Who Are You in the Twitterverse?

One of the reasons why you should set some objectives for your social media efforts is to also figure out who you are in the Twitterverse. There are lots of blog posts out there right now that classify the most common “TwitterTypes.” Basically, what this all boils down to is that everyone has an opinion and everyone is more than happy to tell you who they think you are.

In my opinion, having a little foreknowledge and awareness of these sometimes petty, yet popular classifications, allows you to break away from the rest and build a well-rounded presence that makes people want to follow you.

Here are just some examples:

• The OCD RT – This type does nothing but RT everyone else. Great for building a reputation as “having your finger on the pulse.” Bad for originality.

• The LifeStreamer – This is the person who takes the “What are you doing?” tagline from Twitter quite literally. Pros: Great if you are a “celebrity.” People will eat it up. Cons: Bad if you’re everyone else. (Sample Tweets include: “Sneezing.” “Going for a walk.” And “Eating lunch”)

• The Lunch Tweeter – Similar to the LifeStreamer… but worse. Look, I know that if you’re new to Twitter, it might seem like a great idea to tweet what you’re having for lunch… Trust me. It’s not.

• The Vague Linker – Twitter was practically made to be a great source for cool links, but you need to add context to make it worthwhile. Phrases like “Cool!” or “Check this out!” next to a link are meaningless. The first time someone clicks your link and doesn’t agree with your vague statement will be the last time they trust you as a source.

• The FriendWhore – This is not MySpace. This is not a contest to see who has the most followers. Please, don’t ever beg people to follow you. Let your presence speak for itself.

• The Friend/UnFriender – This is a bad practice if you are trying to grow a meaningful network. This type follows a bunch of people, then immediately unfollows those that follow him/her back. The goal: to make it look like they have more followers (see celebrity). A similar type is the person who surreptitiously unfollows you, only to re-follow you when they want to get your attention and click on their Twitter page. This practice seems to have (thankfully) died out once the Twitterverse grew.

• The Celebrity – This is what it is… a famous person on Twitter. The bottom line is that these people will always have way more followers than people they follow. Don’t be offended, really.

• The FAKE Celebrity – Sometimes fun, sometimes annoying. Think FAKESteveJobs and go from there.

• The Conversationalist – This person’s timeline is nothing but “@” replies. They basically treat Twitter like it’s an IM function. I’ve been accused of being this girl from time to time…. Meh…These things, they happen.

• The “Noisy” Tweeter – Seriously, nothing wrong with this… really. The best noisy Tweeps are those that admit it. No surprises. This really only tends to bother folks that aren’t following that many people to begin with b/c the noisy Tweeter will fill their timeline. This is one of those times where you have to remember that Twitter is a tool for communication. If you only follow 18 people, some Tweeps may seem “noisy” but if you follow 100 or more people… well, not so much.

• The AutoBot – These are either real people who use auto-follow or auto-DMs. Both are ineffective and annoying. This also applies to bots that troll the web and automatically Tweet relevant links and Twitter-bots that will automatically “@” reply people if they tweet certain keywords. Twitter-bots can be a nice novelty from time to time though (examples: @BrendaBot or @WheeePony NOTE: Just noticed the WheeePony’s account has been suspended… too bad, I thought it was amusing).

• The Fictional Character – Some people who are really into the “real persona” movement don’t like fictional characters on Twitter. To them, I say, “Lighten up!” Twitter would not be the same without the cast of The Big Bang Theory, True Blood, or Ad Men; not to mention @DarthVader, @TweetJeebus, or @the_J0KER.

• The Spammer – The worst of all possible ways to be on Twitter. When will spammers realize that the only way to spam people on Twitter is to get people to follow you back? The only people that follow spammers are auto-followers or bots. This means that Spam on Twitter doesn’t really even work so why not just stop trying? Seriously.

 

Twitter Article Extras:

To Tweet or Not to Tweet?

Twitter Roundtable Discussion, Part 1

Twitter Roundtable Discussion, Part 2

A List of Helpful Sites

Twitter Types

 

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