digital marketing psychology

THE DIGITAL PERSONALITY:

The psychological segmentation of social media markets

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By Joseph Lloyd (c) 2014

When using social media to engage potential customers, how in touch with them are you in

how they consume the vast options at their disposal? Can understanding how they weave

their lives into social media enable you to design the optimal campaign for them to be most

receptive?

What we say and what we don't say on social media does not hide the dimensions of personality.

The internet has been revolutionised by Facebook since 2004 consolidating the once

decompartmentalised digital channels of blogs, forums, chatrooms, email. gaming, multimedia,

news and information. AC Nielsen (2013) quarter Digital report estimates 12 million active

Facebook accounts in Australia with an average of 9 million users logging in daily.

The fluidity of Facebook across technological devices enables users to alleviate, supplement,

portalise or mediate social agendas at any point in their daily routine. The diversity in Facebook

features allows users to customise the social media experience to their individual personalities.

Facebook has seen multiple format changes and additions to its service functions in the time it takes

to complete the observational analysis of empirically controlled psychological data. By the time

results are released are they completely obsolete? When consolidating some of the large scale

studies conducted this past decade, we can identify traits. Though some accounts will contradict or

vary, the findings allow us to create a very strong digital profile of the online personality regardless

of what is being filtered out in the art of self image management.

The classic Five Factor Model of personality operates on the assumption that Facebook profiles are

an extension of one’s personality rather than an idealised self-portrayal. In depth studies of profiles

take into account levels of facebook friend contacts against number of real life friends and

motivations for gravitating to preferred applications and functions. 17 of these studies we explored

assessed more than 4000 facebook profiles in Australia, United States, China, Canada and Israel.

ONLINE-OFFLINE FLOW OF SOCIAL INTERACTIONS: Who on your friends list are what psychologists characterise as socially dominant, well balanced in

emotional regulation and have a wide use of more Facebook feature applications?

Extraverts on Facebook have been found more likely to upload photographs, regularly update their

profile information, walls, timelines and use instant messaging in order to maintain a public

perception of online social competency. In general, they exude a higher level of confidence when

broadcasting personal activities and sharing posts and information. They also tended to have a

much larger contact list of facebook friends.

THE NEED FOR SOCIAL CONTROL: In contrast, the Facebook introvert typically has lower offline social interactions and creates its

social framework through virtual chat forums and online-only friendships.

OPERATIONAL USE - CONTACT LISTS & APPLICATIONS The bipolarity of the extrovert/introvert personality dimension isn't about one personality type

enjoying a higher quality of social contact then the other, but rather the functionality of Facebook

use within their social environments. Extraverts tend to use facebook to supplement an offline

social objective, while Introverts may create a virtual social network to replace a lack of one. This

has been a revolutionary solution for social anxiety sufferers for example who are unable to muster



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up enough confidence to engage in face to face interaction. It has also opened new dialogues to

how healthcare professionals may administer treatments or therapy for relative conditions in this

branch.

This in mind, it could therefore be assumed, topics of conversations in extraverts are themed to

enable a flow into actual offline activity, while introverts social criteria and conversation would be

more diverse and less selective with the intention to create their ultimate social world virtually with

little to no face- to-face contact. Extraverts may select casual contacts based on geography and

shared interests with a view to offline integration while introverts may not factor this criteria into

the fabric of their networks.

THE WILL TO TRY TO NEW THINGS: Openness refers to inclinations in adopting new ideas, objects or experiences rather then opposing

them and being locked in their ways

THE SILENT ONES: Agreeableness and Conscientiousness relate to planned versus spontaneous behaviour and the

cooperative versus antagonistic traits, key research lends incongruent support in identifying the

mystery of these Facebook characters. Typically, this could be many of those not on Facebook,

have strict controls on the information they share and very low usage activity online.

THE PENDULUM OF EMOTION - A TICKING TIMEBOMB?

Neuroticism encompasses an emotional continuum from being laid back and proness to arousal

states of anxiety, depression or stress. This Facebook user has a smaller interpersonal network

offline and may utilise social media to alleviate emotional strain. The Facebook neurotic has a

regular schedule of use, and like extraverts, tends to favor instant messaging and chatrooms.

However, in a general sense, the approach is more passive. Research finds a tendency to engage on

Facebook through status updates, and wall posts rather than photos. In doing so, a motivational

need to control information disclosure and edit unfavorable feedback responses is possible. Like

any normal face to face conversation, the main priority in this style of use is on censoring oneself in

the spectrum of diplomacy and fanatical expression.

The anatomy of the social media user in recent studies recognises specific motivations linked to

personality type. Though in one study, online behaviours were observed across 22 social media

applications implying a framework outside of the traditional personality dimensions thought to

guide social approaches of individuals. The likelihood to levitate to specific Facebook functions

across all research, uncover strong identifiers in usage patterns by gender, age and ethnicity.

MEN & WOMEN ON FACEBOOK: Men and women in general tend to publicise personal information more if they are predominantly

interested in developing new relationships. However gender specific behaviours have been

identified impacting how a business may want to rethink how they talk to their male and female

clientele:

Women appear to spend more time per visit on Facebook then men, although make less frequent

visits. This suggests a quality not quantity aspect to their approach. When it comes to men and

their feelings, women are often left in frustration with the unlikeliness to intimately confide,

however the studies identify emotional instability or distress in men influences more regular

Facebook visits.



