Forrester’s Social Technographics Profile Tool is superb; take a look if you haven’t previously. In short, it breaks down social users into different categories, ranging from inactives (don’t use social) to creators (produce and publish stuff). The figures can be broken down further by demographic variables (age, sex and location) which makes it useful reading for marketers and communicators. Looking to reach German men in their 30s? Focus on content more than engagement, given that they read lots but don’t like to share and interact. Italians? Go for engagement and even user generated material, cos they love the stuff.
What if we applied a similar model to Brussels, with the following variables:
- Sex
- Age
- Nationality
- Sector/area of expertise (health, financial services, tech, environment, trade etc.)
- Organisation (Commission, Parliament, Council, Perm Rep, in-house, NGO, agency, trade association etc.)
What would we likely learn? No doubt there’s extremes: a southern European male, aged 45-55, specialised in financial services and working in the institutions would likely be an inactive (although there’ll certainly be exceptions). Meanwhile, a young Swede working at an agency on tech issues would probably be at the other end of the spectrum.
But what about the less obvious middle ground? A 40 year old Hungarian working on trade issues at their perm rep? OK the critical mass of data to get that specific would probably be lacking, but as a basic indicator, I think it’d be fascinating nonetheless.
Steffen Moller 