13 Jul 09 Who are the Twitterati? A Behavioural Segmentation

Who uses Twitter and how? With registration on Twitter requiring little more than a username and password, how do we know who actually uses the micro-blogging service? I’ve had a go at segmenting Tweeps into several behavioural categories:

Lifestreamers

People who broadcast every little aspect of their life on Twitter. They will automatically follow you back after you follow them, but they are not interested in what you have to say, with a strong internal focus.

Gurus

People who exclusively broadcast and retweet information about their field of expertise. Common titles include: ‘Social Media Gurus’ ‘Internet Marketing Expert’ etc. They are interested in building a large follower base and will follow you in the hope that you follow them back, to produce the illusion of their influence. You will typically receive a generic and useless direct message after you follow them along the lines of “Thanks for the follow. I look forward to your Tweets. For example:

hey, thx for the follow! i specialize in google adwords. I dare you to ask a question that I can’t answer!

Networkers

These people arguably use Twitter for what it was meant for. To communicate and connect with a community of their peers, be it around an interest or a geographic region or both. They collaborate, comment and help increase the value of their community. A good direct message example:

Thanks for the follow! If you ever want to get my attention, just “@” me.

Affiliate Marketers

The Twitterverse spammers. Trend hijackers who follow you in the hopes that you follow them back so that they can send you their junk mail about the latest get rich quick scheme or “How to gain 4000 new Twitter followers in 7 days” Parasites. For example:

Thanks !Would you like to know how to get 16000 Followers in 90 Days and Make Money doing it?

Socialites

People who use Twitter in a totally blase fashion. Purely social in their intent, there’s no subterfuge in their interactions. They are on Twitter for fun.

A Note on Direct Messaging (DM)
You should almost expect one if you follow a company on Twitter. But it’s important not to deliver blatant marketing messages as I learned from a response from my early days on Twitter:

…but your message is a little too automated and self promotional…

Where do we go after Twitter?

Some Hitwise statistics from February 2009 indicate that:

The majority of Tweeps are primarily in social networking and entertainment seeking mode while using it as a source of news.
Twitter is one of the best traffic sources for traffic to personal or blog sites, reflecting the value of opinion in the Twitterverse.
Search and Email remain the primary sources of visits to shopping sites