So, I’m writing a document for a client about the culture of social media, and I realize that while I understand the trends and the ethos behind it, I don’t know much about the individuals. I’m now very intrigued by the idea, and I’d love to hear if anyone has any research on the “types” of people who are adopting RSS, who are blogging, who are commenting, social bookmarking, etc.
My gut feeling, not based on anything in particular, is that the demographic skews male, university educated, working in an office environment, likely a “knowledge worker.” Most are not executive or C-Level, but are likely management level. A disproportionate amount are entrepreneurs or intrepreneurs. Most are well-organized, and are very comfortable with technology and consider themselves more intelligent than average. In general, most are competent writers, and consider themselves creative people in one way or another.
I think that applies to business bloggers, but there are also personal bloggers, profile bloggers (those who use MySpace or MSN Spaces).
I’m going to be doing some research over the next few weeks, which I’ll share here. My goal will be to create an understanding of the dominant personality types who are heavy social media users. If anyone wants to contribute to helping me build the social media personas, feel free to drop me a line – my first name at ryananderson.ca, or leave a comment here.
