An evaluation of my own social media management efforts throughout the Social Media Marketing course at George Brown College.
Within the evaluation I reflect on my learning experience of the Hootsuite platform and curating and creating content on Twitter and Instagram.
2. SETTING UP THE DASHBOARD
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I chose to connect to Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn as
those are the networks I use most often.
Twitter - @AllieVschot (Hootsuite has yet to
acknowledge the change from @AVanderschot)
Instagram - @AllieVschot
LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/allievschot
3. CREATING CONTENT
In the beginning, I posted based on what I thought other people
would want to see
Something insightful or important or pretty pictures
I struggled to post anything because I thought what I had wasn't
good enough
As time progressed, I realized posting anything (even if I thought
it was mediocre) was better than posting nothing at all.
This is something I am still working on but I now have more created
posts than curated ones.
Using the Hootsuite Publisher to create and
schedule posts was easy. Coming up with ideas
for what to post not so much.
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4. Trendspottr and Right Relevance.
Topics: Content Marketing, Marketing Communications, Social Media, Branding, and
Influencer Marketing.
Often overlapped and I would see the same article multiple times
Accounts that shared information on digital marketing regularly
Examples: @SocialMediaToday, @AdWeek and @SMExaminer.
I set up this stream in the Hootsuite dashboard (see photo below).
A list for brands I like to follow and set up another stream.
Streams:
Twitter Lists:
I scheduled at least 2 curated posts for most weeks for the entire semester and dedicated
time each week to retweet other's posts directly within the Twitter app (see appendix).
CURATING CONTENT
Curating content was not something I had ever thought of doing.
I thought all content needed to be your own, but curated
content is a great way for you and your followers to stay up-to-
date on current trends in any industry.
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5. #MARK1051 STREAMS
#MARK1051 on Twitter and Instagram
#KnowYourSocial on Twitter
@Hootsuite on Twitter
@BlairaaSmith on Twitter
Streams:
Keeping up to date with the #MARK1051
community and engaging with my classmates.
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My favourite part of the assignment was getting to know my classmates through
the different social channels
Twitter became the forum for everyone to discuss assignments and share
helpful tips
A place for this cohort to come together
Discussing different topics in marketing through curated tweets
Talking about shared interests
Travel, music, food, etc.
Engaging with the Community:
6. #ChatSocial by @BlairaaSmith
Creating and Sharing Content on Social Media
Building a Community using Social Media
#smeChat by @SMExaminer
Holiday Advertising Tactics
A fantastic way to engage with the community while learning
Can have a lot of fun with it - gifs, connecting with others, discussing
hot topics
Reply to other people's answers to start more conversations.
Twitter Chats:
Takeaways:
#TWITTERCHATS
The first Twitter chat went by in a
blur, I almost couldn't keep up!
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7. Twitter:
Before: At the beginning of the semester my tweets had no visuals, curated content posts didn't
include my own opinion/thoughts, I used way too many hashtags or none at all, and didn't
show any personality.
After: My posts, 9/10 times, will have some visual content (emojis, photos, gifs), I post between
11am and 1pm as this is when my posts usually see the most engagement, I use 1-2 relevant
hashtags in every post based on our best practices, and I have begun to find my brand voice
(bright, caring, no-nonsense, and playful).
Instagram:
Before: I was posting infrequently (4/month), my posts didn't have captions or it was just an
emoji, and I didn't post videos of any format (story or post).
After: I try to post either a story or onto my feed at least 1/day, I use the captions to engage
with my followers and show more personality and include relevant hashtags, and I occasionally
post videos on Instagram stories (trying to get more comfortable with this).
OPTIMIZING PROFILES
Engagement, visuals, personality.
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For this assignment, I focused much more of my energy on Twitter than any other
platform, but have begun to integrate what I have learned into Instagram as well.
8. ANALYSIS PART I
Audience and Community Building
I began the semester with 0 followers, AGR is
calculated starting after September when I had 30
followers (100% AGR)
AGR from Sept. to Oct. = 16.7%
AGR from Oct. to Nov. = 22.9%
AGR from Nov. to Today = -2.3%
Sept. 11-18 - increase of 16 followers
This was at the beginning of the semester and the
majority of those new followers were from the class
A post about a coffee shop I had discovered near GBC
St. James campus (see photo)
Increased engagement could be a result of speaking
specifically to people in Toronto instead of in
general and most of my followers are students of GBC
so this was more relevant to them
I also tagged @BlueStoneLane in the post who also
left a commented
Audience Growth Rate (AGR):
On average, I had a 19.3% average AGR per month.
