Actively Participating on Social Media

The numbers are staggering. Facebook, alone, reports it has close to 1 billion "active" users.  How active are they really? How active are you on any of the social media platforms that you frequent?

Just as the statuses, links and images shared across social media platforms are not all the same; neither are the users of these platforms. While industry experts have developed their own terminology for these active users based on how they participate; I have come up with my own layman terms that I want to share with you.

• "The Scroller" - The scroller is someone who scrolls through their social media feeds just to say they have kept up with the news from their friends and family. They very rarely, if ever, post updates themselves or share anything that they see.  Their virtual friends have a tendency to forget they are on their friends list. It is as if they are listening from behind a closed door afraid to join in on the conversation.

• "The Liker" - The liker is someone who likes almost everything that they see in their feeds.  Many times their like or thumbs up will appear on a post quicker than it would take for them to even access the link and read the corresponding article. All too often it seems that they are in a race to be the first to like something.

• "The Sharer" - The sharer spends a majority of their time on social media sharing posts, images and links.  Yes, this is one of the fundamental reasons for social media; however, the sharer will share or retweet without the addition of their own opinion or personal thoughts on the post in question.

• "The Hater" - The hater finds something negative to say about every single post that comes across their feed.  Even the most positive post about the weather will receive a negative comment of some sort.  The hater tends to associate everything along their own personal religious, social or political beliefs.  If, for example, the post mentions that it is going to rain; the hater will comment that a certain political party, religious organization or socioeconomic class was responsible for the chance of snow or rain.

• "The Moderator" - The moderator posts an update knowing full well it will elicit responses from their followers and friends; both positive and negative. The moderator will chime in when the online conversation becomes too one-sided trying to never allow the post to be hijacked by any one participant in the conversation.

• "The Social Butterfly" - The social butterfly is the master of social media. They will like, share, comment on every single item on their feed. They have 1,000's of friends and followers and never seems to miss any of their posts. It is as if they are online 24/7.

Granted, not every active user can be classified in any single category. We may all fall into one or several of these over the course of our online experience. Then again, there may be a classification out there that I have not run across.

I tend to try to be the moderator, though many of my friends may think of me more as the social butterfly; more so for seemingly being online all the time rather than be a social media master. Where do you see yourself fitting in or, rather, how do you think your online friends would classify you?