The document discusses using personas to understand social media users and build efficient social media sites. It defines a persona as a fictional person representing a user group. Ten personas are described representing different personality types and behaviors among social media users, such as status seekers, critics, socializers, lurkers, etc. The document advocates adapting site design and content to match the interests and needs of different personas in order to better engage users and achieve business objectives.

1. 10 Personas - to help you understand the behaviour and motives of the Social Media Users Social Media Afternoon – Brussels, July 9 th , 2009 Ingrid Rennoir - Strategy Consultant

2. Part 1 What?

3. What? Social media users have personalities that come out in how they relate to and use social media.

4. What? Social media users have personalities that come out in how they relate to and use social media. Users are people…

6. What? So if we want to build efficient Social Media Sites, we need to get a deep perspective on the mediated social interactions, communication, actions, and behaviors of its users.

7. What? So if we want to build efficient Social Media Sites, we need to get a deep perspective on the mediated social interactions, communication, actions, and behaviors of its users. Personas will help us visualize this perspective!

8. What? What is a persona?

9. What? What is a persona? A persona is a fictional person who represents an user group for your site.

10. What? What is a persona? A persona is a fictional person who represents an user group for your site.

12. Part 2 Why?

13. Why? Reason #1 We want to know who the user is, what he does and why.

14. Why? Reason #2 The diversity of social media applications available attracts different kinds of users, engaging them in different kinds of activities and practices.

15. Why? Reason #3 The medium provides opportunities to engage users directly and through the activities in which they are engaged.

16. Why? Reason #4 Personas subdivide audiences into groups according to what they do and why they do it — not only what they mean, how much they earn, or how they consume.

17. Why? Reason #5 With personas we can migrate from page-based, contextual, and search- based advertising to user-targeted advertising.

18. Why? Reason #6 Personas help us to know who the user is, how to reach him/her, and how s/he influences others.

19. Why? Users needs Business objectives Value

20. Why? Users needs Business objectives Value = Efficient Social Media Sites

21. Why? Users needs Business objectives Value = Efficient Social Media Sites = More ROI

22. Part 3 The 10 personas

23. The personas Status seeker Critic Socializer Em-cee Lurker Buddy Harmonizer Creator Rebel Pundit

24. The personas: Status Seeker Personality characteristic: He believes visible accomplishments make a good impression and are socially recognised. Relationships can be understood in terms of exchange, trade and collecting. Status Seeker

25. The personas: Status Seeker Interests & behavior: He checks his owns stats as wel as leaderboards. He accumulates friends, symbolic tokens and other social status symbols Status Seeker

27. The personas: Critic Personality characteristic: A writer and an author , interested in substance and content. He may see in audience approval a measure of his insights or intelligence, rather than popularity or status. Critic

28. The personas: Critic Interests & behavior: He is an important contributor, blogger, commenter. He takes a committed interest in online discussions or publications. Critic

30. The personas: Socializer Personality characteristic: He believes in online community, using it to keep informed about friends, events and social news. He pays attention when invited and notified and accepts to be a (active) member of an online community Socializer

31. The personas: Socializer Interests & behavior: He wants to have fun when networking and can thus be an engine for social interaction. He participates in ratings, votings and respects the social conventions and etiquette. Socializer

33. The personas: Em-Cee Personality characteristic: He uses his performance to get attention and may therefore be more interested in capturing an audience than in the contents. Social validation is important. Em-Cee

34. The personas: Em-Cee Interests & behavior: He attracts audiences and helps to create a center of activity on UGC platforms. He is interested in tools that allow him to broadcast his postings i.e. RSS, blogs, twitter… Em-Cee

36. The personas: Lurker Personality characteristic: He doesn’t draw much attention but is an observant participant. He logs into site, browses, subscribes and follows others. Lurker

37. The personas: Lurker Interests & behavior: He generates a lot of page views as a more passive user. He may have concerns about security and privacy, but once these issues are properly addressed, he represent a large market. Lurker

39. The personas: Buddy Personality characteristic: He has a strong sense of friendship and sees online activities as a vehicle for maintaining relationships. Buddy

40. The personas: Buddy Interests & behavior: He joins social media because his friends are there. The distribution of promotional messages using friend networks may be successful. Buddy

42. The personas: Creator Personality characteristic: He creates, builds, makes and publishes. He provides contents that will be shared and or mashed up. Creator

43. The personas: Creator Interests & behavior: He is an early adopter of new trends and tools. He may invest time and energy in collaborative creative efforts. Creator

45. The personas: Rebel Personality characteristic: He is a frequent heckler and when annoyed he might identify himself as being in the opposition. He will focus more on content or on a group. Rebel

46. The personas: Rebel Interests & behavior: He is subversive and may use Social Media to distribute opinions on commercial organizations. His opinions drive indirect traffic to the places where his opinions are aired. Rebel

48. The personas: Pundit Personality characteristic: He considers himself as an industry leader or an expert, and routinely offers latest news, opinions and observations. He is a contributor and can capture the interest of an audience. Pundit

49. The personas: Pundit Interests & behavior: He plays an important role in make the web as the fastest source of news. He helps to validate the claims of net journalists and bloggers. Pundit

51. The personas: Harmonizer Personality characteristic: He appreciates group membership motivated by the group’s relationships. He may do things to make others happy, particularly if it serves the group’s activity. Harmonizer

52. The personas: Harmonizer Interests & behavior: He is sensitive to group participation and engagement. He uses a range of communication tools and applications, especiallly when it is group-oriented. Harmonizer

54. Part 4 How?

55. How? #1 By adapting the task flows to the mental processes of the user Proposed flow

56. How? #1 By adapting the task flows to the mental processes of the user Critic Proposed flow

57. How? #1 By adapting the task flows to the mental processes of the user Critic Proposed flow Optimized flow

58. How? #2 By adapting the content & functions of the pages to the interests, needs & behavior of the user Page prototype

59. How? #2 By adapting the content & functions of the pages to the interests, needs & behavior of the user Critic Em-cee Page prototype

60. How? Critic Em-cee Page prototype #2 By adapting the content & functions of the pages to the interests, needs & behavior of the user

61. How? Critic Em-cee Page prototype Page design #2 By adapting the content & functions of the pages to the interests, needs & behavior of the user

62. How? #3 By developing efficient Profile Funnels in your WA tool. } }

63. Part 5 Next steps

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