Possible decline due to majority of followers being from
our class. Had I tried to engage with more than just the
#mark1051 community, I might have seen a greater
increase.
Largest Increase in Followers:
Our class makes up 64.2% of my total audience. These
were the people who were aware of my Twitter account,
friends and others did not know I had one.
Post that Generated the Most Conversation:
See apprendix for detailed report exported from Hootsuite.
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9. September = 3.2%
There was one post that had a 50.0% engagement rate that
could be bolstering this result
All others during the month were very low
October = 2.0%
November = 1.0%
December = 0.9%
Top 2 posts were from a Twitter Chat, so it is likely they gained
more engagement because people participating in the chat
were in the mind frame of connecting and engaging in
conversation in real time
The 3rd tweet featured a created post of my cat wrapped in a
blanket - relatable and featured an animal.
If I had a post that featured a baby, that would have
probably been in the top 3 too!
Engagement Rate:
Engagement has decreased every month so this is an area that needs
to be improved. Evaluating the posts with the highest engagement
can help me better understand the types of posts that can improve
this rate.
Top 3 Posts:
ANALYSIS PART II
Content Sharing.
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10. Only 2 posts of mine were share (retweeted)
Why these posts and not any others?
Possibly because the first one clearly layed out something that
everyone in marketing should know but maybe need a reminder of
and is visually clear and concise
The second, I hadn't heard of anyone speaking about this
previously, something new in an oversaturated environment
In Hootsuite you can see ow.ly shortened URL click throughs
Scattered throughout my posts was maybe 1 or 2 clicks but there was
one with a 99.0% CTR which seemed unlikely
Like every tool we use, we have to be aware that there might be flaws
in even the best systems (see below and appendix for "clicks" graph)
Virality Rate:
Shared 1 time = 0.24% virality rate:
Shared 1 time = 0.25% virality rate:
ClickThrough Rate:
ANALYSIS PART III
Content Sharing Cont.
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11. Planning is key. It's not all about
posting. Don't be afraid to let your
personality shine through.
REFLECTION
Curated posts make it easier to post regularly, but they often don't
encourage engagement - at least not the way I was doing it
Posting an article with a little caption of what it was about didn't
motivate anyone to retweet, like, or reply
Posts that I added my own opinion or asked what other people thought
about it, worked much better to gain a response
My audience is mainly people from our class, so everyone was posting
curated content about digital marketing.
In seeing that repetedly from all of us, it made it necessary to add
more value rather just contribute to the noise
My favourite part about this experience was engaging with people in a
way that I was not used to. Social media is truly about being social but I
typically don't go beyond "liking" a post.
This experience showed me that engaging with the community by
participating and #TwitterChats and #MARK1051
I really liked getting other people’s perspectives on the different
questions and topics being discussed as well as putting my own
thoughts out there and people responding well to what I had to say
I honestly don't think there was anything I disliked about this experience
What wasn't working for me (posts that weren't well received) became
something to learn from and I could adjust my approach moving
forward and that's really how I feel about it as a whole
What worked...and what didn't:
What I enjoyed...and what I disliked:
Overall, I learned that planning ahead makes it a lot easier to manage than
trying to find something to post every day. It's not all about posting, social
networks are social, you need to engage with others just as much as you post -
if not more. Finally, don't be afraid to show some personality, there is a fine
line between "professional" and boring on twitter.
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12. GOING FORWARD
Improve planning process, include my own
thoughts/opinions, using best practices, and use
what I have learned to improve other accounts.
Utlizing a content calendar
I want to start planning further in advance, see what is
working, what's not, and get into a more consistent
routine
Curating content without adding value by sharing my own
opinions/thoughts
No one responds to them
Using best practices learned in this course to optimize my
profiles
Using visuals/gifs on Twitter, relevant hashtags, and
participating in #TwitterChats has gotten me the most
engagement
Hopefully in doing this I can continue to grow my
audience
I tried to integrate my Instagram into this assignment
throughout the semester but Twitter took priority
I would like to focus on both equally
Since I will not be starting from scratch with no
followers (unlike Twitter), I can use Instagram analytics
to evaluate past posts and optimize the profile right
away
Start:
Stop:
Continue:
Change:
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13. APPENDIX
Final Count = 135 tweets + replies (data from
Twitter)
See other submitted files for Appendix.
1. Detailed Report from Hootsuite
2. Past Scheduled Tweets from Hootsuite
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