The Top 10: Twitter Edition

Posted on by Liam Sullivan

Throughout the entire semester, I’ve been regularly tweeting for my S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications class. In order to track our progress for the class all semester long, my fellow and students used the hashtag #NHsmc. Below are what I consider being my top ten tweets, for the effectiveness. I learned a good amount from tweeting during the class, but the true lesson of seeing what offers the most engagement and effectiveness is taking a step back, looking at the analytics and date and seeing what was most successful.

 

Here are my top #NHsmc class tweets descending from most recent to oldest:
1.

 

This tweet fell as part of my promotional plan for a class project, a viral content challenge using Pinterest. The tweet includes a link to the content on Pinterest, as well as the original image used in the content. I also used the hashtag #viral to help promote it further. This tweet saw 390 impressions, 48 images, one retweet and four likes. I thought that this particular tweet enjoyed a bit of success because of the inclusion of media (the picture) and hashtags. The media helped the tweet stand out on users’ timelines and the #viral helped the tweet reach a deeper audience other than solely my followers.

 

2.

This tweet includes another piece of media, a picture of the back of a truck. The content was originally a Snapchat sent to me from my younger brother and drawn upon to make a joke. Marshawn Lynch, referenced in the tweet, is a star NFL football player famous for saying “bout that action boss.” The Snapchat was a funny play on the saying and I thought that the picture was clever enough to tweet out. This particular tweet received 849 impressions, 110 engagements, one retweet and four likes. In my opinion, this tweet received the impressions and engagements that it did because of the niche humor it involved, as well as including media. Simply writing out the joke in text wouldn’t have been effective. Instead, the picture was funny and original enough for NFL fans to enjoy it. My twitter followers are for the most part sports fans, so it was smart to tap into an eager audience by identifying their interests.

 

3.

My third tweet also included media. This time the tweet was a picture of a sunset on the beach, two things that typically do well on social media with their natural beauty. I chose this photo and used the hashtags #TravelTuesday and #CapeCod to maximize my engagement and tap into niche audiences. It worked really well, particularly because the people I interned with while spending this summer on the beach engaged with it. This tweet received 410 impressions and 57 engagements, but did really well percentage wise with 14 likes.

 

4.

While this tweet was also successful with the use of an image, the main reason I believe my fourth tweet found success on Twitter was that I tagged my friend Gil in the tweet to engage with him. A former Syracuse student who graduated in 2015, Gil was also a mainstay on the Syracuse campus Snapchat story. When I engaged with him about a topic he felt passionate about (the campus story), he was sure to pick up the tweet himself and run with it. Sure enough, Gil engaged with the tweet. He retweeted it and even responded back and forth with me and my professor about it. By encouraging Gil to engage, the tweet received 569 impressions, 80 engagements, one retweet, one reply and two likes.

5.

I included this tweet in my top-ten collection because it received 431 impressions, 75 engagements and one reply. This tweet was different than any of my others as it included a screenshot of Twitter analytics using Hootsuite. I hopped on the trending topic of Indianapolis Colts head coach Chuck Pagano’s controversial fake punt call and took an alternative route to engage with NFL fans. The hastags #Colts and #hotseat helped propel my engagement numbers forward and encouraged users not following me to also see the tweet.

 

 

6.

While this tweet didn’t necessarily receive a lot of engagement – 496 impressions and 11 engagements – my tweet raising awareness for News Engagement Day had the most retweets of any tweet I sent all semester. My using an image, hashtags and tagging the official account of Syracuse University, I was able to receive retweets and see my analytical numbers climb.

 

 

7.

My seventh tweet was particularly influential because of the inclusion of multiple pictures and keeping the pictures Syracuse-centric. I’ve gathered the vast majority of my followers since becoming a student here at Syracuse University and I knew that my followers were more likely to engage with my post if I kept it to something interesting to them. Most Syracuse students have a high sense of school pride which therefore led to those students who follow me engaging with the post. This post saw 470 impressions, 81 engagements and five likes.

 

8.

This tweet was the first to be included in my top-ten collection without including a picture. This tweet links out to a cool infographic I constructed to show why Rob “Gronk” Gronkowski was on track to become the best tight end in NFL history. Including the link to my really interesting content didn’t do much for getting users off the Twitter platform and to click on the link. In order to get Twitter users to click on the link, I once again targeted the specific audience of sports fans – and even more specifically I looked to New England Patriots fans, the team Gronkowski plays for. The tweet saw 419 impressions, 50 engagements, three likes and 24 URL clicks. I was really happy with the number of users that left the Twitter platform to see the infographic I created.

 

9.

This tweet saw a fair amount of engagement for a tweet reconnecting with a friend and a social media role model of mine. I have had a relationship with Alex Brooks for over two years now and a fair amount of users seemed interested in my attempt to engage with him over Twitter. The post saw 371 impressions, 70 engagements, and one like. I likely could’ve received even greater engagement with the inclusion of a hashtag or two. This tweet came at the beginning of the semester though and my tweets later learned from this mistake.

 

10.

The tenth tweet that I thought was most successful from an engagement standpoint was my example of social media in real life. I tweeted a picture of my friend’s living room wall, a wall on which visitor’s to their apartment sign their name, write funny messages and engage with each other. In my opinion, this tweet enjoyed success for the same reason the majority of the tweets I’ve included above did – an image. By including a photo, users are much more inclined to stop scrolling on their timeline and engage with the photo and tweet. This tweet saw 579 impressions, 96 engagements, one retweet and three likes.

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