Who's at the Twitter party?

Don't mind the dust on the blog, I haven't used it in a while but I needed to write down some thoughts. I was due for some blog therapy.

I was on Twitter long before it became something that my Mom heard of but it was a slow start and even now I find it hard to manage and keep up. That said, the last six months have been an amazing time period.

I am not sure if it is just me, but I find the people on Twitter that I interact with are amazing. The people on it seem to be very open, honest and have a true desire to participate in open collaboration. I have had numerous awesome coffee meetings that started as a tweet and I am working to close the first collaborative deal that spawned from a Twitter discussion.

Despite the large numbers of new users, it doesn't seem that the tool is becoming diluted. I am not sure if it is an early adopter effect where people are pushing to make it successful or if the early adopters are just a slice of really great people at the front edge of a new open collaborative world but my gut tells me it is the later.

When I explain Twitter to someone who has never tried it before I always use the analogy of a cocktail party - you have a room full of people engaging in conversations except in Twitterland, there is no limit to the size of the room and anyone can join in. And similar to a cocktail party there are four basic types of people mingling around the room.

The Listeners - these are the wall flowers at the party. They are there but not contributing. They listen and watch but are not ready to engage in the conversation.

The Authors - these are the story tellers. They gather a large audience and are creating new content or providing original opinion to add the the conversation.

The Connectors - these are the ones that can walk into any room and know someone. They are always willing to help introduce you to someone and frequently do. The connectors help make it a great party by making the introductions between the great people they know.

The Filters - these are the people that act as the office grapevine - always plugged in and connected, but they sift through the conversations and repeat only the information worth sharing. In a world where more data will be produced this year than in the last 5000, these filters provide a valuable function in making the important data rise to the surface.

There is always the case of people that are a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but I find that in general, people fall into one of these four categories.

What makes this interesting to me is when you look at how you can use Twitter and other social media tools in the work place or for your clients. A key part of your planning needs to look at how you address these audiences. If you have a strategy that does not look at how to get your message to each one of these groups then your story won't make it around the cocktail party.

How should you approach this? When you are planning your strategy put a persona to each one of these groups and think through how they will receive your message and what you want them to do with it - what will they want to do with it? When you take the time to analyse your audience needs and adjust your message to suit, your results will dramatically improve.

Again, sorry for the dust on the blog... but I need to get that thought down before it fell through the cracks.

I'd love to hear your thoughts and feelings about Twitter and the different people at the party.

Photo Credit: takomabibelot