Takeaways from a Semester in #NHsmc

Posted on by Kennedy Patlan

This entire semester has been one filled with many social media lessons and perspectives. I really enjoyed developing my social media accounts in a way that allowed me to curate content based upon specific topics. These assignments gave me permission to develop my own flair and voice. I was able to identify how I saw my own social presence, and created an authentic voice as a result. By doing this, I got to see how my followers responded to me being well, me. Follow me, as I reflect on some of my best Twitter and Insta posts this semester.

Twitter:

1) When That Refund Check Gets Approved….

 

 

484 Impressions, 150 Media Views, 85 Total Engagements: This tweet was created a part of our original gif assignment.  To be completely honest, I struggled with figuring out how to make a gif that would be relevant to my personal profile. Relevance is something we’ve learned to acknowledge and appreciate through this course. Later, I got an email that notified me of my refund check’s arrival. Somehow, I hadn’t collected money from the past four years and managed to collect a cumulative check. Needless to say, I was ecstatic. My happiness over this became the source of inspiration for my gif. I searched through some of my old videos and found this gem of me dancing during RA training.

My audience is comprised of so many young adults and college students who have similar financial situations as me. As a result, we all know what an awesome feeling it is to get money BACK. This gif is also really silly and goofy for me compared to my usual content. I think the post compelled my followers to respond with love, based upon the tweet’s relevance and a tweet that was different from my usual content.

2) Promoting the Impact Prize 

652 Impressions, 97 Media Views, 56 Total Engagements: As an Engagement Scholar for the Blackstone LaunchPad this year, I worked to help the office promote its first-ever Impact Prize. This tweet was created to help promote the competition’s kick-off. I thought that it was interesting that my second best performing post, like my first, included a media file. I feel like this showcases the ways that media posts can be more compelling for users to engage with. I also think that this tweet performed well because of the ways that social media platforms can be sources of support. A lot of my followers had been able to see how hard I worked on the Impact Prize, and I think they used engagement as a way of showing support for my work. I also think using relevant hashtags and mentioning specific organizations gave me more impressions and welcomed new audiences onto my profile.

 

PS- Check your thumbnails before posting so you don’t end up looking as uncomfortable as I do!

 

3) #PatlanPerspectives

419 Impressions, 27 Total Engagements: Again, I think my third most engaging tweet came from followers supporting what I was doing. This seems to be a common thread across my most engaged tweets. Here, I was essentially tackling two assignments at once: I wanted the American Advertising Federation to know that I was really passionate about joining their Most Promising Multicultural Students Class of 2018. But I also wanted to use this tweet as a way to develop a new hashtag (for #NHsmc) that was relevant to who I was as a communicator in the industry. I tried to create a hashtag that showcased the ways in which my work is inspired by my unique and lived perspective. 

 

4) #ICYMI

623 Impressions, 47 Total Engagements: This #ICYMI was probably one of my favorite tweets to bring up on the TL, mainly because it gave people a chance to see things from my perspective. This was actually tweeted a few hours after a class where the word “tone-deaf” was used to describe dissatisfaction. Not many people would understand the implications of this word, but it’s something I feel passionately about. Don’t use my identity to describe something that was a disappointment! There are so many other ways to express these sentiments. I think people responded to this because of its’ unique perspective and call to action.

 

5)  #RHONY Evergreen Repost

257 Impressions, 65 Total Media Views, 9 Total Engagements: Bethenny from The Real Housewives of New York is one of my favorite Bravo reality stars. This post was actually a part of the evergreen repost challenge for class. I was fascinated because this tweet performed twice as better as the original. I guess sometimes the A/B test can really be up to factors such as day and time! Maybe this one was more successful because it was posted was even closer to graduation? I love this tweet because it’s just so relevant to so many of us right now. And I think that’s why my followers liked it too.

6) The Beagle Freedom Project 

393 Impressions, 17 Total Engagements: The Beagle Freedom Project, (BFP) is a nonprofit organization that works to free dogs from companies that test on animals. This tweet was a part of a class task that asked us to discuss social causes with one another. I think this tweet was successful for a variety of reasons: 1) Since it was a collective assignment, I think all of our tweets created a timely conversation that was being promoted by all of us, 2) we understood our audience, and acknowledged the ways that millennials are incredibly socially minded, and 3) who doesn’t love dogs?!

Some of my classmates also got direct engagement with the BFP, which was just another way of showing us that we were successful in raising awareness and getting connected by people who were directly engaged with the problem.

