Nate Nienaber ​& Ben Woodroof

Dr. Michael Rabby

DTC 338 Social Media

5 June 2017

Twitter Project

This research project for me was a deep dive into the world of social media messaging

and the common threads that hold different Twitter users together, as well as what separates

them. To do this data was gathered and analyzed from various twitter pages across several

different types of users. The goal was to learn from each page and to extract key information that

will help would help us to improve our own social media platforms. I ultimately found this

process to be very insightful as it allowed me to view Twitter with an analytical and strategic

perspective. I chose to focus on two main areas in my paper that I believe will make for strong

metric analysis: promotional images and message goals.

Methodology

As a class, we researched different Twitter authors based on our own interests that fell

within predetermined demographic categories. This data gathering process was conducted during

our four-week class, which was from May 8th until June 2nd, 2017. As we collected the raw

communication data, each student categorized the messages by determining what we believed

the message goal or intent was, what kind of media was used, and whether it was a retweet,

reply, or neither, also whether emojis were used. Other information was also collected in the data

set, such as the author’s name, gender, and date of tweet. For record keeping purposes, we also

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took screenshots of the messages as they appeared on the website, in case the authors were to

later delete the tweets.

The categories we used were:

● Celebrities (someone with more than a million followers)

● Musicians/bands (not celebrities, so less than a million followers)

● Social media marketers

● Politicians

● Large companies (1,000 or more employees)

● Small companies (less than 1,000 employees)

● Professors/academics

These categories are obviously not exhaustive, as one could get a better idea of how to

break down Twitter usage based on occupation from the Twitter Analytics audience insights tab,

when looking at all users.

Results & Findings

The data we found was a result of our collective work and it provided many possible

insights for us to investigate. I was interested in exploring how media plays a role in promotion

and branding. I also was curious which Twitter users would use more media in their promotions.

In a study about the 2012 Israeli–Hamas Conflict, Researcher ​Hyunjin Seo explored the impact

of twitter visuals during that time, and said this about images:​ “In the modern history, visuals

have been an essential part of propaganda efforts, as images are often more effective than words

in capturing the attention of the public and crystalizing sentiments” (Seo 152). This study

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concluded that images can communicate across multiple barriers and have major implications

towards future research. Therefore, it was important to identify media usage in my twitter data

and make sense of how this is being used in promotional ways. I specifically am looking at how

different authors choose to use images in their promotions. The first table is what breaks this

down, as well as the first graph which shows this same data more visually.

Table 1. Frequency of Image Use in Promotional Tweets Filtered by Author Category

Category of Author Average Percentage

Promotional Tweets

with Images

Celebrities 27.56

Musicians 35

Social Media Marketers 15

Politicians 33.33

Large Companies 24.22

Small Companies 48.15

Professors/Academics 9.94

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 All tweets 27.63

Graph 1. Average Percentage Promotional Tweets with Images

As the table and graph shows there are distinct differences between users as to how they use

promotional media on their feeds. Small companies seem to be the most liberal users of media in

promotions, but are closely followed by musicians, politicians, celebrities, and large companies.

Academics used the least number of media when they used a promotional tweet. These results

can be explained by the different goals that each group has for being on social media. Not all

accounts promote in the same way, and this influences how and when images are used for this. In

total 27% of promotions across groups included some sort of image. This however does not

include anything that is not a still image, namely anything multimedia. This includes gifs, audio,

website links, and videos that may have been used instead with promotions. I mainly wanted to

focus in on images here as they receive the most wide-ranging use on social media. I also

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decided to break down total promotional tweets by author group regardless of media. This can be

seen below in Table 2:

Table 2. Number of Promotional Tweets Filtered by Author Category

Promotional
Account Type Tweets
Celebrities 51
Musicians 94
Social Media Marketers 47
Politicians 61
Large Companies 65
Small Companies 132
Academics 42
Grand Total 492

This table shows that small companies promote themselves the most as well as musicians.

This makes sense when you consider that musicians and small companies often run similarly and

attract similarly sized audiences. Musicians promote their product of music in the same way that

small companies promote other products. All the other groups seem to promote at roughly

equivalent rates. Politicians and large companies promoted nearly equally in this sample set.

