When you’re in business you make decisions every moment of every day about how you are going to DO business, how well you are doing, and what you’re going to do next. You will want to make those same decisions about your website. HOW is your website doing what it’s supposed to be doing – generating leads, selling products, selling services, educating/informing visitors, building email/contact lists …? How well is your website doing – is traffic up, visit length ok, number of page visits good? What will you do with your website next?
Typically, much of this is discovered through the use of analytics – Google analytics (if you are comfortable with sharing intimate information about your site with a mega corporation) or, say the Open Source Analytics PIWIK (which I’d be happy to install for you.). While analytics is certainly useful what is equally important is your knowledge of WHO your target audience – your demographic – is. Knowing the WHO often helps you makes decisions on the HOW.
This infographic breaks down the TYPES OF USERS and their AGES from a social media perspective. Why choose data on social media? Well, there’s a ton of pressure and emphasis on the benefits of utilizing social media to enhance your business these days. Being an entrepreneur you have to have enough information about social media AND your target audience in order to make decisions on how your business is going to utilize social media … and how much time and money you are going to invest in it.
There are basically six types of social media users: Creators, Critics, Collectors, Joiners, Spectators and Inactives. Creators are exactly what you’d think; users who create most of the social media content. Creators build and write blogs, create content for YouTube and other videos sites, publish podcasts, make playlists on audio sites and more. Critics actively participate in social media adding comments to blogs and articles, posting reviews and ratings … Critics can often take a single bit of content and make it extremely popular. Collectors are information gatherers; folks who seek data on items important to them. Collectors are often Creators as well. Joiners are heavy participants in social networking sites such as FaceBook, LinkedIn and Biznik. Joiners and Critics are very similar in their views and equally vocal. Spectators read blogs, watch peer-generated videos and listen to podcasts. They’re a lot like Collectors in that they “collect” links to UGC sites so they can spend time watching, reading, and listening. Inactives are … well, inactive. Passive members of the web 2.0 society they rarely participate and typically are un-concerned about social media focusing on other avenues to acquire information and fulfill their needs.
The most active Creators are in the 18 – 21 year old range – as are Critics, Joiners and Spectators. Think about your website – and your social media efforts – and ask yourself if your target consumer matches the type of social media user you want to reach.
