Five Types of Facebook Users--Which One Are you?

The whiner, the narcissist, the clever one, the secret stalker… What type of facebookers populate your friends list?

If you’ve been using Facebook for some time, you’ve probably noticed that most of your friends have developed a particular usage pattern in posting content to the popular social networking site.

Some of your friends might be sarcastic or cynical all the time, while others might have a tendency to be helplessly optimistic about everything.

A number of people might argue that the different usage styles of facebookers are mostly associated with demographics but age, gender, education level, etc. are not the only factors that affect the usage patterns of facebookers.

In fact, based on our research and findings, personality trumps demographics in determining what kind of facebooker people become. In other words, whether you like it or not, your Facebook comments and posts reveal much about your personality and thought process!

So, what kind of Facebookers populate your “friends” list? See if some of your friends fit the Facebook profiles described below.

The Clever One

His witty comments and funny remarks spark entire Facebook conversations, while his entertaining links provide for great repost material. The clever facebooker is probably our favorite kind of user, bringing color to dull pages and laughter to rainy days.

The Whiner

Probably the most annoying kind of Facebooker, the whiner contributes very little to the Facebook experience. This kind of user utilizes Facebook as an outlet for his misery and bitterness, constantly complaining about the oh-so-horrible things that happen to him in life. Now, there’s nothing wrong with posting a pet peeve here and there—we all need to share some of our frustration every once-in-a-while— but some facebookers just make a profile out of it and that’s a definite turn-off.

The 40-Year-Old Who Acts Like a Teenager

This kind of user is more entertaining than he is annoying. His cryptic posts all stem from his desire to fit in with a community that used to be dominated by teenagers. Of course, Facebook is now populated by users of all ages and backgrounds but that doesn’t stop him from posting SMS-style, acronym-heavy comments and status updates. Sometimes we wonder if he even understands them himself. His posts, however, never fail to entertain and he brings much life to the Facebook world.

The Secret Stalker

This kind of user is difficult to spot. In fact, this facebooker is protected by Facebook’s privacy settings and policy, which blocks people from finding out who has been checking out their profile. But we all know they’re out there! Former girlfriends, insecure husbands, jealous exes, secret admirers… they’re all checking out your profile on a regular basis, enjoying the ability to peek and peep without having to worry about getting caught. If you’re one of them, be happy that you’re not one of the 80 million Chinese using RenRen (the Chinese Facebook equivalent), which let’s users see who’s visited their profile.

The Narcissist

The narcissist is the kind of user who uses Facebook as a vehicle for shameless self-promotion. Often boasting about how awesome his lifestyle is, this user loves to update his profile picture with the latest snapshot of his good-looking self and constantly monitors Facebook for photos in which he might appear. Carefully making sure to “untag” himself from any snapshots that don’t show his best side, this user spends much time perusing his own profile to make sure that his Facebook image is as perfect as his hair.

The Passive One

Shy and quiet, the passive facebooker rarely posts links, submits comments, “likes”, or otherwise contributes to the Facebook community—even though he’s as addicted to the site as the rest of us are. He checks for updates multiple times a day and knows everything that is going on in his friends’ lives, even though he would never admit to it. While this kind of facebooker doesn’t bother anyone, he also contributes little to the community and generally brings little entertainment value to the Facebook universe.

The Ideal Facebooker

So, what is the ideal facebooker like? Obviously, he is different for all of us but there are a number of things Facebook users can do to make sure they don’t get “defriended”.

1. Participate. Facebook just wouldn’t be the same if its users never posted any funny links, cool videos or hot photos. We all like witty comments and interesting posts that kick-start entire wall conversations. Don’t be afraid to contribute—that’s what social networking is all about!
   
2. Involve your friends. Facebook is about the social network that you share with your friends. Submit content that you believe they would enjoy and share information that would be of interest to them. If you just use the platform as a soapbox for your accomplishments, you run the risk of getting “hidden” from your friends’ pages.
   
3. Don’t argue. Public spats look bad for all parties involved and lead to lose-lose situations. Facebook and the Internet being public forums, it’s best to avoid getting into catfights or meaningless disputes. If you have an egg to peel with someone, handle it like a grown-up and don’t do it online. Remember, what is on the web can haunt you for a very, very long time!
   
4. Be your best self. “Be yourself” is popular advice but in the case of some facebookers, may not be good advice at all. While the popular cliché is 100 percent valid for likable people, it’s terrible advice for facebookers who are racist, sexist or just plain bigots. Rather, be your best self and contribute to the community in a good way.

Any Facebook types you’d like to mention? We’d love to hear about them, so feel free to leave a comment!

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Study: Twitter Score of 15 Major Tech and Web Companies

With all this talk about social media adoption and the meteoric rise of Twitter, we decided to venture into the Twitterverse to gauge the activity levels of some of the world’s largest and most established technology and Internet companies. Surely, these tech and web leaders would be advanced in using social media, including Twitter, as a way to communicate with their early-adopter audiences—right?

