I’ve seen the social media community run from tool to technology quicker than you can say “shiny object”. I’ve seen us run from blogs > Facebook > Twitter > Pownce > Jaiku > Justin TV > Ustream > Digg > Delicious > Upcoming > Flickr > YouTube > SecondLife > Widgets > Utterz > Zooomr > Friendfeed > Plurk > and who knows what’s next.
Go to Techcrunch to see lists and lists of more products, in our industry, the barriers to entry require just a few thousand (ask Guy Kawasaki) to build and launch an application. Sadly, only some of these tools we end up adopting for the long run, in most cases, we end up wasting our time.
The key to adopting the right social media tools is to first figure out which persona you are. Next, you need to identify which persona your friends are, lastly understand how you can best observe, and learn from others.
Pioneers
Obsessed and enamored with the technology, this individual is always adopting the latest social technologies. This individual is fickle with tools, won’t establish loyalty to websites, may move when they see colonists adopt the tool.Example: Often experimenting with products in their beta stage, this person will quickly move on to the next tool as fast as adopting the second.
Settlers
These second generation adopters look for key market or network indicators before adopting a new technology. This person is less enamored with the new technology, and more interested in the value that it provides.Example: They may trial tools after seeing several people in their network mention or trial the tool, and may adopt after a beta or trial period is over.
Colonists
Colonists are the mainstream adopters, they are often our parents, non-techies, and the everyday people we meet. They adopt these tools due not because of an internal desire to stay cutting edge, but often because several people around them make it an attractive destination and the they see the utility to the communication. They are not late adopters.Example:
Joins Facebook because colleagues, family, and friends are using it.
You can tell who the early adopters are on this video, pioneers sit in line, settlers come talk, but will by that week, colonists wait a few weeks/months/
So in the comments, answer the following:
1) Identify which persona you are
2) Identify two or more of your peers are the other roles.
I’ll start, read my first comment:
(Written on a plane flying out to Cambridge from SF)
I think I’m mostly a settler too, pioneer is somewhat too extreme, despite always trying new things, but unlike real pioneers, I do have a hard time moving on for the next new thing. I tend to linger on it a bit.
Totally a settler…it took me at least a year to figure out the value of Twitter (SXSW Zuckerberg interview fallout) and Plurk seems to be another dead end side street at the moment.
Louis Gray and Steve Rubel tend to be the Pioneers I look to at the moment (perhaps because they are among the few I follow on Twitter and Friendfeed). And you tend to Pioneer a lot of services as you investigate for work.
Colonists…well, those are the all of the married high school classmates with kids “discovering” the cool Facebook and throwing sheep at each other…or when my mom started using instant messaging as a common communication method.
Oh, by the way, love the classifications, but why not stick with the standards from Clayton Christenson’s “Crossing the Chasm”: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards? Seriously Jeremiah, you just keep coining new terms every day…