Steps in the Right Direction

Posted on by Brigid Daly

Part 1: Influence

Overall, I am happy with the growth of my social influence over the course of this semester. I came into this class never having used Twitter, so my account started with 0 followers. I am finishing the class with 13 followers, making my percentage of growth over the course of the semester 100%. My Klout score started at 13 and increased to 27. I found over the course of the semester that interacting with influencers and utilizing Twitter Ads to promote my content were my most successful strategies. Because I had so few followers, I had to use the influence of others to increase my personal influence. When I tweeted at Amy Jo Martin who has 1.1 million followers on Twitter, my post’s impressions skyrocketed and I gained several followers. My promoted Twitter Ad during the Viral Content Challenge was also seen by thousands of people, a few of which followed me. These two posts were some of my biggest success stories when looking back on how I was able to increase my followers and Klout score.

I definitely think there were posts that would have been more effective had I utilized viral hashtags to draw in a larger audience. I did see higher engagement with posts that included rich media instead of being just text based. People seemed to be more attracted to content with an image or gif tied to it. I think combining rich media with the trending hashtags was a strategy I should have turned to more often.

Part 2: Execution

Top 10 Posts:

  1. Target an Influential Person- This tweet was my biggest success of the semester. Not only did it gain 4 retweets and 15 likes, it also received over 10,000 impression and 198 engagements. These numbers far outweigh the engagement my other posts were able to generate. Amy Jo Martin, a very influential woman in sports and social media, interacted with the post herself, retweeting it to her 1.1 million followers. This taught me that you don’t have to have a massive following for your post to be seen by thousands, you just have to catch the eye of one person and then benefit from their influence. In this case, interacting with one person was more effective in bringing in people than the hashtags I included in the post.

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2) Viral Content Challenge Promoted Tweet- For this tweet I paid for a $5 Twitter Ad and received 1,200 impressions and 57 engagements. I used the skill of creating a webcard which included a link to my meme on Imgur, so not only did this post create engagement on Twitter but also on Imgur. I tried using trending hashtags such as #AprilFoolsDay since this tweet was published on April 2nd. I thought this post would generate more engagement on its own since Anthony Davis was trending at the time and I used his hashtags, however it only generated 180 organic impressions showing how helpful paying for promoted content was.

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3) Apply an Engaging Filter- For this post I tried to highlight one of my spring break photos using a filter which made the lighting in it more vibrant. This was the first time I ever used hashtags in an Instagram caption, and I found that the ones I used brought people who didn’t follow my account to this post. I think when people are traveling they consult social platforms, making my #Ireland, as well as the location tagging of a tourist attraction, effective in bringing people to my picture. While it only received 3 likes, I was happy with the engagement it received since I was using a testing account with very few followers.

4) Share a Photo Using #springbreak- I posted this homework assignment to my real Instagram account, and it was my most successful post ever. I temporarily took myself of private mode, and saw the hashtag bringing in an audience that didn’t follow me. It made me realize that I may need to share more things publicly in order to gain more social influence. I think my public Twitter account is a start, but this made me consider making my Instagram a place where I can express myself more publicly as well. I wish I included a hashtag like #Guinness since I was at the Guinness Factory, as I am sure that is a frequently searched topic.

Everyone here spells my name right!!! #NHsmc #springbreak

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5) Create a Post Using Google Trends- For this post I used Google Trends to compare the words Syracuse and Georgetown between 2004 and the present. I chose to do this because of the Syracuse/Georgetown rivalry. I thought my fellow Syracuse students and alumni would find this post to be humorous, and hoped to draw them to my post through #NHsmc and #Syracuse. While the impression of this post was only 177 people, I was successful in getting 10 engagements from members of the audience I was hoping to bring in with my hashtags. This post was also helpful to me because I learned a new skill by using Google Trends for the first time.

6) Create a Piece of Stock Content- While I forgot to include the class hashtag on this post, I thought it was one of the posts I learned from the most. On both the mobile and online platforms, I was happy with how this post was displayed. I tried to incorporate the use of emojis, having hands pointing down at each image, and use filters to highlight the colors in each picture. I was unfamiliar with the concept of stock content before this course, and thought that this was a good first attempt at creating something that can be shared annually. Twitter analytics shows this post received 177 impressions and 4 engagements which is lower than I thought it would be. Next time I will try to use more hashtags like #Spring or #GoOrange to bring in more people. I also think next time it would be better to take the pictures from the same angle.

7) Emulate the Voice of Someone You Admire on Twitter- For this post I turned to one of my favorite TV characters Donna Meagle from Parks and Rec. Her character is very active and funny on social media, and the actress who plays her, Retta, is just the same in real life. Retta is very into live tweeting and #treatyoself, so when my roommate made fun of me for eating ice cream before dinner, I knew this was a perfect voice tweet. I added the ice cream emoji and some hashtags, and also tweeted at Retta’s account. While this didn’t see too much engagement, I was my first post in the class featured by Professor Grygiel, and the first time I showed personality on my Twitter account, so I would consider it a successful post.

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8) Post a Photo of Social Media IRL- This post was my first of the class, so I was honestly unsure how to go about it. My lacrosse team was having a fundraiser that night at Chipotle, and I noticed that handing out physical flyers was almost like inviting people to a Facebook event the old fashioned way. I took a picture of my teammate handing her friend a flyer and called the post “A Facebook event IRL”. I tried to get a few different angles of the exchange happening, and think it turned out well for me not having learned much about photography yet. You can see everything without having to open the picture, I just wish the lighting was better. For my first post on this account I thought I received a good amount of impressions and engagement.

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9) Rich Media Zuckerberg Tweet- I created this tweet during Zuckerberg’s hearing. I followed the hearing on TweetDeck, and tried to tweet about an aspect of the hearing that I didn’t see being discussed. I thought the line of questioning regarding Facebook’s impact on the opioid crisis and the pirated movie industry was extremely interesting. I decided to take the picture on my laptop screen because the lighting on the projector was making for poor quality photos. I was surprised with the amount of impressions and engagement this post received. I think that it helped that I chose to point out something I hadn’t seen mentioned by others using the #Zuckerberg hashtag. If I were to do this again, I think I would have taken a short video of his response rather than using a still photo.

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10) Instagram Post with Trending Emoji- For this post I used the trending dark moon emoji to caption a picture it took. The picture was taken as the sun set in Ireland so I thought the emoji would be fitting. I didn’t put a filer on the image because I thought that may take away from the beauty of the natural colors. This post helped me to gain 2 followers, but I think it would have been even more successful had I used more hashtags.

🌚 #NHsmc

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