Chris Tomlinson: Two sorts of people in social media

Mar 4 2010 By Chris Tomlinson

I have been developing a social media angle to the “two sorts of people” theory, which goes like this.

People can always be divided into two sorts. For instance there are those who think there are two sorts of people and those that don’t.

On Facebook they can be divided into narcissists and voyeurists.

(I’m going to call it the “ist” theory of social media – note you read it here first).

The narcissists are the more prolific uploaders.

They use Facebook as a channel to tell as many people as possible just how great their lives are going.

Endless action holiday photos, videos from trendy gigs, status updates from beaches in exotic locations and pictures of them posing with their attractive friends.

Then there are the voyeurists who observe the narcissist’s fulfilling lives.

Likely to be a little bit too interested in others’ holiday photographs and those of the people tagged within them.

Of course, people frequently switch “ists” depending on how well their lives are going and how much spare time they have on their hands.

This is what makes Facebook the cacophony of trivial human interactions that you either love or hate.

But how can this amateur psychology help brands get the most from Facebook.

Many brands have set up Facebook fan pages to try and reach these chattering classes.

However, currently most take a narcissistic stance, treating their pages like advertising billboards filling them with messages about themselves and their company’s latest achievements.

But if a company is lucky enough, someone else will have set up an unofficial fan page for them - even though many regard this as misfortune and try to close it down.

Instead the company should become the voyeurist.

With enough complaining and legal pressure Facebook will close down unofficial fan pages, but it’s better to let them run.

Imagine what you can learn about how your brand is perceived when your advocates and critics congregate of their own accord in a specific social media space – and you can listen in.

* Chris Tomlinson is MD of social media and PR agency Friend Digital www.frienddigital.com