Personal Influence and Growth in #NHSMC

Posted on by Chloe Citron

By Chloe Citron

Part 1: INFLUENCE

Over the course of the semester, I gained about 50 Twitter followers, which to me was a big accomplishment. I started with 182 followers and have ended the semester with 230. This change is about a 21% follower growth. I went from having this old Twitter account that I used to joke around with in middle school to making my account into something I can use for networking and showcasing my achievements. I was skeptical about the influence and popularity of Twitter before starting this class, but now I am hooked. As soon as I started tweeting again, I received about 10-15 new followers. Many of the new followers were other students in the class, although I slowly gained more followers as I occasionally tweeted with different trending hashtags. One of my tweets was retweeted by the account HQ Trivia in the middle of the semester on March 7, 2018, and I gained about seven new followers after the retweet. This tweet included the class hashtag, #nhsmc, which allowed different people in the class to interact with the tweet easily. This tweet was just text though and may have done better if I attached an image as well. My media rich tweets seemed to do the best, as people tend to respond well to visuals because they are easy to understand and share. On March 24, 2018, I attended the March for Our Lives in Syracuse and tweeted a thread of pictures of different signs made by others attending the march. The original tweet gained almost 2,000 likes and over 100,000 impressions. This was my most successful tweet to date, although it did not include the class hashtag.  Additionally, over the 81 day period I used Twitter in this class, from January 17, 2018, to April 18, 2018, my Tweets collectively gained 222,300 impressions, 246 link clicks, 336 retweets and about 2,300 likes. Overall, I think my time tweeting for this class was very successful and I am planning to continue using Twitter to expand my influence and professional network.

My Klout score increased throughout the semester as well. It originally started as 40, which I was pleased with because that the average score according to the website. When I checked last, my score had risen to 48 which makes me above average. Over the last 90 days that my score was tracked, the highest my score reached was 57.28 and the lowest my score dropped was 42.88. The more I use my social networking channels and interact with others online, the higher my score went. My Klout chart spiked the most when my tweets were successful, which makes sense because that is the time I received a lot of engagement from the online community. I am unsure the influence my Instagram interactions have on my overall score though, because I tend to use Instagram the most out of any of my social channels, although the percentage next to the Instagram logo in my Klout metrics is 0. Most of my influence seems to stem from Twitter, at 79% and the other 21% comes from my activity on Facebook.  I like to think that I have a strong influence within my personal circle, as I typically receive 350+ likes on most of my Instagram posts and have hundreds of views on my tweets. My Klout score definitely reflects the influence I have on social media within my online network, slightly above average.

It is not as easy as one might think to increase your network on social media. Over the course of three months, I gained about 50 followers on Twitter which is a substantial amount, but those followers did not pour in at once. When I tweeted something interesting with hashtags that related to a specific group of people, I would occasionally receive a follow or two. Although, tweeting with a trending hashtag did not always get me followers or even likes on my tweet. Something that I personally think is funny and will do well does not always translate to my Twitter audience/the general public. One thing that did work for me was following new accounts that related to the same subject area. For example, I followed thre public relations news accounts and I got two new followers almost instantly; one was a public relations news reporter from one of the publications and another was a fellow public relations student. I found that most of the time, when I would gain a new follower it was because we shared a common interest, which makes sense. I would not want to follow someone who does not post about things I am interested in. It is hard to say exactly what worked for me and what didn’t because sometimes things that worked in the past did not when I tried again, although overall when I interacted with people online who had the same interests as me, I often received followers and expanded my influence. It definitely did not work to just tweet something without any rich media or any hashtags. The tweets that were just plain text got little to no likes or attention from my followers and other Twitter users.

 

Part 2: EXECUTION

For this post, I found the image of Professor Grygiel on CBSN talking about the Zuckerberg testimony while the show was going on live. This allowed me to catch the attention of viewers in a timely manner. I also captured one of her quotes about the testimony to provide context to the picture. This post was very successful because of my use of rich media, hashtags and tagging. For this post, I gained 10 likes, 1,286 impressions, 51 total engagements: 15 media engagement and 11 profile clicks. I think I was able to achieve so many impressions because I tagged @jmgrygiel, a verified twitter user with a large following. She retweeted my tweet which increased my outreach for this post as well. Tagging relevant accounts in my tweet got me more attention because it was broadcasted to the followers of those accounts as well.

 

Many people on Twitter were making jokes about the Zuckerberg testimony and the way that Mark Zuckerberg was acting, as he is often considered to be a very impersonal figure. Although I did not necessarily agree with Zuckerberg acting like a robot,  I tried to capitalize on that joke finding a gif of him acting like a robot. This tweet did well because it was well timed, included rich media and had relevant hashtags. It was hard to figure out exactly which hashtags to use during the testimony because there were a few different ones that were trending, such as #Zuckerberg, #ZuckerbergTestimony and #Zuckerbergmememes. I chose to use #Zuckerberg because it was the most general and fit into the content that I had already written. I found that it was very effective to use hashtags that already fit into sentences I wrote because it appears more natural than adding them at the end, which spikes engagement. This tweet gained 4 likes, 323 impressions, 10 engagements and 55 media views. Using gifs became very effective in my tweets because people respond well to gifs that they agree with or relate to.

I love Refinery 29 and I think they do a really great job at discussing political and current issues in a way that is easy for younger people to understand and relate to. For class, we had to share something that would make a difference. This assignment lined up with Equal Pay Day, a day dedicated to closing the gender pay gap. This article from Refinery 29 did a great job at explaining the gap and why it sill exists. I shared this article to help inform more people about the day and why it is important. This tweet gained 348 impressions, 3 likes, 20 engagements, 3 link clicks and 5 hashtag clicks. By including a link with rich media, it made it more likely that people would click on the actual link and using the #EqualPayDay hashtag it ensured that people following the trends about the day would see my tweet as well.

