Personal Growth & Influence: My Semester With Social Media

Posted on by Nicholas McGowan

Twitter, up until recently, was more of any annoying tool utilized by my journalism professors to teach me about the ever changing media market.  Now, it’s a platform where I express ideas, obtain information and promote my own personal brand.  My semester has cumlinated into the blossoming of my social media presence.  I now know what Periscope is, how to properly utilize filters and that a “Finsta” is a very real thing.

I began the semester with a measly 99 followers.  My Klout score was 20 and my knowledge of Twitter was that of a novice.  As I write on my personal growth, I have now amassed 173 Twitter followers, good enough for a 74% jump.  My Klout score has almost doubled as it sits at 37 and my viral meme approaches ever closer to 500 views.  I have learned the very basics of social media, now able to gloat on my résumé that I know what Sysomos is.

Seeing as how I came relatively close to doubling my followers, it is important to look back at where I went right and where I went wrong.  Looking back, a large majority of my tweets lacked that universal hashtag.  My tweets at times lacked that je ne sais quoi, that “it” factor used to up engagement.  My tweets had potential, but I failed to capitalize on that very thing.  One of the beginning assignments was to reach out to an influencer, to reach out to someone with pull in the industry and looking back I could have been more aggressive.  It does not hurt to tweet at 20 people or even just a few but I stuck with the the required one post.  The opportunities to expand my network were there, but I failed to put quality ahead of speed in certain instances.  In terms of areas that I succeed in, I feel that the tweets that excelled best appealed to the largest possible audience.  My sneakers GIF tweet performed well, as did my picture of macaroni and cheese.  For one they were both things that people wanted to see.  No one saw the build up of my sneaker collection before and tweeting out a picture of food at night is sure to draw eyeballs.  These subtle bits of information, timing and content, really make a difference when looking back.  Generating content that has appeal to my followers was another strategy that worked well.  Universal appeal is critical to success and some of my tweets hit the nail on the head.  Here are some of my more successful tweets, in order of when they were posted.

  1. Retweeted by myself, this tweet had 750 impressions, 137 media views and 80 total engagements.  Among that was 9 profile clicks.  This video tweet was on the spot and showcased the the newsroom here in Newhouse.  A fun tweet to execute and it worked well amongst my followers.

2) Drawing a classroom shoutout, the tweet 272 impressions, 74 media views and 24 engagements.  Thought it would do a little better after the class discussion but certainly appealing from a visual standpoint.  For my first GIF, eye-catching to say the least.

3) Playing off the words of Drake, the view from this tweet saw 219 impressions and 24 engagements.  Stuck with the sneaker theme and it seemed to work pretty well.  Utilizing the Twitter camera, I let the pictures do the talking.

4) Really baffled by how well this tweet preformed.  Thought I did well to bring in a popular TV show in American Ninja Warrior and the results showed that.  290 impressions, 30 engagements and 10 profile clicks, I’ll take it.

5) I was on local TV talking about how Mike Hopkins was leaving Syracuse to go to Washington.  Sad day in Syracuse, but this tweet had 302 viewers (impressions, I went for TV joke) and 66 engagements.  Only tweet not using the NHsmc hashtag.

6) My first Twitter poll and it drew 16 votes.  Thought the question posed would attract a large audience and I believe it reasonably well compared to some other polls.  214 impressions and 30 engagements, most surprised as I was able to draw a reply.

7) Thought that capitalizing on the #TBT would help this tweet take off, but it kind of sank.  Not that my dogs are not adorable but I was hoping for more than 209 impressions and 21 engagements.  Perhaps my dogs needed to be even smaller, puppies always work well it seems.

8) Came across this monstrosity and had to tweet about it.  Able to gather 269 impressions and 49 engagements.  Including @InsideBates had to help with those numbers.  A tweet that was not for a particular assignment but did well nonetheless.

9) Dinner time on a Tuesday night, almost every college kid loves and lives off of mac and cheese.  Did well to use Followerwonk to establish that most of my followers were in college.  Performing well on snapchat as well, this tweet had 224 impressions and 46 engagements.  Fire.

10) Not the most impressive numbers but I love this tweet.  The assignment was to construct a tweet with emojis and I did that by capitalizing off of a popular song.  Turning the lyrics into emojis worked well and I even texted my friend to throw it a like.  That drew 3 more likes and 177 impressions.  Only 9 engagements but I thought this tweet really showcased how just one like can catapult something to virality.

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