This lead to thinking about the influence that Twitter has on the world. This means that

the intention behind a post can have real effects on how information is received by following

audiences. This lead to me to want to compare several groups and their message goals.

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Promotion was only one type of message goal in this project, there are many others that Twitter

users can implement into their feed. I chose to focus on politicians originally because of an

article I read that showed politicians social media usage increasing in Spain (de Olmo & Bustoz

120). This lead me to think about our own politicians and how they come across on social media.

The second graph explores politicians message goals.

Graph 2.​ ​Political Message Goals

The first thing that can be read from this graph (other than politicians not being very

funny) is the mixture of information, inspiration, and of course promotion. Each politician seems

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to have their own approach to this mix though. Denny Heck and Maria Cantwell are notable for

using no promotion in their tweets, whereas Dave Reichert only used his twitter for promotion.

This is to be expected as local politicians all have slightly different audiences as they represent

different groups of people in their respective districts, cities, and states.

I also wanted to compare the tweeting practices of large and small businesses to see how they

differ in content types. This comparison to show the effects of scaling on a company’s social

media presence.

Graph 3.​ ​Large Business Message Goals

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 Large companies are like politicians in that they use largely mixed message goals to

represent their business. They also seem to have radically different approaches that can be read

from the data. Denny’s is attempting to be the comedy star. There use of humor really shows on

the graph as 95% of Denny’s tweets are humor. Nintendo, Microsoft, and PlayStation all being

game companies are very much alike in their use of promotion heavy Twitter feeds. Southwest

Air is unique in that their main tweet content appears to be information and facts. This makes

sense being an airline that good customer service would be the central focus. Starbucks is also

notable in this way in that they provide the most inspirational content and the most direct

customer replies. Burgerville and Nike have the most balance of the bunch in terms of message

goals.

Small businesses are a much different sort from their larger counterparts. They are far

less mixed in their approaches. This was established earlier in that they use the most promotion.

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Graph 4.​ ​Small Business Message Goals

As graph 4 shows though, promotion dominates their message goals. The only business that has

a drastically different breakdown is The Herbery NW as they use an equal number of

informational tweets along with promotional tweets. This is due in large part to the nature of

their business as Marijuana is still highly stigmatized inside the United States. The businesses

here are much smaller than larger companies and therefore are working harder to create their

customer bases, whereas larger companies already have a base to work with.

Discussion

Going into this project I had a deep desire to understand the nuances that make up

different social media platforms. Twitter because of its format and brevity provides an excellent

source for which to understand some of the strategy that goes into a group’s online presence.

This is a snapshot of that presence and it made for some interesting discoveries. The

effectiveness of images was one lens that I explored. This was something I wanted to learn more

about as I have always heard from different social media influencers that images have a real

effect on the reach a post receives from viewers. This was something I tested myself with my

own social media page that I use for my radio show on campus. The fact that most of the

promotional posts from the different accounts used media would seem to support this claim of

effectiveness.

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 This is because images communicate in a way that words cannot. The images of Fyre

Festival are both why people were excited and ultimately why people were eventually

disappointed. The media used in posts, whether it be video, gifs, or photos are the strongest

communicators on Twitter. This is because in many ways social media is a visual medium. It is a

strong factor and reason virtual communities get formed in the first place. Audiences can relate

much quicker to images. There is a strong correlation of image use with small companies

entering social media as they are attempting to leverage best social media practices to get results

quicker. This is interesting as they use nearly double the number of images as large companies. I

think again this relates to large companies being more established and therefore do not need to

promote in the exact same ways.

I also was interested by the amount of engagement from politicians. In a time where

Twitter is in the spotlight because of the Trump administration, I found that looking a social

media with the political lens to be relevant to today’s political landscape. While widely mixed in

their message goals, they clearly use social media to promote different causes. They also like to

share information, but in a way, this is almost like a separate kind of promotion as usually this

information points back at something to do with that individual’s platform. I hardly found this to

be surprising as politicians have been using media in creative ways to push platforms since the

eighties. This however is still a relatively new tool for them and like it or not it has changed the

way we receive our political news.

