Have you wondered what are the different types of personalities on social media and how you can best reach those who are part of your community?
Do you wonder what type of content will appeal most to each different type of social media user?
When you understand how people relate and engage with social media, you will have a much easier time in creating content that will resonate with the different types of social media users.
People relate to social media in different ways, and this post outlines the top 10 categories of personality styles of social media users. Understanding this will certainly make your job easier as you start to uncover the best ways to reach people by understanding their social personality.
10 Types of Social Media Users
1. The Listener
An active social media user who prefers to fly under the radar. They might enjoy your posts, but that doesn’t mean they will actually click Like, so the rest of Facebook knows. Comments are few and far between while posting to their own wall is more or less a foreign and misunderstood concept.
Best way to reach them: Through their friends and family and the element of social proof.
2. The Activist
A compassionate heart and desire for change gives this type of social media user a knack for promotion. They realize the power of social media and strive to have their voice heard to make a difference.
Best way to reach them: Help them spread messages they care about.
3. The Spammer
This is the type of person that tells themselves their cheesy posts count as “quality content” and that sending weekly promotional messages directly to your inbox is cool since you are Facebook friends.
Best way to reach them: By removing them as a friend/connection. That should send the message.
4. The Passionista
A wonderful breed of user that genuinely enhances the social media world. Bonded by passion, this type of people on social media focus their time on exploring and sharing their passion with others online.
Best way to reach them: Find new and clever ways to demonstrate your shared passion. Share content within your community (niche) and contribute ideas to conversations that may not be directly linked to your brand but share a similar audience.
5. The Social Butterfly
This breed of social media user never seems to stop showing you how small the world is by getting tagged in pictures with what appears to be every person you’ve ever met. If you want to know how popular they are, just check their social channels!
Best way to reach them: Be social and make them feel included.
6. The Troll
That person that always manages to cross that line from unpleasant opposition to downright hate speech, no matter how sensitive or irrelevant the issue. These people aren’t worth any more time than it takes to hit the “block” button.
Best way to reach them: Don’t feed the trolls. Ignore and block this group of people completely!
7. The Influencer
A tiny percentage of people create original content. I’ve heard it’s as low as 1%. Influencers are those that are producing high-quality content and sharing their knowledge with their social media community. They are passionate about their topic and love to help educate others. They understand entirely the concept of “quality content” and live and breathe it every day.
Best way to reach them: Share and engage with their content whenever possible.
8. The Early Adopter
They were on Facebook or LinkedIn before it was mainstream and love to remind you about it. This unique type of social media user has also likely moved on to all the new, shiny social platforms that you might hear about months from now.
Best way to reach them: Be ahead of the curve and go all the way with an exploding trend before it really takes off. It’s all or nothing for this bunch as they can be quite a tough crowd to please.
9. The Black Booker
A real relationship builder, this person looks at social media in the most practical way possible: a means to communicate with other people. Long before the days of mobile, these people swore by having a little black book full of phone numbers.
Best way to reach them: Provide tools that bring them closer to their clients and connections and ensure your messaging focuses on relationship building.
10. The Family Person
These social media users tend to avoid technology but fell in love with social media the moment they realized they could keep in touch with their family members from every corner of the world as if they were right across the street.
Best way to reach them: Try out social media contests that are focused on bringing them closer to loved ones while remaining relevant to your brand.
What Type of Social Media User Are You?
Understanding the types of social media personalities that make up your community and ideal clients is essential to finding the best ways to reach them.
Which personality type do you relate to most? If none, what social media personality type would you have included?
Share this article with your social media communities (on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter) and ask your community to leave a comment sharing the type of social media user they are. It will provide you with a lot of insight on how to better reach them with your social media marketing.