How Authentic Are You? Your Audience and Social Media Personna

by Marsha Collier

Well designed quizzes are a go-to quick take on almost any topic. I came across the quiz below: "What is Your Social Media Type" designed by Kevan Lee, Content Crafter at the buffer blog.

Take this quiz and you'll have a better idea if you are on social media to express - or to impress. It will give you a clear picture of your type; hence the kind of audience you attract. The data behind the quiz comes from a Wharton School study by management professor Nancy Rothbard and colleagues. Their study, 'When Worlds Collide in Cyberspace: How Boundary Work in Online Social Networks Impacts Professional Relationships, looked at the different strategies people use to manage their social media communications, and how varied approaches impact their outreach to an "invisible audience."

The portion of the study's title, "When Worlds Collide", refers to work and life balance; hoping to answer the question of how on-line social media impacts our lives. They also use the word minefield. to represent the challenges as to how we manage these relationships:

“We have both a new world opening up where social media has so many amazing opportunities to connect … but it also poses challenges as we think about how to manage the relationships we have.”

They identified four strategies that people use and different types of social media personalities.

1. Open Sharer: Is willing to connect with anyone and willing to post and share anything
2. Audience Sharer: Carefully chooses the audience they connect with and are therefore still willing to share openly and authentically
3. Content Strategist: Eager to connect with anyone and picky about the content that they share
4. Custom Strategist: Separates their audiences to create custom silos of sharing

3 Proven Practices to Build Your Twitter Reputation, Grow Followers and Get Retweets

Twitter can be a daunting platform for the beginner. I know that the first thing you want to do is build your audience size and you'd like to get people to follow you. This can be accomplished (it can't be done overnight - sorry) and in this post I give you simple tools to build a great reputation and a stellar community.

Follow people and make connections

Start first with selecting keywords that describe your interests and your business. Then use them to find people to follow. When you find interesting people, follow them and pursue an alliance.

• Search for people on directories by topic at Tweetfind, and Followerwonk where you can search Twitter bios for keywords. Enter your favorite topics and find others in WeFollow. Twitter search is also a good tool. I'd use each tool.
• Look for Hashtags (the # symbol used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet) on Twitter that relate to your business. You can also click on a hashtag that you see on Twitter (or a trending topic) to see who is talking about it. 
• Find twitter lists from influencers. You'll find people who have hundreds, thousands (in some cases hundreds of thousands) of followers. To organize large amounts of people, pros curate Twitter Lists (which can be private or public). To find people in a specific niche, go to a profile page and click the down arrow next to the word More. You will find a link for public lists that the user has created (and has subscribed to) as well as lists on which other people have listed them. This is a great resource to find like-minded Twitter members. For example, Margie Clayman (Director of Marketing at Clayman & Associates in Ohio) has a list of her Top 100 on Twitter. I have a short one on eBay sellers.
• Embrace #FollowFriday. On Fridays you will see hashtagged Tweets with #FF or #FollowFriday. Click on the names in the Tweet and read the person's bio, if you like what you see, you've found somebody new to follow. Be sure to say hello too.

Once you follow someone? Don't immediately Tweet or send them a Direct message requesting a favor or to follow you elsewhere. Get to know them first. Start a conversation! Most importantly, don't un-follow them because they don't follow you back immediately. Follower churning tells everyone that you're not interested in engagement and that you're just trying to build numbers.

6 Steps to Painless Social Media Self-Promotion

A common topic for discussion is promotion for small businesses and personal brands. When it comes to social media, the responsibility for promotion falls on the shoulders of the owner (chief cook and bottle washer). Even though my books are published by one of the top 10 publishers in the world, I still need to take responsibility for my own brand.

I’ve personally been promoting my work and books in the real world and online for over 15 years and it’s the most difficult task on my plate. Even on the “About” pages of my websites, I am loathe to blow my own horn. I might consider myself an introvert, or I might just feel the mere act is bragging.

To be fair to those who do it well, it takes nerve to think there are thousands of people waiting around to hang on to your latest words or hot new project. We may have products, businesses or books to promote, but not everyone has a similar promotional style.