did not reach a wide audience due to my Twitter following at the time, but those who saw it enjoyed it, understood it, resonated with it and wanted to engage with it. I also used a simple, understated emoji to show support for Mary Cain and her words.

I really enjoyed this letter from Secretary of State under Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright and decided that I wanted it to be one of the first things I tweeted about on my professional account. As an international relations major, I wanted to keep content relevant to things I am interested in and want to pass along to others. This tweet received 220 impressions and 5 engagements. Because it was when I was first getting started on Twitter, my hashtag and emoji usage was nonexistent. But this tweet was still able to spread the information, and one of my friends from home even reached out to me to tell me she enjoyed reading the article!

My first tweet received lots of love from my classmates. Despite not being the most exciting content, the tweet had 187 impressions and 5 engagements. I think this was mostly because people were excited about my start on Twitter but I also managed to tag @SyracuseU even though I knew absolutely nothing about social media at this time!

One thought on “Influencer Growth and Analysis”

  1. Hey Clare,

    I really liked your post! Clearly shows how much your profile has grown over the past semester. Really great to be in class with you!

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