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Types of Digital Users: Influencers, heavy followers, spammers and trolls

13/06/2016
by Isaura Sotoca

On the Internet, and more specifically in social networks, there are different types of users depending on their behaviour and their relationship with brands.

Not everybody acts in the same way as not everyone have the same needs.

Surely you know the kind of user who has a personal blog, publishes every day and always comments what the brands publish on its social media channels. And surely you also know someone who, even if you know that they have Facebook, Twitter, or any social network, accounts, they never say anything or interact with any brand.

It is important to know our users to communicate with them in the most appropriate way and to generate engagement with the community. For this reason, in this post, we explain how to classify users according to their influence with the rest of the community and their behaviour in the network.

The 8 types of digital users

Usuari del tipus influencer

The Influencers

Or what's the same: Opinion leaders ?. Those users who move masses, who publish with great regularity and have a large community of followers behind.

They are a really interesting audience for all kind of brands! Getting that a renowned influencer speaks well of your brand may be a huge impact on your digital reputation.

Heavy-user

The Heavy Followers

They are very active users on the net, they tend to comment, like and interact with the brands that they follow and with other users on a regular basis.

Heavy Followers are valuable as they are usually satisfied with a brand and don't hesitate to share it in their social networks. They are prescribers and will be key users to help the brand's social networks to seem really active.

Light follower

The Light Followers

These users are similar to Heavy Followers, but with less intensity. They also have the habit of interacting in social media with brands and other users but in more occasionally.

Usuaris passius

The Passive Users

They are users who follow and read everything shared by a brand, either on the net, social media, blog o website.

However, they do not interact with anyone.

In fact, they are the most common type of user and the highest percentage of followers of a brand respond to these characteristics.

Usuari polèmic

The Controversial User

Unfortunately, there's always someone that becomes a conflictive user.

Sometimes this profile responds to unsatisfied customers who use social networks and forums as a channel for complaints and claims.

The social media manager must be very patient and try to attend the situation with the best behaviour, in an empathic and positive way. Always ensuring that the other users of the community don't get affected by the Controversial User. Always try to not generate a bigger conflict.

Usuari spammer

The Spammer User

They are users who just share publications in a bulk and indiscriminate way. They don't even take into account if the place where they are publishing their random and spammy content is the appropriate channel to do so.

It's a type of user that is interested neither in your brand nor the other users in the brand's community.

Usuari troll

The Troll

This user goal is only to annoy a brand publishing negative comments that will have an impact on the rest of the community.

They are not especially unsatisfied customers, that whether we like it or not, there always are.

These are users who publish with the purpose to attack, with the only intention of hurting the brand's reputation.

Client visitant

The Visiting Client

If you have never had a doubt about a product that you have bought and you have talked to the brand in their social networks, blog or forum, you have also been a Visiting Client.

They are users who engage with brands just because they have a doubt about a product or service, and may not re-engage anymore in the future until another doubt comes to their mind.

Usuari concursant

The Contestant

The user who only follows the brand's social media accounts to benefit from a contest or raffle.

They may not really have any interest in the brand's products or services, they are only interested in the prize that you are offering.

That's why we need to take these users into account when organizing raffles too regularly. We could be building our community only with followers that are Contestant Users. Therefore, with users of little value for the business.

Now that you know the different user profiles that exist according to their behaviour and influence you will be able to analyze your community and how your brand is communicating with each of the users.

Always keep in mind that everyone has a unique purpose when communicating with a brand. Now, we encourage you to think about strategies to attract the type of digital users that most interests your brand. There's nothing better as knowing how your audience is to communicate with them perfectly!

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