Twitter dominated by narcissists

Posted At : September 30, 2009 9:12 AM | Posted By : Steve Hodgdon
Related Categories: Social Media

narcissism In a new study that's sure to give Twitter critics more ammo, Rutgers University researchers reveal that the majority of Twitter users remain self-absorbed tweeters. The study divided 350 Twitter users into two camps: informers (who post informative tweets) and meformers (who post mainly personal updates). Eighty percent of us fall into the latter camp.

While some might interpret these findings as a setback for using Twitter as marketing and community-building mechanism, it's not really. Self-indulgence can be a powerful motivator. It's all in how you leverage that tendency to shape your campaign.

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The researchers actually tried hard to get a valid sample and 80% “meformers” sounds close to accurate. I would say perhaps half of the 20% informer tweets are irrelevant or not very informative.

These results may be reflective of our American society at large – if most people are narcissists, self-indulgence may work well as a motivator.

# Posted By Steven Maimes | 9/30/09 12:49 PM

I'm curious about how all of this shakes down if Twitter users are separated between "personal" tweeters and "business/networking" tweeters. I read the study and it doesn't give much more info about the nature of the sample. If no distinction was made - I would bet (with about 100% certainty) that the 80% "meformers" are on Twitter just for fun and the 20% "informers" are Tweeting as a business/marketing strategy. I feel like I am stating the obvious though...is there something else I am missing from this article?

It seems like if you looked at the 20% "informers" separately, nearly 100% of them would be tweeting as a social media marketing strategy.

# Posted By Jen Luna | 9/30/09 3:50 PM

Jen,
I think you're right on most counts, except the part about the 80% of meinformers in it just for fun. Of the meformers I follow, a significant percentage are business people who occassionally sprinkle in "meinforms" for business reasons...e.g. "heading to XYC conference to give a preso on social gaming trends. Look me up if U R attending" or "Just published this ebook on Twitter trends. Download it here and let me know what you think" ...that kind of stuff. I also believe there's a lot of blended gray area between the two groups. A lot of meformers inform via Twitter occasionally.

# Posted By Stephen Hodgdon | 10/1/09 10:00 AM

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