Is social media participation determined by personality types?
This is a guest post by Neil Denny, lawyer and social media trainer. We’ve noticed that some people seem like social media naturals, whilst others are immediately sceptical, bordering on hostile. Talking it through with Neil, he wondered if personality types could help us understand how people are likely to participate in social media.
Speaking to groups about social media often elicits fairly fixed responses ranging from the curious to the strongly opposed, from the enthusiastic to the cool.
I recently held a facilitated discussion between lawyers, mediators and financial advisers. Exploring the full range of reactions proved to be quite a challenge. The thought occurred to me whether that maybe each profession had different responses or considerations relating to social media.
I was not convinced that was the problem. Some of the financial advisers were very keen, some were not, and it was the same with lawyers and mediators.
I then got to thinking about personality typing, about Myers-Briggs, Insights, Social Styles, Disc profiling or any of the others.
Could responses to social media participation be mapped out in accordance with similar traits?
If we borrowed a grid to map people along an assertiveness axis, say, and an emotional/expressiveness axis then could we better anticipate how people interact with social media and social media training?
Let us assume that someone who is not assertive, and not particularly expressive is likely to be very quiet and reserved. They are going to be slow to put themselves forward or get online. In training it is likely that they will want to access the information being delivered in plenty of time and consider if fully. And very carefully. They are going to be the slow adopters. Give them a Yammer account to acclimatize.
A gung-ho, inspirational piece of motivation wizardry will only arouse suspicion. We need to go slow, show success stories and explain how the success was achieved.
Now what of the non-assertive, but expressive types? Sometimes these might be referred to as green types. Their sensitivity and willingness to share emotions can make them key team players, but their lack of assertiveness means that they are not natural leaders or managers.
Within social media, they are likely to want to keep control of who accesses their profiles. Privacy may well be a concern, and even an objection. As a trainer within social media we need to emphasise the ability to build meaningful online relationships that may well turn into referrals, or enable in-house collaboration.
A closely guarded personal Facebook account, or a company Facebook profile might fit here.
What of the driven assertive types, but those who are emotionally reserved? A lazy stereotype might assume that these are the traditional managers of old. They are strongly focussed on results.
They want the metrics! How are we going to measure the success of social media? What is the return on investment? Give me success stories by all means but tell me in pounds and pence. Maybe LinkedIn suits best with its no-fuss, corporate thrust.
And the assertive expressives? Well they are the easy sells. These will be your key sponsors within the group, driving forward innovation and participation.
Social media can be shown to give them an opportunity to be creative and expressive and to acquire a broad platform upon which to perform. Equip them with a few skills, make sure you raise their awareness about appropriate content and watch them fly. Watch their Twitter follower counts soar and marvel at their Facebook friendships blossom.
So what are your thoughts? Does the theory hold water? What types could we identify and what labels might we give each of the above?
Neil Denny is a consultant lawyer, trainer and author. He writes the Lawyer 1.9 blog and can be found on Twitter as @neildenny
Published on 23 November 2010
