My Journey to Becoming a Social Media Influencer Told Through 10 Tweets

Posted on by Cory Fernandez

Part 1: Influence

Throughout the duration of this course, I’ve noticed a substantial amount of growth, not only in terms of my influence on social media, but also in regard to my understanding of different social media platforms and tools. One of the most apparent forms of evidence of this growth is my increase in followers on Twitter. At the beginning of the semester, I had 88 followers on Twitter and today, I have about 175. I think that this 87 follower increase (98.86 %) can be explained in several different ways. One of my first sources for followers was the class network. My classmates followed me and I followed back and so this accounted for part of the increase. I also think that part of my follower growth comes from the fact that I follow very specific and niche Twitter accounts that compliment my major as well as the things I am passionate about (food, cooking, pop culture). I think that because I tweet about very particular things, such as certain TV shows, accounts related to that topic and people who are also passionate about the topic sometimes follow me.

Something that also stood out to me is the change in my Klout score. What is interesting is that my Klout score actually went down since the beginning of the semester. It started as a 32 and went to a 28. At first, I was somewhat confused as to this decrease because I feel that, if anything, I tweet more often than I used to and try to include more engaging media components such as GIFs and images.

I think that what might explain the decrease is consistency. I think that posting on a regular basis is important this is something that I could have done more and would have worked well. Sometimes I would post my tweets early around the same time and other times I would post later than usual which might throw off engagement. Something that might also not have worked as well is following many accounts and not necessarily getting a follow back. Sometimes, I would get a single follow for every few accounts I would follow and I think that this might affect engagement with my social media because whether or not I get a follow back may impact who sees my tweets. In terms of things that I think worked really well, using things like images, GIFs, links, connections to other social media accounts, and tagging other accounts really helped spark engagement. I find that most of my tweets with these components typically have the highest engagement.

Part 2: Execution

Throughout the semester, I composed many tweets. Some received very little engagement, while others encountered a number of likes and retweets. Below are 10 of my most successful tweets:Of all my tweets throughout the semester, I found that one of most successful tweets is one that was posted very early on in the semester on January 20:

10. In this post, I tagged three other Twitter account that I not only love but also that I believe are part of my professional brand and industry. I have worked at out campus food magazine, Baked, for almost three years and so food writing is a large part of my professional experience. Also, I not only used the class hashtag, but I also used to the #FollowFriday as a way to encourage others to follow accounts related to what I am passionate about and to create engagement. I also used a funny GIF to make the tweet more engaging. It received about 2 likes, 1 retweet, and within that retweet, there was a comment that used #socialmedia and tagged an influencer in the food writing industry by the name of Eric Gillin (also an alum).

9. Another one of my successful tweets is one in which I was to reflect the voice of someone I admire, which in this case would be Andy Cohen. I tweeted about The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and used the appropriate hashtag along with the class hashtag and #Voice. This one received 2 likes, which I assuming are from people who are also fans of the the show.

8. In this tweet, I used Twitter video along with a humorous tweet and the class hashtag. I also think the reason this tweet has higher engagement and 2 likes, is because the video and tweet both present a topic that audience members can relate to, especially members of the Syracuse University community. The weather here can be unpredictable and at some point, a lot of us have probably stepped outside without the proper attire for the weather. I also learned that video is a component that can really boost engagement because it shows followers what your experiences are like.

7. In this tweet, I created a twitter list that was relevant to a particular brand and industry that I follow and tweet about. The list consisted of accounts of famous reality television stars and used a cropped screenshot of the list. In the tweet, I also tagged famous reality TV star, Nene Leakes, included the link to the list and used the class hashtag. I found that using the link helps with engagement as well as making lists that are specific to a particular industry to people like. Overall, it received 2 likes.

6. In this tweet, I was supposed to focus on a person who is influential in my industry. I wrote a tweet giving praise to Entertainment Weekly‘s Oscar coverage. I tagged the Entertainment Weekly twitter account, used #Oscars2017, the class hashtag, and tagged the Twitter account of Henry Goldblatt, the editor of Entertainment Weekly. I also used a GIF with Emma Stone who was nominated in the Oscars. I think this tweet did well because it used hashtags, a GIF and tagged someone who is influential not only in my industry but in the topic that the tweet was about. This tweet received 2 likes, one of which was from Goldblatt himself.

5. As part of this tweet, I used photos to make a collage in Twitter. These were photos from the Fall semester, in which I went to 1911 Cider House as part of my capstone assignment. In this tweet, I also used the class hashtag, an emoji, and tagged the 1911 Twitter account. This tweet received 3 likes. I think that what I learned is that posting about things that relate to the community around as a whole help with engagement. Sunshine in Syracuse does not come often and doesn’t really stay for very long and so I think this is something that helped with engagement.

4. In this tweet, I  used FollowerWonk to see how I could relate to my followers. I think that although in this post I tweet more about my followers rather that tweeting something related to their characteristics, it was still successful because I used a sense of humor. I used the class hashtag and this tweet received 3 likes. I learned that humor can go along way in producing engagement on social media.

3. This tweet was a poll I created that was inspired by one of my favorite TV shows, America’s Next Top Model. In this tweet, I tagged the shows returning host, Tyra Banks, used #ANTM, the class hashtag, and made a poll the asked followers to choose which judge from the show they liked best. The poll got nine votes and 2 likes. I think that writing tweets the relate to what your followers watch on television as well as writing tweets that are timely help with engagement as well.

2. I this tweet, I also used Twitter video, but I included a couple different segments. The video shows me buying sweets from a vending machine with a very sarcastic tweet and the class hashtag. I think this is another example of how humor can help with engagement. This tweet got five likes. The sarcasm along with the different segments used in the video I think help make it funny. Overall, however, video seems to be something that increases engagement considerably as does humor.

1. In this tweet, I used Tweetdeck to find a hashtag that was trending on Twitter at the time. The hashtag “WhiteHouseScentedCandles was trending and so I created a tweet related to it, used the hashtag itself, and linked to an article from The Huffington Post. I also used the class hashtag and made up my own scent. This tweet got four likes and two retweets, which I feel like is one of if not the most engagement I got in all of my tweets with the class hashtag. Through this tweet I learned that I using Tweetdeck to find a trending hashtag is helpful because it is what people are talking about Twitter making them more likely to engage when it is tweeted about. Also, humor is used in this tweet along with a GIF, which also help bring in engagement.

I think that of all of the resources and platforms that helped transform me as a social media influencer this semester, Twitter was probably the most prominent. Aside from the fact that most of our homework assignments involved using Twitter, I also feel as though because Twitter has so many abilities, such as using hasthags, GIFS, video, collage, Analytics, and Ads, there are so many different ways to engage with many unique kinds of people. These are all things that I used in my tweets as well as other assignments for class. Tweetdeck was also a helpful resource because not only does it help organize your posts, it helps you find what it trending on Twitter, both of I which I think are helpful for anyone that may go on to take on a position where tweeting is necessary. Learning how to make a meme and a GIF I think are also helpful because they are both things that are incredibly popular in social media today and so being able to create that type of content, which overall increases engagement, is essential.

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