Part I: Influence
On August 29thmy Twitter followers started at 55 followers. On November 28thI had gained 21 new followers. My follower base is now at 76 followers with a percentage of growth of 38.18%.
Techniques that worked for increasing my influence and network:
Overall, according to Twitter Analytics, my tweets between August 29thand November 28thearned me 12.3K impressions over the 90 day period of the class. My top tweets were all over a five week span of August 31stthrough October 4thwhen the class started to shift gears to Instagram, with the exception of the Periscope Heartbeat Challenge post in late October and my Twitter webcard tweet in early November. In order to increase my influence and network, I started following people I knew that I wasn’t already following, and I targeted specific influencers and started to engage with them. I noticed that if I attempted to engage with influencers, their fanbase would engage with and follow me as well, even if the particular influencer I was targeting didn’t respond. I also drafted my tweets with a specific audience in mind. I analyzed my audience and the content that would appeal to them: I targeted tweets about my hometown as most of my followers from Los Angeles might be homesick due to being at college, I also targeted my content towards the entertainment industry which is a topic most of my followers are interested in, I also posted a lot of dog content because my audience are primarily dog lovers, and lastly I targeted my posts towards a college demographic specifically college seniors. I also would mention and target posts toward people already in my network with a large following, which helped me gain followers, engagements, and impressions immensely. Rich media also was a big help. I noticed that attaching rich media to posts helped immensely for more engagement on content.
Techniques that did not work for increasing my influence and network:
I noticed that not attaching hashtags and not tagging companies, influencers, or followers in a post did not work to my advantage. Whenever I posted content with rich media, hashtags, and mentions, my content got far more engagements and impressions. I also noticed that posting on Twitter after the classwork shifted from Twitter to Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook, my impression numbers went down with the exception of my promoted tweet for the viral content challenge. But, I did notice that my engagement went up from early October when posting in November, but the engagement was not as high in number as the engagements in August through early October. I thought it was really interesting that my top tweet in November was not my viral content challenge tweet, it was a tweet pertaining to aiding the fires in California. I also thought it was interesting that my promoted tweet made it into the top 10 tweets, and my top November tweet did not due to the fact that it didn’t have a high enough engagement rate due to an enormous spike in impressions versus engagements. The California fire tweet did get quite a few engagements, but not as many as my Twitter webcard tweet. I also never got more than two replies, and I never got above two retweets.
Part II: Execution
1.
Check out my insta account for more awesome pics by the talented @marcellov98 📸https://t.co/yjwmhYM7lA #NHsmc pic.twitter.com/bD1nyOveeL
— Autumn Witz (@AutumnWitz) September 27, 2018
This was my post with the highest total engagements of 82 and is my most liked post at 9 favorites. This was my Twitter assignment on cross promotion. I was promoting my Instagram account on Twitter. I crafted this tweet very strategically. I involved my friend Marcello from Corsica who is a photographer. He has a huge following back home and is starting to gain traction in America as he has photographed multiple social media influencers. I sometimes do photoshoots with him in Los Angeles, and his photos are the majority of my photo base on Instagram. Marcello also has a substantial following on Twitter as well. By not only promoting my Instagram account, I promoted Marcello’s Instagram and Twitter accounts. He retweeted and commented on my tweet, which caused my Twitter and Instagram to gain traction. I gained 3 followers on Twitter due to this post, and 5 followers on Twitter due to this post as well. Most of the followers I gained are from France, which expanded my network internationally. I also included four photos in a Twitter photo grid that are on my Instagram, that Marcello took. This goes to show rich media, mentions, and cross promotion do work!
2.
What it's really like being a senior in college #senioritis #nhsmc #university #college #school
— Autumn Witz (@AutumnWitz) November 5, 2018
This was my promoted Tweet. I drafted this tweet to create a webcard, attached the Imgur link to the webcard, and promoted it on Twitter Ads. My targeted audience was at college students as well as dog lovers. I crafted the hashtags in the post strategically towards this audience as well as the follower look alikes to reach a broad audience of college students worldwide. I could have crafted my hashtags a bit better to be more inclusive of the dog loving targeted audience. I received 27 organic engagements, which is towards the medium low end of the scale for me on a regular basis. Combined with the 16 promoted engagements, this would be a normal post for me. This is one of the most retweeted of my tweets, and there were the most link clicks of any content I have posted even without the promoted clicks. I think that my engagement and impression counts went down due to the lack of posting on Twitter because of assignments shifting towards Instagram. Technically this tweet would have been my most successful tweet if the promoted portion of engagements and impressions were factored in to the engagement rate percentage.
3.
I wore @madelainepetsch ‘s sunglasses all summer! They compliment red hair so well 💕 which pair should I buy from the collection next?? #NHsmc pic.twitter.com/h6xyNIXI5k
— Autumn Witz (@AutumnWitz) September 7, 2018
This was my top tweet of September. This was also the most profile clicks I have received from a Twitter post. I also got the most followers of the semester after this tweet was dropped, some of which being verified influencers, most of whom were comic book writers. This makes sense because I was targeting Madelaine Petsch on Twitter, one of the stars of Archie Comics’ Riverdale. I was targeting Madelaine because she is one of my favorite actresses, she makes my favorite sunglasses, we look alike, she has interacted with me before on Instagram, and is friends with one of my best friends. I thought there would be a chance she might engage with me on Twitter. Alas, she did not, but I did receive this tweet as being the one with the most impressions at 787 and the second highest engagements at 75. I included the photo I did with this tweet as rich media because the sunglasses are from her sunglasses line. Madelaine has also taken similar photos to the one I am posing for in the post, and I was mimicking her style.
