Social Media Project Roundup, Fall 2015

Every semester, my UNI Digital Advertising students work very hard on a massive project: To develop a professional brand based on their personal interests using social media. 

Let's take a moment to praise their work and note a few special honors.

The Big Picture

It's always astounding to me what my classes can accomplish in little under three months.  By measuring our activity and engagement on social media, we can quickly evaluate our performance with quantitative metrics.

From early September through November 18, 2015, my 43 #unidigadv students accomplished the following:

• Posted a total of 6,066 tweets on Twitter
• Gained a total of 5,691 followers on Twitter
• Earned an average score of 44 on Klout
• Added 2,471 connections on LinkedIn
• Published 397 blog posts on Blogger or WordPress blogs
• Earned 35,565 pageviews from 11,733 visitors to their blogs

TWITTER

Most Prolific

Tweeting is one of those things that seems very easy at first glance - until you do it every day in support of a professional brand.  That's hard work!  Here are the top five #unidigadv Tweeps by Tweet volume (I only counted original tweets for this - retweets did not count!):

1. Christian Nichols @SpawnCampGaming - 258 Tweets
2. Ryan Smith @DestinyReveal - 229 Tweets
3. Matthew Moody @onevideogameguy - 223 Tweets
4. Staci Langel @markithealth - 199 Tweets
5. Eldina Siljkovic @BasicallyHID - 186 Tweets
    

Most Followers Gained

If you want to wield influence on Twitter, you need followers.  Here are the students who added the most followers during the semester.

1. Griffin Kuntz @StrongFarms - added 1,146 followers (Record Breaker!)
   This is a class record for a personal brand!
2. Spencer Moser @ComposerMoser - added 393 followers
3. Tyler Meier @GamerGuyTy - added 322 followers
4. Morgan Sanders @PrintsFuture - added 264 followers
5. Valerie Yeltman @DrupalNewb - added 222 followers
    

LINKEDIN

Most Connections Gained
When job hunting, who you know is often as important as who you are.  Here are the class members who gained the most connections on LinkedIn during this project:

1. Rhydian Talbot +226 connections
2. Taylor Aitchison +171 connections
3. Spencer Moser +150 connections
4. Brandon McConnell +128 connections
5. Griffin Kuntz +105 connections

Most Overall Connections
Some students already had a huge network of professional contacts on Linkedin. Here are the most well-connected class members overall:

1. Griffin Kuntz - 866 connections
2. Austin Hansen - 487 connections
3. Taylor Aitchison - 453 connections
4. Rhydian Talbot - 418 connections
5. Jake Schmidt - 377 connections

Highest Quality Profiles

Working to build a high quality Linkedin Profile can help you stand out to potential employers.  The following students all had excellent quality profiles:

• Bri Aust
• Dana Potter
• Danielle Fisher
• Griffin Kuntz
• Morgan Maiers
• Morgan Sanders
• Rhydian Talbot
• Tessa Bratrud

Most Recommended

These three students had the greatest number of recommendations by others on LinkedIn:

• Griffin Kuntz (3 recommendations)
• Dana Potter (3 recommendations)
• Eldina Siljkovic (3 recommendations)

BLOGS

The real content was being generated on student blogs, where students developed unique and original posts related to their professional brand.  They then attempted to organically attract an audience of readers - a difficult challenge!

Most Visited Blogs 

We had SEVEN students who earned over 1,500 pageviews to their blog during the course of the semester - they did a fantastic job attracting and engaging their visitors.  Browse through their blogs and see what they came up with:

1. Rhydian Talbot - Campus Chripsters - 2,307 pageviews
2. Isak Knivsland - DIY Isak - 2,106 pageviews 
3. Spencer Moser - Composer Moser - 2,024 pageviews
4. Taylor Aitchison - California Dreams Marketer - 1,751 pageviews
5. Valerie Yeltman - Drupal Newb - 1,591 pageviews
6. Morgan Maiers - The Next Chapter - 1,582 pageviews
7. Griffin Kuntz - Strong Farms - 1,575 pageviews

Special Honors

Most Integrated Brand
Christian Nichols - Spawn Camp Gaming
Christian's impressive brand (offering news about the video game industry) integrated not only his Twitter profile, but also his custom YouTube channel, his Twitch channel, and a custom Facebook page. The Spawn Camp Gaming site had its own URL and is nicely integrated across a variety of social channels.

Strongest Writing
Rhydian Talbot - Campus Chripsters
Rhydian is a master of verbiage, and her blog on Christian Hipsters (Chripsters) offers some of the most playful and well-crafted copy you will read. 

Best Design
Dana Potter - Redder
For a blog about color theory in interactive design, one would expect nothing less than the beautifully crafted design of Redder. It also contained excellent posts on color and UI design.

Most Resonant Brand
Griffin Kuntz - Strong Farms
Griffin's authentic understanding of farming and ability to connect and inspire other farmers on Twitter created a strong brand that delivered strong results. Earning over 1,100 Twitter followers also set a new class record for a personal brand. 

Best Personal Brand Logo
Jake Sweezy - DJ Sweezy
It's techno - it's fun.  I love it!


Best Sports Brand
Austin Eller - The Money in Sports
A lot of students like the idea of a sports-related blog, but few can find a truly unique focus that is different than everything else out there. By using his background in Finance to look more closely at the financial aspects of sports, Austin found a niche that is a real winner.

Most Helevant Blog
Isak Knivsland - DIY Isak
"Helevant" is a term I coined that means both helpful and relevant. Sort of like "hella relevant". Isak's blog offered helpful and relevant production tips on sampling beats and creating EDM/hip hop tracks that were excellent for a beginner, often incorporating many original examples embedded in each post as sound clips. This is the type of blog that is sure to earn hundreds (if not thousands) of additional pageviews in the coming years due to organic search traffic.

Most Poetic Blog
Aaron Sprengeler - Clasp
Aaron's blog was a showcase for his poignant animated GIFs (cinemagrams) and thought-provoking creative writing. Note that the load time is a little slow due to the large GIF files.

Biggest Win
Morgan Sanders - Print's Future
When she started her project, Morgan was full of anxiety about her topic. "What do I know about the future of the print industry?", she worried. After putting a lot of work into her Twitter presence and blog, Morgan was contacted by a company that specializes in social media marketing for companies involved in the print industry. They offered her a job based on her work on this project!

Thanks again for a great semester - if you get nostalgic you can always tune into #unidigadv on Twitter and help the newbies out!

Did you have a favorite blog this semester that I didn't mention?  Tell me about it in the comments!