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Women also have a general tendency to gravitate to the relationship statuses of same-sex peers.

The relationship status of males strongly indicated more use of Facebook while this was not the

case in women. This suggests a masking of social intention in female social media confined to

accepted norms when attending to their public Facebook personna.

Men consistently show a general tendency to partake in online games for distraction or relief.

The social influencer for women appears to be a need to bring depth to Facebook relationships,

while for men it is mission oriented where they get in and get out.

Could alternate social settings and lifestyles play a role in online social goals? In a sample of 633

heterosexuals and 437 homosexuals across 111 cities in China, openness, conscientiousness and

agreeableness was higher in heterosexual men. Neuroticism was higher in all heterosexuals while

openness was higher in lesbian women. In a sample of 2,359 American students, 64% were

female who were more likely then the men to post, tag, view photos, comment on content and post

status updates.

FACEBOOK GENERATIONS: AGE IS SOMETHING BUT A NUMBER Baby Boomers (born between 1946-1964), Gen Xers (born between 1965 and 1976) and

NetGeners (born between 1977 and 1997) show distinct characteristics in Facebook consumption.

Openness in baby boomers seemed to be a driving force in their readiness to adopt to Facebook

technology, while GenXers and NetGeners are driven to facebook purely by extraversion aspects of

personality. Baby boomers with travelling and more technologically driven offspring seem to be

motivated to Facebook to monitor children's behaviour at first but later too also becoming

enchanted with satisfying their personal social goals.

Younger groups having grown up with social media, naturally progress to joining Facebook to

connect with friends use it much like older generations would have used a personal journal or diary,

disclosing more information than their maturer counterparts as a result of the larger volumes of

media in general today's society is exposed to.

Across all generations, there is a common utilisation of the blog-style functions in social media.

This represents an unwritten ettiquette of omission in negative comments when sharing public

opinions, feelings and when participating in controversial debates on Facebook.

WHERE DO WE DRAW THE LINE?

FFM bipolaraties are at the core of individual communication style differntials. The dimensional

markers when considering social variables may one day decipher how personality traits materialise

on Facebook. Ultimately, an appropriate framework of social media channel inventory should

encapsulate both elements. The implications for businesses will not only shift the focus of

marketing from targetting a demographic profile on superficial characteristics, but rather

customised maneouvres based on individual personality motivations and functional use of the

social media they engage in. For developers, they become empowered with the ability to fully

attune themselves to operational needs of users based on specific psychological motivations

enabling them to treat (satisfy) needs based on the symptoms (behaviours) that manifest



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congruently across social media platforms.

It is also important to remember that the rapid evolution of Facebook functions continues, the

influence of personality and social variables naturally must change also, and therefore rendering

some studies obsolete. Already the question has evolved from the likelihood of social media use

based on personality to one assigning traits and social demographics specific to Facebook features,

applications and components.

NOTE TO EDITOR: The majority of the literature from the United States (Junco, 2013; Junco, 2012; Jenkins-Guarnieri et. al., 2012;

Carpenter et. al., 2011; Seidman, 2013; Moore & McElroy,2012), China (Wang et. al., 2012) and all literature from

Israel (Amichai-Hamburger & Vinitzky, 2010) and Canada (Ross et. al., 2009) rely on limited populations of university

undergraduates. Caution in drawing inferences from these observations may prove difficult, though the broad

agreement across personality dimensions still provides a compelling case. The abovementioned research solidifies the

cross-cultural universality in FFM applications across international samples. Inconsistencies however are at the

mercy of the Facebook format of the time which in recent years has undergone major expansion therefore changing the

nature of individual application use.

Disproportionate sample sizes against university population samples and in some cases the gender makeup may also

have affected results. The largest and independent samples were drawn in by Zheng et. al.'s (2008) research in China

(n=1070), Ryan & Xenos (2011) in Australia (n=1324) and Correa et. al. (2010) in Texas, USA (n=959). The nature of

SNS research naturally incorporates online data capture and relies heavily on self and informant reporting which is

chaotic due to the non-existence of precedencial methods regulating a uniform approach such as the FFM personality

inventories.

However, Wang et. al. reported men having a larger pool of SNS friends in contrast to Moore and McElroy who indicate

women to be most likely to have wider groups of SNS friends.

(Costa & McCrae, 1992). Observations in Amichai-Hamburger and Vinitzky's (2010) study deviated from Ross et. al.

(2009) earlier findings of extraversion. Supporting the notion that Facebook extraverts have a higher friendship contact

base they found affiliations with a higher number of interests groups were

not supported.

The format, layout changes and newly developed applications of Facebook at the time may have affected the way

extraverts publicise their activity news and events with a growing focus across the board placed on newsfeeds, the share

facility, video chat and rapid growth in business pages (Moore & McElroy, 2012). Carpenter et. al. (2012) found

openness to experience as a dominating factor predicting the use of Facebook for supplementing offline social networks

rather than Extraversion. Comparing the two dimensions, Carpenter found no positive or negative relationship with

extraversion. Wang, et. al. (2012) found participants high in openness more likely to play online games and use general

entertainment features. They are also an indirect way to maintain social contact through joint player functionality and

friend invite requests. Again, with the occurrence of new entertainment applications, communication options, the

readiness to adopt new modes of Facebooking may explain Carpenter's predictive openness.



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