My Journey to Becoming a Social Media ~Influencer~

Posted on by Madison Ahern

Throughout this course, my Twitter follower growth and engagement have come a long way. I started off the course with 0 followers and ended up gaining 19 throughout the semester. The first step I took was auditing and editing my profile to make it more professional and engaging. I changed my profile photo to a more professional picture of myself and changed my Twitter handle because it originally contained random numbers. I tagged @NewhouseSU in my bio, because this is my key organization. I added a location, Syracuse, NY, hid my birthday year and also opened up my DMs.

To increase my network, I first followed and engaged with the other students in this course. This was a great starting point because these are individuals that I have connected with in real life and they share similar interests.

A technique that worked for me was using hashtags to engage relevant communities. I used Tweetdeck to monitor trending topics and hashtags. Another technique that helped increase my tweet engagement was using rich media with both photos and videos. I learned that engagement increases when posting about timely and relevant content. I learned to target people that aren’t celebrities to achieve a greater engagement. In addition, I began to use relevant emojis to the content of my tweets to draw people to my tweets.

The first tweet in this thread was one of my top tweets with 216 impressions and 12 total engagements (Twitter Analytics). The poll encouraged individuals to interact with the tweet by choosing whether they prefer Starbucks or Dunkin. By tagging the @Starbucks handle and using the hashtag #CoffeeLover, it helped reach relevant communities, such as those that are coffee lovers. I used an emoji of a coffee cup to increase engagement, which I learned in this course.

The second tweet in this thread was also one of my top tweets with 229 impressions and 12 total engagements (Twitter Analytics). I used rich media, a visual of a Google Trend graph with the data of both Starbucks and Dunkin, which definitely worked.

To execute this tweet, I used a trending hashtag that I found on Tweetdeck, which was #WednesdayMotivation. This tweet was on of my top tweets with 139 impressions and 2 total engagements (Twitter Analytics). I shared a positive piece of “stock” content, which was about a general topic that could be published on that day and a month from that date. I scheduled this tweet using Tweetdeck to be posted at 11 AM when others would be looking for positive content to motivate them on a Wednesday morning. This tweet included a deep like to an article on Nytimes.com, which was about “7 Podcasts for a Healthier Mind and Body”. The content of this article was relevant to the hashtag because it contains information about getting yourself in better physical and emotional shape.

In executing this quote tweet, I tagged the @syracuseabroad handle to reach and engage with the SU abroad community. The tweet from the @syracuseabroad account stated that the Florence campus was closing for the semester and that our abroad students were returning home. I used a personal tone along with a heart emoji to be real and show that I was sincere. This post gained 1,278 impressions and 25 total engagements (Twitter Analytics). I used the hashtag #SafetyFirst because the Florence campus was closing for the safety of our Syracuse students.

In this post, I included a deep link to my blog post on the class WordPress to not only engage my Twitter audience, but also promote my blog post. This tweet was successful with 893 impressions and 18 total engagements (Twitter Analytics). I used an engaging tagline to draw viewers in and encourage them to click on the deep link to read my blog post. I used the hashtag #offensivememes, which was a popular hashtag being used to discuss this topic.

In this post I engaged with a Newhouse alum and not only tagged her handle but also the @NewhouseSU handle because this is a key organization that we have in common. I used the hashtag #ContentFuel because it is the title of the book she published and to engage others that are talking about this content. In this post I used a personal tone because I wanted to be sincere and real when engaging with this Newhouse alum. This post earned 424 impressions and 18 total engagements (Twitter Analytics). In addition, @mdeziel responded to this tweet, which was a huge success.

In this tweet, I engaged with one of my classmates, Danielle Holm. I used an important hashtag around this movement/event #NotAgainSU. I also tagged @SyracuseU to reach the Syracuse community. This post earned 748 impressions and 16 total engagements (Twitter Analytics).

In this post, I used a trending topic that I found on Tweetdeck, which was the unfortunate death of a Rapper named Pop Smoke. I was using a technique learned in class, to post timely and relevant content. I including a trending hashtag around this news event, which was #rippopsmoke. I also included a deep link to an article that discussed the details around his death to further engage. This tweet earned 310 impressions and 2 total engagements (Twitter Analytics).

In this post I used rich media, in the form of a Twitter collage. I used a picture of the old Planter’s brand ambassador and a picture of their new brand ambassador. I used the trending hashtag #BabyNut to engage with those that were also discussing the brand’s new ambassador. With 305 impressions and 6 total engagements (Twitter Analytics), this was one of my top tweets. One technique I could’ve used to further increase this engagement was tag the brand in this post.

In order to engage with individuals around the Oscars, I used a trending hashtag, #Oscars2020 and tagged @LeoDiCaprio. This was not my best tweet, but it was still one of my top posts achieving 289 impressions and 1 total engagement (Twitter Analytics). To increase my engagement on this tweet, I could’ve included rich media with a photo of the actor.

Throughout this semester, I have learned numerous techniques to increase engagement on various platforms, an important one being Twitter. I never knew the power of a hashtag or the power of rich media. I will continue to execute these techniques on my personal platforms and will apply them in my future career.

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