Here is what we sought to find out:

1. As indicated by the number of Tweets, which companies are the most active on Twitter?
   
2. As indicated by the number of followers, which companies are the most popular?
   
3. Which companies do not have a customized, branded profile?
   
4. As a whole, which companies are the most social?
   

To find answers to these questions, we picked 15 well-known technology and Internet companies and looked at their profiles for basic things, like the number of tweets issued by the profile or the number of followers they had. We expected to find that the vast majority of these businesses would, at the very least, be actively engaging their following on Twitter with regular tweets, news updates and possibly even customer service. We also expected every single one of these tech and web bellwethers to have a personalized, branded profile page reflecting their business’ brand feel.

Findings – No Branded Backgrounds?

The results of our query were a bit surprising. While a number of the companies we researched are clearly actively engaging their audiences on Twitter (including HP, Microsoft, Google, Symantec, Oracle, Sony, Yahoo! and Apple), several companies came up short of our expectations. In fact, a shocking number of companies didn’t even have a customized or branded Twitter background. Shouldn’t a branded background be a given for any leading business?

Surprisingly, companies like Cisco, Baidu, Nokia, IBM, Juniper and McAfee only use default or non-branded backgrounds for their Twitter profile and rely solely on the small space provided by the profile photo to display their logo. Backgrounds provide the opportunity for businesses to include contact information to customer service, product promotions, links to the company’s website and other landing pages, so not utilizing this space seems like a bit of a waste. In fact, with a little extra effort, any company could easily change its background for special occasions, as Google has been doing with its homepage for years.

In terms of popularity, as indicated by the number of followers, Google came in first by a very large margin. With more than 1.57 million followers as of September 14, Google has more than 23 times more followers than the second company on the list, Apple, which has 66,374 followers. Sony came in third, with 65,953 followers, Google’s rival Microsoft was fourth with 40,772 followers and Yahoo! rounded out the top five with 21,681 followers.

On the low end of the list were Chinese Internet company Alibaba, with 475 followers and networking company Juniper Networks with 485 followers. In addition, Baidu’s top profile appears to be handled by someone not linked to the company and features links and tweets to content inappropriate for children. It is unclear whether Baidu handles any of the profiles that pulled up through our profile search using the company name.

With regard to engagement, as indicated by the number of tweets issued by these company profiles, Apple leads the pack with 3,280 tweets, far ahead of number two Microsoft, which posted 1,592 tweets. HP comes in at number three with 1,576 and Cisco and Sony round out the top five with 1,340 and 1,165 tweets respectively.

Correlation Between Tweets and Following

What is interesting about these numbers is the fact that there is clearly a correlation between a company’s engagement on Twitter and the number of followers it has. Four out of the six companies with the most followers are also the ones with the most tweets. Uber-cool Google, which ranks number 10 in terms of tweets but number one in terms of following, is one of the few statistical outliers in this study, where the correlation between number of tweets and number of followers isn’t strong. Nokia and HP are the other two statistical exceptions, with a disproportionate number of followers compared to their tweet rank. The remaining 12 companies in the study show a strong correlation between number of tweets and number of followers, as illustrated by the graph below. In other words, the more you tweet, the more followers you will attract.

So, if there is a strong correlation between Twitter engagement and the number of followers, why are some companies still posting few Tweets? Why aren’t more businesses, especially in the innovative tech and Internet industries, putting more effort into building relationships on Twitter and doing a more concerted effort of using social media as a channel for communications? Maybe these companies would answer that: 1) They don’t believe they could see the ROI from putting time and resources to work on social media activities; 2) They don’t currently have the time, budget or resources available to do it; or 3) Why now? This is, after all, a time when money needs to be spent on programs with immediate return on investment.

To those questions, we would respond: 1) There are several quantifiable ways to demonstrate ROI, including tracking the number of customer leads and sales generated through social media and Twitter. Other quantifiable numbers include website traffic generated and metrics based on specific social media campaigns 2) Large companies have an entire army of employees at their disposal for Tweeting. Every single employee is a potential tweep and could be contributing on behalf of the company, so there are definitely more than enough resources available for tweeting. Get your workforce to engage in social media! 3) If you’re not already engaging in social media, you are losing ground to the competition. The real question is not, “why now?” but rather, “why not?” In addition, whether you like it or not, people and competitors are talking about your company on social media like Twitter, so it’s in your best interest to be part of the conversation.

Conclusion

Clearly, more and more companies every day continue to join the social media movement to actively engage and communicate with their audiences. But this practice isn’t yet pervasive and many businesses, including some of the world’s largest technology and Internet companies, still aren’t putting much effort into effectively using social media as a communications tool. Until they do, these companies run the risk of being at a disadvantage from a communications standpoint.

About the Study

The companies in this study were selected randomly. All numbers were recorded on September 14, 2009. The study is meant to provide anecdotal evidence of technology and Internet companies’ activity levels on Twitter. The company profiles were found by performing a simple Twitter profile search. When the search delivered multiple profiles, we selected the one with the largest number of followers, as long as it was clearly linked to the company in question.

Study Findings

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