4.
In real life social media is all around us we just have to know where to look! #NHsmc pic.twitter.com/zm5bjP3fsi
— Autumn Witz (@AutumnWitz) September 1, 2018
Although this tweet has a high engagement rate, the impressions and engagements were low for me. This was one of my top tweets, but it just goes to show that hashtags and tags are so important to gain engagements and impressions. I found this call board in the drama department and realized this was real life social media, so I posted for the IRL social media assignment! Although this was the first day of September, this was listed as August’s top media tweet on Twitter Analytics.
5.
Yeno that one kid that fell at graduation? 🎓 #NHsmc pic.twitter.com/rzCmZsZA25
— Autumn Witz (@AutumnWitz) September 13, 2018
This was the tweet a GIF assignment, but I decided to create my own via GIPHY. This is actual footage of me falling at my high school graduation. The GIF I created is only a portion of a longer video that went viral on Facebook in 2015, so I decided to bring it back since I’m graduating this semester. This post goes to show that the hilarity of graduation falls still endure as time goes on. Some of my friends from high school that I haven’t talked to in a long time reached out via Twitter messenger about this post. The media views I received on this post are the most on any gif or video I have posted this semester at 203 views. This post has one of the most replies of all my posts this semester. This was also the top media tweet of September for me. I also targeted this tweet to a college audience. I could have utilized more hashtags such as #tbt as well.
6.
#followfriday ! : @BluebirdBrew my fav place to hang with friends, @Stanleys83 where everything on the menu is and always will be perfection, and @dh_foodcritic for the best reviews around
Check out this list for more LA food:https://t.co/bdAGCW2kRh#NHsmc @AnthonyBriers pic.twitter.com/2pLVipzLC9
— Autumn Witz (@AutumnWitz) September 28, 2018
This post didn’t get as many engagements and impressions as I would have liked. I created my first Twitter list and added restaurants in my hometown and food critics in my hometown for the #FollowFriday post, included rich media in the form of a photo of my friend Anthony eating In n Out, the classic LA meal. I tagged Anthony for two reasons:
- He has a large following on Twitter.
- He is from Belfast, so he has a foreign audience that may be interested in learning more about places in Los Angeles as their culture loves the city of Angels.
I targeted the restaurants in the list because they are both small and family owned hoping that they would reach out and reply. I also targeted the food critic tagged in this post because he usually engages with my posts, but not this one for some reason!
7.
#periscopechallenge on @jmgrygiel ‘s account in COM 427!! @IAmChrisVogt @AnnaMRelle @TheEMStewart @gtvolturo #Nhsmc pic.twitter.com/jDDdV7za2q
— Autumn Witz (@AutumnWitz) October 29, 2018
At this point in the semester my Twitter engagement was really dying. But, I think that what really helped this post was that I posted within our hashtag network, tagged five people, one of which is a verified influencer (Professor Grygiel), and I included a key hashtag as well as rich media, and it was close to Halloween, so the face paint helped. This is a lower number of engagements and impressions for me, although this was my top media tweet for November!
8.
After seeing The @DisasterArtist 10 times, I was finally inspired to see The Room! @thisisweber thank you for bringing the making of to life. I've never laughed so hard! #NewhouseNetwork #NHsmc
— Autumn Witz (@AutumnWitz) October 4, 2018
This assignment was to target a Newhouse Alumni micro influencer. I saw some of my classmates reaching out to Mr. Weber, so I clicked on his profile and found out he was the writer of The Disaster Artist! One of my favorite movies! I had to reach out. Tagging him and using the Newhouse hashtag was really helpful because this targeted two parts of my audience: college students as well as the entertainment industry. @thisisweber actually liked my tweet and replied! This contributed to a high number of profile clicks for me. This was also my top tweet for October, and my best performing tweet without rich media.
9.
Myself in a nutshell @jmgrygiel :
I’m obsessed with my dog, Indy 🐶
His favorite toys are dinosaurs 🦖#NHsmc pic.twitter.com/CzsR56bcnc— Autumn Witz (@AutumnWitz) August 31, 2018
This is my second most liked post. I was targeting the dog lover part of my audience, but if I were to redo this tweet, I would add some hashtags and even mention a dog Twitter account handle to gain more attraction to my post. This was my first post for this class as well, which I think helped because everybody in the class started following and “cyber stalking” everyone. I think that it helped that I posted a rich media photo of my dog as well as tagging Professor Grygiel who is Twitter verified. I got a couple followers after this post as well. It was my top post in August.
10.
Check out my favorites spots in my hometown in: ⚡️ “Los Angeles: A Guide” #NHsmc https://t.co/e1dykYJh5C
— Autumn Witz (@AutumnWitz) September 11, 2018
This tweet made it up on the class lecture slides! Besides my viral content challenge webcard, this post got the second most link clicks. In this post I crafted my first Twitter Moments post. I targeted the content of the post towards a Los Angeles based audience, those that would want to move there, or people that would want to visit Los Angeles. This is my third most liked post as well.
Overall, I am happy with my Twitter growth. I did not go viral, but maybe one day. I certainly have the tools to. I grew my audience by 38.18%, gained 21 followers, know how to measure engagements and impressions, use key hashtags, mention handles, and target content to specific audiences in order to gain a larger network as well as more engagements and impressions per post. My network is continually growing and expanding, and my work after COM 427 does not end!