 

This tweet was an assignment for class as well in which a group of five had to go live on periscope and tweet out the live video. We did a coffee taste test for our live video which made it easy to pull in a decent amount of relevant hashtags and accounts to tag. For my group I tweeted out the link to our video with the hashtags  #coffee and #tastetest, two very general hashtags that people often tweet about. I also tagged the accounts of the different coffee brands we taste tested, which likely increased my outreach. Tagging these relevant accounts expanded the possibility that more people would see this tweet, something I found to be an effective strategy throughout using Twitter. For this tweet, I gained 673 impressions, 15 media views, 3 likes, 67 total engagements and 21 link clicks. Although 21 link clicks does not sound like a lot, I was surprised that that many people were interested in seeing random girls taste coffee and to me that number is high.

This tweet does not have the class hashtag, but I included it in this summary because it was my most successful tweet to date. I went to the Syracuse March for Our Lives and took so many pictures and found that this was my most powerful, so I tweeted it out. I simply included the hashtag #MarchForOurLives as the caption, as it was trending because of the various marches going on around the country. Almost right away, I received hundreds of likes and tens of retweets on my post because of the timeliness and the power of the picture. This post gained  142,000 impressions, 4,110 engagements, 1,762 media engagements and 303 retweets. I personally was not expecting this tweet to do so well, as I did not believe that it was an unreal picture, although I was overjoyed by the success of this tweet as it gained much more attention than I believed it would at all.

 

Teen Vogue Editor in Chief, Philip Picardi, came to talk to Syracuse students about his career track and his new platform, them. He had many inspiring quotes throughout the talk, although the one I included in the caption was my favorite. I also included a picture of him speaking, to attract more attention from my followers. I found that tweets with rich media preformed much better than those without pictures generally on Twitter. I tagged Philip Picardi, Newhouse and them in my tweet to appeal to the followers of all of those accounts. This post gained 233 impressions and 13 total engagements. While this was not my most successful tweet, it still gained a couple hundred impressions which is successful to me.

 

For this tweet, I found an article from Wired about how you can keep yourself safe and update your privacy settings on Facebook so that you are aware of where your data was being shared. This article was very timely because it was around the time that the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, so many people were worried about their privacy and data settings on Facebook. I hashtagged #Facebook to encourage people who were interested in the current news about the platform to view my tweet. I also hashtagged #privacymatters because it was a trending hashtag at the time and I wanted to expand my influence to the most users possible. I found that tweeting with a trending hashtag often gained me more impressions than when I did not use a trending hashtag. This tweet gained 556 impressions, 12 engagements and 5 profile clicks.

In our social media class, we played HQ Trivia as a class in an attempt to win through a teamwork strategy. Unfortunately, we all got out on the fourth question because someone screamed out that the wrong answer was the correct one so everyone chose it. I documented this phenomenon in a tweet and tagged @hqtrivia and hashtagged #HQTrivia as well to potentially gain the accounts impression. The account saw my tweet and quote tweeted it, which gave my original tweet a large following. I gained 47,520 impressions, 7,211 engagements, 6210 detail expands and 496 profile clicks. This was one of my most successful tweets of the semester. I also hashtagged #theresalwaysnexttime in an attempt to be witty and make a joke about the event. This tweet also gained a lot of replies because it was very relatable to other people who also play HQ Trivia, as a similar thing has likely happened to all of them.

 

For this tweet, I was trying to capitalize on the Syracuse community and the upcoming snowstorm. I found a gif of Angelica from the Nickelodeon show “Rugrats” being angry, as it was likely that despite the large amount of snow, Syracuse University would not cancel classes. I used the hashtag #notfair to further express my sentiments and included the snowflake emoji as well to gain more following. This tweet got a decent amount of attention from other Syracuse students who shared my opinions about the snow and Syracuse’s class cancelation policy. This tweet gained 215 impressions, 43 media views and 11 total engagements.

This tweet was a class assignment promoting my Twitter moment, “December #EEEEEATS.” My list was a mix of pictures of things I personally ate and pictures of things I wish I ate at different New York City restaurants. I used the hashtag #EEEEEATS to promote the food because that is a common foodie hashtag. This tweet gained 551 impressions, 42 total engagements and 21 link clicks. I was happy about the number of clicks I got on my link because that means a decent number of people viewed my list.

For this post, we had to introduce ourself on Twitter with something interesting about ourselves. I saw the musical Hamilton over winter break and snapped this picture of the sign above the theatre and the surrounding lights. I tagged the Hamilton account to increase the possible interactions with my tweet from people who follow the account. This tweet for 420 impressions, 26 total engagements and 10 media engagements. This was one of my first tweets on my account so it is natural that it would have a lower number of impressions and engagements than my other tweets.

Although my Instagram test account did not have as many followers as my Twitter, I still gained a decent amount of interaction on my posts. For this post, we were assigned in class to use a trending emoji, so I used the red heart as both a hashtag and in my caption. I snapped a picture of my dinner from the Syracuse restaurant Original Grain and tagged the restaurant’s Instagram handle to appeal to their followers. I also hashtagged #food, #poke and #dinner so that people who were interested in these topics would be able to discover my post as well. Instagram does not have the same analytics as Twitter, so I was not able to see the number of people who viewed my post, but 10 likes was a lot for my test account, considering I only have about 50 followers on the account.

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