Remembrance Week 2017: Posting Across Twitter and Instagram 

As a Remembrance Scholar this year, I thought that this class gave me some really great opportunities to put my assignments to use via real-world application and event promotion. Four of my most successful posts were directly related to Remembrance Week and accompanying events. Overall I think that these posts were successful because of the event’s relevance and impact on the Syracuse University community, which is a large part of my social channel following. Remembrance is also an incredibly compelling event, and is one that evokes lots of emotions in anyone who learns about the ways in which SU has worked to honor the 35 students who died in the 1988 Pan Am 103 Terrorist attack. Read more to learn why I think these posts were all individually successful:

7) Remembrance Post Twitter: 

997 Impressions, 76 Total Engagements: This tweet was created as a part of the Google Ngram Word Trends assignment. Again, I tried to connect a class assignment to an upcoming event in order to create relevancy. If you look at the graphic, it’s really interesting to look at the ways in which the words “terrorism” and “terrorist” have been used much more at the turns of the 20th and 21st centuries. Meanwhile, use of the word terror itself has decreased since the 1800s. I think people were really intrigued by this after initially being drawn in through a relevant event.

8) Reflection after Remembrance

174 Likes, 2 Comments: This post was really special to me, due to the fact that the #NHsmc collection series assignment gave me a chance to reflect on the entirety of Remembrance Week and all of the special people I met and learned about along the way. I think that the post’s visuals and bright photos, as well as the caption were poignant and emotionally appealing for those who liked and commented on the post.

 

9) Museum on Prom

172 Likes, 1 Comment: This year, a team of scholars decided to achieve a very daunting task of creating four pop-up panels in order to honor the lives lost, as well as the work done by their families and communities in the years after the attack. This was one of those posts that saw in-person results and effectiveness, since it was a way to drive audiences to the physical installation. I think the landscape style and the warm colors really appealed to viewers.

 

10) Remembrance at the ROTC Military Ball

yesterday’s mood: 💃🏽 #NHsmc

A post shared by kennedy (@kennedypatlan) on Nov 4, 2017 at 1:59pm PDT

Finally, my most successful #NHsmc post was one that received 219 likes and 7 comments. This post was created as a part of our emoji assignment. I thought this post was almost serendipitous, given that I wanted to share some memories from this event and because I just so happened to look like a living version of the salsa dancer emoji. Thus, this post was born! I was really celebrating the ways in which the Remembrance program has granted me a community of friends who support each other. In this case, we had gotten together to celebrate one of our own, (Jackie), and all of her accomplishments within the ROTC program. This post was just really fun and light-hearted. I think in general, people love a post that’s out of the ordinary. (Think about how successful event and formal events are when they’re shared). This was one of those occasions.

 

The Takeaways: 

It’s been such a fun and interesting semester filled with social media lessons. Just when I thought I understood social media, I learned so much more about effective strategies. Through these top ten posts, I’ve identified a few core themes around successful sharing:

  • Relevancy: Overall, I think the biggest thing in posting content is understanding how it’s relevant to social events and the online community. I think it’s also important to think about how relevant it is to your profile and your audience, which leads me to the next point…
  • Know Your Audience: It’s so important to understand what your audience looks like. Using applications such as Klout and Social Rank allow you to develop this understanding, so that you’re posting content that is relevant to them. Paying attention to the things they’re talking about, as well as the things they care about will allow you to be a relevant and reliable source to them.
  • Followers as your Supporters: In the same way that you’re paying attention to them, your followers are paying attention to you. And it’s incredibly likely that your followers will continue to engage and interact with you as they get to know you through your social media profiles. In my experience, I’ve noticed that my followers are also my supporters. They use their likes and favorites as a way to show support for my actions and thoughts.
  • Be Your Own Expert: Prof. Grygiel has said this many times, but I think social media can be more effective if you’re carving out a space for you to carry your own voice, perspectives, and conversations about ideas and topics that you truly know and are connected to. Your audiences will come to appreciate those perspectives.
  • Media Files are Effective: The richer your content, the more effective it seems. Users love content that is visually engaging and fun. It allows them to interact with content in a much deeper way. I saw that first hand this semester.
  • Sometimes, you just never know: And finally, no matter how hard you try, sometimes the secret sauce to a successful post will remain just that! As shown by evergreen content, sometimes factors that are truly outside of your control- such as day and time have the most impact in terms of how successful your content is.

I’ve learned a ton and I can say I’m a more confident connoisseur of social media as a result of this course. So what do you think about my takeaways? What did you learn this semester?

 

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