Ashley Abbott Final Social Media Analysis Twitter Handle: @ashleyabbott_ WordPress Handle: ashleyabbott1.wordpress.com
In October, an in-depth analysis was performed on my professional public
relations Twitter account and WordPress blog. The analysis studied the activity on
the accounts from August 26, 2015 to October 13, 2015. To gather the research, data was gathered on analytics services provided for free on Twitter and WordPress. The Hootsuite Pro analytics service also offers tracking data for Twitter accounts
registered through the site. The organization of the first analysis was structured by
evaluating the performance of each site on a monthly basis and then listing the most popular posts. After the data was analyzed, strategic recommendations were made to increase the popularity of posts for the rest of the 2015 calendar year. This final analysis report will focus on reviewing the previous data and strategic
recommendations and comparing it to the performance of posts from October 14, 2015 to December 5, 2015.
To review, during the time from August 26, 2015 to October 13, 2015 there
were 21 non-blog related Twitter posts that I considered as top-performers because
they individually gained over 100 impressions. Four of these posts were responses
to other students, five posts were popular because they included pictures, five posts focused on article links and seven posts were from live-tweeting sessions. These posts are all similar in the fact that they focused on content that is interactive to
followers. General tweets about my opinion or thoughts not supported with a link
did not gain much popularity with my followers. However, whenever followers were
engaged with content that was either specifically related to their posts or about a
relevant article, they reacted positively to it. The posts that contain pictures stand out on a timeline generally filled with text. For media included in posts, there was
not a difference in popularity between info-graphics and general pictures included to make the post more creative.
The strategic recommendations I planned for the remaining half of the
semester included posting more engaging content that is relevant and interesting to my target audience. Writing posts that are creative and humorous was another goal
that I set for myself. For posts with article links included, I intended to include more
straightforward sentences about the articles so my followers knew the basis of what I was referencing.
Tracking the impressions and reach of blog posts is significantly different
that measuring the success of Twitter posts. When analyzing the success of my six
blog posts, I looked at the number of impressions the corresponding blog post tweet gained on Twitter. My top three performing blog post tweets focused on content
that was specifically addressing followers as individuals. My top blog post tweet was posted on a Friday night at 11:28 p.m. with 92 impressions and read: “Need help
navigating your way through the newest frontier? Read my first blog post on social media brand management: https://ashleyabbott1.wordpress‌� The strategic blog post recommendations I set for myself included posting
more content that seemed to be speaking to each individual in a second person
speaking format. The WordPress analytics service offers a suggested time frame of when your blogs are most viewed by the day and by the hour. The suggested time
frame for me to post was on Saturdays at 4:00 a.m. I used this information to set a goal for myself to post blogs later at night, so they would garner views from users scrolling through their timelines during the early hours of the morning.
In terms of this analysis, the month of October was only an 18-day period
from October 14, 2015 to October 31, 2015. During this time frame there were 1.4k
impressions gained with a daily impression rate of 80 [Figure A]. Out of the total 20 tweets posted during this time frame, seven tweets gained over 100 impressions.
Three tweets were replies to users about links they had posted. The remaining four tweets focused on creative article links relevant to social media news. My most
popular tweet sharing a link was: “My favorite ghost this Halloween: #Snapchat
socialmediatoday.com/social-business… #Sisson3280” This tweet is concise and
focuses on creative and relevant content, following recommendations made in the first analysis of my account.
The month of November has been my largest month of consistent social
media participation thus far with 25 total tweets over a 30-day period from
November 1, 2015, to November 30, 2015. Each day during this time frame there were 2.4k impressions approximately 81 impressions per day [Figure B]. Nine
tweets gained more than 100 impressions each. Out of these tweets, six of them
featured links to articles and the remaining three tweets were replies. These results are similar to the tweets posted during the month of October. The most popular
tweet gained 119 impressions and was: “Snapchat is now THREE TIMES larger than Facebook within the 18-24 age group. #Sisson3280 pic.twitter.com/tVNUe9f59H”
The information shared in this tweet is specifically targeted for my followers based
on their generally young age demographic. The majority of my followers are college students and also social media enthusiasts, so discussing the newfound Snapchat
statistics was a relevant topic to post. This tweet also included a picture of a graph about social network usage according to age groups to support the researched shared. Considering my target audience, including interesting and up-to-date content and including media attracted users.
The last segment of time included in this analysis was from December 1,
2015, to December 6, 2015. During this six-day period 862 impressions were gained with a daily rate of 116 impressions [Figure C]. The top tweet during this period
gained 103 impressions and read: “REI's #OptOutside campaign during this year's
Black Friday was refreshing and wildly successful. #Sisson3280 forbes.com/sites/…” Contributing to the trending conversation following the hashtag “#OptOutside”
engaged current followers and those already reading the hashtag timeline. In the
previous analysis I found that posts from live-tweeting sessions attracted viewers
through engaging content, so the success of this tweet coincides with the previous data that was gathered.
Similar to the research methods in the first analysis, the success of blog posts
was measured by the popularity of its corresponding tweet. There were seven blog posts submitted within October 14, 2015, to December 5, 2015. My top performing blog post tweets were written to address specific followers as to engage them. The
top performing post gained 139 impressions on Twitter and was posted on a Friday night at 11:00 p.m. It read, “Think your clothing could make the honor roll? Read my
blog to check out the new wearable tech trends! #Sisson3280
https://ashleyabbott1.wordpress.com/2015/11/06/my-clothing-is-smarter-thanyour-honor-student/ ‌� I used the strategic recommendations I set for myself in the
first analysis to compose this tweet. I posted it during a prime viewing time at 11:00 p.m. on a weekend night, according to my WordPress analytics report. I also
composed the tweet using the second-person writing form to directly engage my
followers. Asking a specific question to catch followers’ attention was a goal I had set for myself to increase the success of my posts and it clearly was beneficial.
As I continue to use my professional social media account in the future, I will
need to make changes in order to continue to increase my follower base. There are currently 32 users following my Twitter account and the number has plateaued
since the month of October [Figure D]. There has been little growth in my account since the beginning of the 2015 fall semester. My followers are 54 percent female
and 46 percent male [Figure E]. The top three interest segments of my follower base
include: comedy through movies and television; music; movie news and general info [Figure F]. My recommendations for attracting more followers would be to find content that is more appealing to men so I can gain more male followers. To
increase the popularity of my posts I will try to include more content focusing on
media updates and comedy-based information. In the previous analysis, I planned
on using HootSuite to schedule blog post tweets to go out during the early morning hours on the weekend. However, because of my small follower base and small
amount of posts, I manually submitted tweets and blog posts. In the future, when I do not have class deadlines to adhere to, I will use Hootsuite to post content at the most successful projected time of Saturday at 3:00 a.m. [Figure G]
Since my follower base has become stagnant I will also search out new ways
to become connected with users online. Finding Twitter chat sessions about a
relevant topic or company can put me in contact with a lot of similar accounts and potential followers. To branch away from my traditional follower type of a social media enthusiast, I am going to also find general content that is not academic.
Hopefully by provided more content that will appeal to a broader base of people, I
will be able to interact with users that have different interests than I do and in turn hopefully inform them about useful and relevant my social media updates.
After conducting these two thorough studies of my professional social media
account, I have discovered that there is a specific science to the way a successful
social media account is run. Analyzing the content included in my tweets and then
looking at the popularity of those tweets has given me important insight on how to better plan for success in the future.
Figure A
Figure B
Figure C
Figure D
Figure E
Figure F
Figure G