Of GIFS and Memes: My Growth as a Social Media Influencer

Posted on by Bridget Hallinan

Part 1: Influence

At the beginning of this semester, I wasn’t using my social media accounts very effectively — they were purely channels for me to communicate with my friends and look at funny memes. However, after taking this class, I think I’ve leveraged my profiles efficiently and made the most out of my influence, utilizing tools such as GIFs, pictures, and videos to increase my engagement. For example, my Twitter following increased from 211 to 246 after a 3-month period (a 16.5% growth), helped by me actually engaging with influencer accounts and my peers instead of just reading their tweets. I even got a Food Network star, Josh Denny of Ginormous Food, to follow me back after I tweeted about fellow network personality Guy Fieri. And my Klout score, which started out at 10, now fluctuates anywhere from 57 to 64 (470%-540% growth) — showing a vast improvement in my influence across platforms. As I previously said, I think by making more media rich content (as opposed to plain text tweets and Facebook posts), I’ve made my posts much more desirable to engage with. I used to rely pretty heavily on hashtags, but even with those, I wouldn’t pay attention to what was trending — I would just make up my own. And I wouldn’t try to connect with any influencers, or mention them. My posts were all text, almost exclusively either replies or random thoughts that I would have. Now, every time I make a post, I try to strategize about how I can optimize the views. I find a germane trending hashtag (or hashtags), a funny GIF or meme to accompany it, and tag relevant industry professionals to make it more visually appealing and efficient.

Part 2: Execution

My Twitter account influence definitely grew the most over this semester. With my added 35 new followers and constant use of GIFs, my tweets have gotten far more clicks and favorites than in the past, and I’m excited to see the engagement continue to grow. I’ve gathered my top 10 tweets, ranging from late January to early April, to show just how effective strategic influencer tags and rich media are:

This first tweet was published during the early stage of class when we were experimenting with scheduled tweets via Tweetdeck. It got 6 likes, 282 impressions, and 15 total engagements. I hadn’t really considered GIFs or images to add to the copy, and in hindsight, I definitely should have, as it probably would have gotten a lot more impressions and at least a few more likes. However, at this point in class, I had already recognized that my tweets get more engagement at night, so my choice to tweet at 8 pm was strategic and definitely paid off with the likes.

This tweet was my first time using Twitter’s video cam, and I wanted to combine the class assignment with my love of food to try and make a Tasty-style instructional video. It performed quite well, garnering 6 likes, 315 impressions, 122 media views, and 36 total engagements (more than double the amount of the previous tweet). I definitely should have used more hashtags and tagged some foodie influencers to up my engagement. But, I think the timing of the tweet and the video content were a great way to catch my follower’s attention, and it showed me how much better media-rich tweets perform than plain text ones.

For our Followerwonk assignment, I decided to capitalize on the fact that my followers were mostly fellow Newhouse students who stay up late on social media (and likely procrastinate). I added a punny hashtag, and used a popular Devil Wears Prada GIF to make a joke about the content. This tweet got 373 impressions, 4 likes, 83 media views, and 13 total engagements. I should have tagged Newhouse in this tweet instead of just writing out the name, and that probably would have gotten me more likes and engagement. But the use of the GIF and the timing definitely helped my impressions.

This tweet was from an assignment that had us post about a trending topic, and I chose #ThisisUs, since the TV show blows up on social media each Tuesday. With 598 impressions, 2 likes, 161 media views and 18 total engagements, this tweet was one of the most viewed posts I’d published so far. By using the hashtag, article link, and well-known (and relevant) crying GIF of Will Ferrell from Anchorman, I definitely provided a lot for my followers to engage with, and that’s why it performed so well.

Over the past three months, this tweet was my second most successful — I got a favorite and a retweet from Cafe Kubal, and I think that retweet especially helped me get a wide audience. It got 1,077 impressions, 8 likes, 169 media views, and 32 total engagements. The strategic tagging of Cafe Kubal, along with my original hashtag and “unique” (read: bizarre) GIF, made it really engaging, which explains why it got over double the amount of impressions of my other tweets. Though, if I’m being honest, I think the GIF was really what made this tweet. I know I’m addicted to caffeine as much as the next student, so the monstrous facial expression is extremely relatable, and probably brought in most of the likes.

I used the popular ICYMI (in case you missed it) hashtag to comment on our men’s basketball team beating Duke in a buzzer beater game, and also used a lot of relevant hashtags to try and up my engagement. This, coupled with a picture I took at the game, brought in 287 impressions, 2 likes, 10 media engagements and 16 total engagements. If I had used a GIF instead of a picture, I probably would have gotten more engagement, which my previous tweets prove. I also should have tried tagging the men’s basketball account and the official Carrier Dome account to see if I could get a retweet from them, and therefore more impressions.

Though this tweet wasn’t for class, it performed really well — I tweeted it soon after Drake released his new “More Life” album with lyrics from “Passionfruit.” I wanted to accompany it with a dancing GIF, so I picked this adorable one of baby Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy in the hopes of getting my followers’ attention. And it definitely paid off with 449 impressions, 8 likes and 2 retweets, 134 media views and 33 total engagements. I think using #Drake, #passionfruit, and #MoreLife hashtags (or whatever other Drake-related trending hashtags were popular at the time) could definitely have increased my engagement, as would publishing the tweet at a later time. Otherwise, I think this was a fairly successful tweet — it got the most retweets out of any of my top tweets.

This tweet is yet another example of me trying to combine my love for food journalism with my Twitter assignments. We had to say something nice about ourselves, so I decided to toot my baking horn and showcase some delicious Nutella cookies I made over spring break. The cookies brought in 277 impressions, 6 likes, 21 media engagements and 32 total engagements. I only used the hashtag “eats” in addition to our class hashtag, and I really should have tried to use more relevant trending food ones in order to get more views. Also, tagging influencer accounts could have added to my impressions and engagements.

This tweet was from my Viral Content Challenge, when I was trying to promote my Game of Thrones meme. This Webcard was the focus of my ad campaign, and I used #GOT7 (in reference to the upcoming new season) to try and draw in engagement, though I probably could have used a few more. It got a total of 972 impressions, 1 retweet and like, and 87 total engagements. I think the Webcard definitely drew engagement because it enticed users to click on the link so they could see the full meme. As aforementioned, I probably should have used more hashtags, but I think the short, readable copy and timing of the tweet definitely made it appealing.

For my last top tweet, I picked a fairly recent one from an in-class assignment we did two weeks ago. I took a screenshot of a picture I edited on Instagram and tagged both the filter I used as well as Newhouse and our class hashtag. It got 358 impressions, 8 likes, 31 media engagements and 46 total engagements — the most total engagements I’d gotten outside of my meme campaign. I could have mentioned Newhouse as well as tagged it, but otherwise, I think I did a great job promoting this tweet.

Overall, this class has taught me the importance of making your posts as media-rich as possible, regardless of platform. That, combined with targeting influential users and using strategic timing, hashtags, and images, is a surefire way to increase engagement and make the most out of your social media influence. I know I still have a lot to learn with social media, but this class has definitely opened my eyes on how to be a professional, efficient user.

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