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

Which type of social sharer are you? Take the quiz below to find out. (More on the methodology below.)

Note: The quiz was built off a chart from the Wharton study by Kevan Lee, Content Crafter at the buffer blog, not the specific process used in the research.