Analysis: Mindset of People in Social Media and Blogosphere

The other day over coffee one of my friend found an article and started telling me about it. I asked him to share it on Facebook or Twitter so that others can read too and I can read it later.

But hesitantly, he sent me an email instead. He doesn’t use Twitter and didn’t like to post anything on his Facebook profile. – Sumit Mathur and Vijyesh Saxena, I am talking about you.

I inquire the reason, he said, “I am not a Twitter guy. Why should I tell the rest of the world?”

This thought sparked an idea in my mind and I started evaluating the mindset of people in social media. What I found is that there are five sets of people in this world depending on how they consume and share information.

Analysis : Mindset of People in Social Media

1. Primitive

These are the people, who don’t want to share anything with others. They will just read something and forget about it. They probably don’t even know that social media exist. You ask them about Twitter and Facebook, they will say that they heard about it, but don’t use it. They still don’t even know what RSS is.

2. Stalkers

Very rarely they will share something on their Facebook profile. Google+ is still very far for them. Someone forced them to create a Facebook profile and now they are afraid to use it. They are generally not convinced that the information can be (and should be) shared so others benefit from that too. They will once in a while, however, share their pets photos on Facebook. But that’s about it. You can find them on Facebook but they probably haven’t completed their profile yet. The thing to notice though, they are still reading your posts on Facebook. They won’t ever like or comment on it though.

3. Noise Makers

These people are on almost all social networks and somehow everything is their business. Whether it is news about Bitcoin, Japan, NASA or a wild-fire in California, they need to share it on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and so on… They don’t care if the information is relevant to the audience or not, they just need to share it. They are the victim of information overload.

4. Creators

Bloggers, Columnist, Editors, Poets, Photographers, Musicians and all other people who have guts to create something on their own are Creators. They create, write, edit and photograph all day long or whenever they find time. You may actually call them Hobbyist. They like to help people with their work.  They are very passionate about what they are doing. Darren Rowse from ProBlogger and Pete Cashmore from Mashable come to mind.

5. Curators

Curators were actually creators too, but they have moved on to curing content instead. They are generally seasoned professionals who are known for their work. Other people have started to seek their advice on various things. Guy Kawasaki and Robert Scoble (Scobleizer) are great examples in this category. They tweet almost 100 times a day, post on Google+ almost the same amount of time and are advisors on so many other places. God only knows how they manage their time.

They are well-known curators because they know how and where to find good stuff. They try to reduce the information overload by curing only few items that interest them. Call them FILTERS, if you want.

Which category do you fit into?

Now that I have examined the 5 categories most people fit in blogosphere and social networking. It is your time to judge yourself and find out which category you fit into.

Let us know in comments. Don’t forget to mention your Twitter, Google+ URLs so I and others can follow you too.