I currently have nearly 18,000 followers on Twitter. Estimated followers by September are 35-45,000. I tweet things that other teenagers and young adults can relate to. I’m currently a junior in high-school. I’m considering applying to Northwestern, Columbia, and University of Chicago. Will it give an impression to admission officers that I’m ambitious and hardworking as well as have the knowledge to become this large on a social media platform at such a young age? All things equal, would it put me at an advantage against other applicants or not? Just wondering. Thanks.
Teenagers and young adults relate to a lot of questionable stuff. I hope all of it is professionally appropriate, if you plan on directing adcoms to it.
Just having twitter followers is not by itself super impressive. Twitter follower numbers can be manipulated (not saying you are doing that, but some people do). A bigger question is what do you do with these twitter followers? Do they interact with you? Do they retweet your posts? Do people seek you out and ask you to use your twitter following to promote their cause (or sell their product)? Do you use your platform for something, or is just about building up as many followers as possible? What you do with your twitter following could be interesting, but the raw number of followers by itself isn’t really going to help.
How does having a bunch of Twitter followers make you a “social media guru”? Have you turned this online presence into a meaningful revenue stream?
Well I see it differently. 18K followers is impressive. I myself can’t bust 2K, ha ha. Boring mom stuff, I guess. Many admissions folk are on the younger side and I think they’ll be into it. If you have the grades, scores, rigor, recommendations, etc. it certainly won’t hurt you and can certainly help distinguish you. Good social media is an art form. Are you interested in marketing, business, sociology (?), a particular industry or art form reflected in your content, or anything you can tie your social media presence to in an essay?
I don’t think those schools would be impressed with someone who is good at tweeting about teen stuff. It’s a big part of who you are though so don’t ignore it. Instead, focus on the skills you possess that have allowed you to grow such a big following. Are you good at marketing? do you dedicate 20 hours a week to your passion? Have you helped other people learn the skills you possess? Do you manage or lead a group of tweeters? Do you otherwise use your powers for good? Stuff like that. The actual number of followers is something you mention as validation of the skills you are writing about.
Also, whatever you do…do NOT use the term “guru” on your application. I’m no admissions officer but as an employer, if I came across a resume that used that term I would be inclined to hit the delete button.
Are there any ways to gain insight on the numbers? Where are followers are located geographically, your “bounce rate” of how many followers you gain then lose, etc? If so, you can use it to make money or do academic research from a statistics/data angle. I can see you potentially crafting a college essay detailing your tweeting rhetoric and your idea of the human condition (I’d say you can take it to that level if you’re a skilled writer). I don’t know exactly what your twitter account is like, but even if it’s a humor page, it takes a lot of self-awareness and awareness in others, and a sharp mind to create tweets that resonate with followers at a magnitude of your Twitter following. Did you do giveaways or use advertising tactics to spread awarness of your page? Then you can go at it from a business/marketing angle. This hobby can be really beneficial as a talking point in your essays to show adcoms how your mind works
I’d say no. This is the problem with the fascination with social media…unless you can parlay it into something, it’s just a big popularity show.
If you were the “140 character poet” posting new work each day…then yes.
Thank you for all of the replies. I am considering going into business as I’m older and marketing will obviously come into play. However, behind the scenes of the twitter page, I do know people who earn money from flipping twitter accounts, selling rare usernames, promoting other small businesses. Once I have a stable follower count, let’s say 50,000, I’ll begin earning money by promoting others, etc. Furthermore, I’ll have the ability to promote change. With such a huge number of followers, I can spread awareness for something important which is why it’s beneficial.
P.S. Now I have 21,300 followers 
There’s the rub. If a Twitter account with a ton of followers can simply be bought for cash, what makes it special?
The answer: if anything, it’s YOU. Having the social media account and its followers is not your hook, but the journey you took to get there might be. How did you build your network? What challenges did you face? Did you test your content and experiment to see what posts performed the best? Did you learn lessons from your experiments and mistakes? Or did you not really care about performance and just post from the heart and hope for the best? How did you motivate yourself to keep up the momentum? Etc.
There’s probably a genuine story in there, but the status you achieved at the end of that story is, in isolation, about as exciting as reading only the final chapter of a great novel.
This isn’t your fault–you’re just a kid, after all–but this is the rub right here. Your reasoning is that your quest for internet popularity is a good thing because you may be able to use it to promote something that’s good. In other words, you’re promoting yourself but you’ve convinced yourself that what you’re doing is somehow a positive in the world.
Internet popularity isn’t a bad thing, but if you have “something important” to “spread awareness” about, then you should do so. Right now it’s pretty clear that your main interest is self-promotion and you’ve thought of “social change” as a nice fall-back when questioned.
“would it put me at an advantage against other applicants or not?” Have you looked into what those colleges do value?
Agree with marvin- the activated kids aren’t waiting. Think about how you show what inspires you. Or not.
It also show that you are spending endless hours on the internet, rather than engaging in your real community, real athletic teams, or contributing to your real family. I think adcoms would be turned off.
I think if your accounts are being used in a positive way and you can tell the story well at the very least UChicago likes the interesting people. Part of the UChicago app involves favorites including online resources. My son had some traditional media but he also had a number of sites, blogs, games, memes, and comics parents have no clue about. I don’t know about all the area adcoms but at UChicago the one for our region is pretty young and he totally “got” the impression my son was putting forth. He sent a personalized letter which mentioned an aspect so I do think it influenced his admission decision in a positive way. Being true to who you are is important on these applications.
I think it will impress the adcoms if you are tweeting about bullying, animal rights, global warming, etc. If you are educating and influencing others, then maybe, yes it can help. Otherwise it may make you look like someone who spends too much time on their computer.
I don’t think that’s an achievement and neither will a lot of admission officers. With that being said, I think one way to impress them with that is by using it as a topic for your essay depending on how you write it, especially if you plan to major in some form of communications, media production, or even business.
It’s just not, “He who has the most Twitter followers wins.” Twitter?
“…the knowledge to become this large on a social media platform” is just not one of the bullets they look for. Social media savvy can carry a lot of weight among hs peers, but they’re not the ones evaluating you for a tippy top. Kids should know what their targets do value.
There has to be something more. I agree with citymana/post 14. But even so, for those colleges, good chance they’ll want to see some companion action, not just sitting back and buzzing about issues. Don’t leave adcoms saying, “Then what?” Or, asking themselves why he thought the number of followers seemed a selling point.