Personal Influence Growth and Analysis

Posted on by Sarah Heikkinen

When I first started this Social Media Theory & Practice class back in January, I had only one benchmark goal in mind…more followers on Twitter. I’m happy to say that over the course of this semester, I’ve gained 58 followers, growing from 345 to 403. Maybe I’m not a big influencer on Twitter (yet), but according to Twitter Analytics, I’m gaining an average of one follower per day.

As far as my influence across platforms besides Twitter, I’ve seen my Klout score increase by almost 15 points. As of right now, I have both my Twitter and Instagram accounts connected in Klout; right now, my Facebook profile is not one that I feel the need to be measuring, since it is an entirely personal and private account (friends and family).

In terms of what I’ve been doing differently on Twitter since starting this class, I’ve noticed that I pay closer attention to the conversations influential people in my desired career field (journalism) are having. Whenever I feel it’s appropriate, I’ll join those conversations, and I’ve definitely gotten some engagement with high-profile (and verified!) people on Twitter (i.e. Terron Moore, Maya Kosoff, Anthony Fantano, and Parker Molloy). I did a few #FollowFridays, but only really found success in the first one I tried…I didn’t get the people I tagged to follow me (besides Maya Kosoff, who had already been following me), but they all responded with a friendly emoji and a “Thank you!” of some kind. To me, that’s success.

To really see how I’ve grown as a Twitter user since #NHsmtp became such a big part of my life as a student and tweeter, I’ve curated my top ten Tweets that include that very hashtag, arranged by month.

January

Impressions: 805 | Engagements: 33 | Engagement Rate: 4.1%

This Twitter assignment was my first time using the popular hashtag, #FollowFriday. I’ll admit, I was a bit skeptical about using it, because I’ve always worried that using trending tags like this would somehow compromise my Twitter identity, but any worries I had were wiped away after I tweeted this out. Like I mentioned before, each person responded with a “Thanks!” of some kind, which was really nice, even if they didn’t all follow me back.

Impressions: 213 | Engagements: 16 | Engagement Rate: 7.5%

I really enjoyed this particular Twitter assignment, because I was able to share something I was very passionate about–local activism. I had covered the monumental protest at the Syracuse Airport on January 29, so I jumped at the chance to be able to exhibit how interesting protest signs are as a form of communicating people’s opinions. I had already received a decent amount of attention on my profile the night before, since I’d been live-tweeting the protest, so I wasn’t actually surprised when this tweet didn’t do as well as those from the previous night. According to Twitter Analytics, people clicked on my photos 13 times, which isn’t the highest number, but it’s definitely a start.

February

Impressions: 447 | Engagements: 13 | Engagement Rate: 2.9%

After President Trump and his administration started to propose ideas for rolling back on protections for transgender children in schools, I, along with a great number of people on Twitter, was very angry. I came across a Twitter Moment that explained what was going on, and I wanted to share it with my followers, who were also incensed at this development. However, I wanted to make sure that my personal voice was going to shine through, which is why I decided to go with the Bernie Sanders gif. I think that the gif added a small touch of humor to a serious situation, which can be necessary when dealing with these changing times on social media.

Impressions: 219 | Engagements: 9 | Engagement Rate: 4.1%

Beyoncé. Puppies. Need I say more? Everyone went crazy when they saw the Queen Bey’s Instagram post announcing that she was expecting twins. One of my favorite takes on this announcement (which some said was a bit much, but very typical of Yoncé) was this puppy-themed post, which had a cute dog imitate her floral dream of a pregnancy announcement. I didn’t get as much engagement on this one as I have in past tweets, but a lesson I took from this tweet was how important it is to stay engaged if you’re going to be reacting to these celebrity events, and not to leave your response too late.

March

Impressions: 197 | Engagements: 22 | Engagement Rate: 11.2%

I always love the chance to promote my friends and colleagues on social media, so I jumped at the chance to give Brianna Williams a shout-out for her great work on one of our blog assignments. Brianna made her video about what people’s favorite slang terms are, and whether they know where those words came from. Mine, of course, was “fam.” I had a lot of fun working with Brianna for this video, and I was happy to see that my Tweet and accompanying picture about it got a few likes.

Impressions: 300 | Engagements: 5 | Engagement Rate: 1.7%

March was the month of me trying to get some interactions with different people on Twitter–specifically, I wanted to get some engagement with successful writers. This tweet, which mentions now-famous writer Lauren Duca and one of my favorite publications, Teen Vogue, didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. I didn’t get any engagement from Duca herself (which is to be expected, because she has over 200,000 followers and a very busy schedule), but I did get a couple likes and a retweet. Since March, I’ve gained about 20 followers, so I do wonder if this kind of tweet would perform better now, or if its just lacking in performance because Duca didn’t respond.

Impressions: 596 | Engagements: 832 | Engagement Rate: 139.6%

Another conversation starter with a verified account! I’ve been following Anthony Fantano (aka, The Needle Drop), since 2012. He’s a music reviewer based on YouTube, known for his long, well thought-out reviews and hilarious Twitter. Also, and this part really gets me, he’s following me back! He’s also been following me since 2012, but we don’t really interact too much. After watching his latest review at the time, I sent out this tweet and was really surprised at how much engagement I got from it. This is absolutely due to the fact that he quote-tweeted me, which led to some of his 220,000 followers going onto my page and liking this tweet.

April

Impressions: 289 | Engagements: 36 | Engagement Rate: 12.%

Everyone was talking about the tone-deaf Kendall Jenner ad Pepsi put out at the beginning of the month, so I couldn’t resist becoming a part of that conversation…but in a more comical way. I wanted to play around with Twitter polls for class, and this seemed like the perfect way to do it–a joke poll. I thought it was pretty funny that the respondents voted for different 10’s, but there was one problem…I did get a response from someone who didn’t get the joke. Next time I go for sarcasm and humor, I’m going to try and make it a little clearer…or maybe I won’t. Not everybody will respond the same way to comedy, so it may not be smart, as a jokester writer, to modify my sense of humor to make sure it appeals to everyone.

Impressions: 262 | Engagements: 37 | Engagement Rate: 14.1%

This particular week’s assignment, which was to Tweet something positive about yourself, was a bit harder for me than the others, but I’m very happy with what I ended up doing. I always want to make it clear to my followers that I will be very open about my own struggles with anxiety and depression, and this thread felt like the right way to do that. I was overwhelmed with the nice replies I got from my friends, which only further confirmed that I feel safe sharing this part of my life with my Twitter followers.

Impressions: 208 | Engagements: 35 | Engagement Rate: 16.8%

I always want to promote the things that I’ve been accomplishing here at Newhouse, so sharing a photo of 360 Magazine, the campus publication I led this semester, seemed like a smart thing to do. I think that adding a photo of the magazine’s cover was a smart move, because I ended up getting a decent number of clicks on the actual photo, and to my profile.

This class has taught me how to be professional on Twitter without sacrificing my voice and personality. I’ve learned a great deal about what it means to successfully use Twitter for both work and play, and how to successfully optimize my Twitter content to increase my follower count, get more people on my profile, and meet people in my field. I hope that everything I’ve learned over the course of this semester will continue to translate into how I operate my Twitter, and maybe one day, I’ll finally break 1,000 and get that little blue check next to my name!

 

Leave a Reply