I was looking at the profiles of some new followers, and I realize there are some concrete personalities I am seeing.  Here are a few to get you thinking:

• The Chatty Cathy or the Rampant Reply Robert: This Twitter personality is all about the conversation only.  You look at their stream and you see a sea of tweets starting with the @symbol.  There is no posting single thoughts or information.  Their profiles are more like chat rooms than anything else.
• The Schizophrenic Sampler or the Nowhere Man: If you see an account that has tweets posted by many different people, meaning they hit the retweet button more than they post their own thought, you have come across the schizophrenic sampler.  I understand that these people are enthusiastic about sharing what they see, however, I often wonder if they have their own personality and opinions to share.
• The Marketing Fool on the Hill: If all you see are post about them and what they are doing and selling, then you have come across this type of personality on Twitter.  Like the Fool on the Hill, they don’t realize that people don’t like them since they don’t like to be sold to 100% of the time.  This profile usually includes all the “I posted a photo on Facebook” or “I liked a YouTube” in which the YouTube is their latest and greatest.  They always are posting about their upcoming show, the music they are selling, etc, etc.  There’s a place for marketing on Twitter, but it should be a rare part of your tweeting experience.
• The Quite the Quoter: These accounts are still hanging in there, but not as popular as they used to be.  This profile has tweets of inspirational quotes from famous people aimed to lift your day and thoughts.  The occasional lift is helpful, however the constant quotes gets a little boring.
• The Social Media “Master”: These are the people that are pretending to be the masters of social media and are “proving” it by the number of people that they are following and who are following them.  When you take a closer look, they are more the Marketing Fool on the Hill personality and their following doesn’t represent meaningful relationships.  I follow a few real Social Media Masters and many of them converse with their followers instead of simply spouting their “wisdom” and puffing up their numbers with empty accounts.
• The Negative Nellies: A very easy personality to spot and easy to stay away from, unless they are sarcastically funny and make you laugh, then by all means, follow them!
• The Informative Informer: This is all that you see on these accounts.  Tweet after tweet of an article with a link.  There is no personality behind the tweets, no interaction.  Maybe they are bots in disguise?  What is funny is the fact people will follow these accounts for the information, and that generally gives them high numbers. The people behind these profiels are losing out on the full experience of Twitter which is the opportunity to build relationships with others.And my favorite personality, the one I always recommend:
• The All Around Star: This profile will show a good mix of conversation, information, retweets, quotes, with a little bit of marketing.  In other words, they are showing their full personalities, helping others, and sharing good information for their followers.

There may be more personalities to define.  What personalities do you see on Twitter?  Which ones give you the pet peeve heebie-jeebies and which ones do you like to tweet with?  Let us know!

-Shoshana
Buildmyaudience.com