I think the most important analysis that I made was between small and large companies. I

wanted to explore the effects of growth on a company’s social media presence. How does it

change? Well the main way that I can see from the data is the focus on promotion. Aside from

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the game companies, most large companies tended to have less of a focus on promotion. Small

companies contrasted this with their heavy preferences towards promotional tweets. This is a

clear sign that these small companies are eager to grow and be successful. There is a transition

that will need to be made if any of these companies do start growing. That transition from small

to big in marketing is often called scaling, but only recently have these principles started

applying to social media. I think there is a reason that large companies do things differently than

smaller companies. Largely it is probably because these large companies can in fact afford to

experiment. I think my favorite of the large companies had to be Denny’s as they use irreverent

humor and self-awareness to promote their brand. This is unique and edgy in a climate where

most companies seemingly take things safe. This is not at all unlike the banter that Wendy’s has

been applying to their Twitter campaign, it is funny and different. This is a different game that

large companies seem to play. While small companies are growing and attempting to amass a

following, large companies are attempting maintain a following. That is the defining divide that

separates these groups. Small companies should learn from this and recognize that shifts will

need to be made to their platform when a following does come. I also think Twitter profiles are

boring if they are only promotion based. The best ones seem to offer something back to the

audience.

Conclusion

The most important part of this project was seeing how different kinds of people use their

Twitter. This to me is invaluable as it provides me a starting place for my own social media

presence. I learned a lot from this assignment especially when it comes to message goals. I found

through this assignment how varied social media messaging can be. When I think of marketing

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my endeavors I want to use some of these same practices. I want my Twitter profile to be varied

and offer something back to the audience. I also learned that humor can translate as well as

information on social media. I also made great strides in understanding how to look at analytics.

I really enjoyed learning pivot tables as they are very detailed and useful. They allow for heavy

customization and help me to present data in tangible ways. I think that data collection will be

crucial in developing ROI (Return on Investment) metrics in the future that I can share with

employers.

I don’t know how much research I will do in the future, but it is helpful to me to know

how to collect the data if I need. I want to be able to recognize trends so that I can more

effectively grow my platforms. I also recognize now the challenges that come with scaling social

media platforms. It may seem like small details, but every metric counts towards understanding

why some campaigns are successful where others may not be. The audience drives the content

and the creator steers. This is what became apparent to me as I looked at the data. The message

goals looked different because the followers were different. Granted some of this was the

author’s own creativity, but it still was in the name of the following.

I will aim to take an audience first approach with my own platform. This is the approach I

will take in the future with other company platforms I represent as well. The more you

understand an audience the more effective your content will be. Plain and simple. This I believe

is the strength of social media over other communication channels. I have direct access to my

audience. There is a relationship that is cultivated with every post. These platforms allow for

transparency and open dialogue. A trusted company is a great company, but trust is earned with

an effective audience driven platform.

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 The audience can be an ally for diffusing controversy as well. The more that a following

trusts you, the more they will defend you if mistakes are made. This is the unseen advantage that

is missed by companies that only ever advertise to increase profit margins. The audience is your

market. If you respect them then they will respect you back. I know that in the future I have the

tools to create an audience relationship like this. I believe this project helped me better to

understand that.

References

del Olmo, F. J. Ruiz1, fjruiz@uma.es and J.2, bustos090@gmail.com Bustos Díaz. "From Tweet

to Photography, the Evolution of Political Communication on Twitter to Images. The

Case of the Debate on the State of the Nation in Spain (2015)." Revista Latina De

Comunicación Social, no. 71, Jan. 2016, pp. 108-123. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.4185/RLCS-2016-1086en.

Seo, Hyunjin. "Visual Propaganda in the Age of Social Media: An Empirical Analysis of Twitter

Images during the 2012 Israeli–Hamas Conflict." ​Visual Communication Quarterly​, vol.

21, no. 3, Sept. 2014, pp. 150-161. EBSCO​host​, doi:10.1080/15551393.2014.955501.

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