We have all read about Facebook surpassing the 300 million registered user mark, or Twitter’s rapid rise to 20 million users.  Stats like these are exciting, but they often lead to an irrational jump into these environments without any strategy.

When it comes time to take the jump into the social media world, you need to think about how your audience uses social media.  Forrester has done extensive research into how different demographics engage in social media.  They have defined six different profiles for social media use.

Creators
This group of people are the ones making the bulk of the content.  They might be writing a blog, creating video, podcasting or creating other content.

Critics
Critics are typically defined as people that post ratings and reviews, comment on blog posts and forums or contributing to a wiki.

Collectors
Collectors are the librarians of the web.  They are using RSS feeds, adding tags and using social bookmarking.

Joiners
These users create and maintain profiles on social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, and are active in dialog with other members of their social graph.

Spectators
Spectators are typically the largest group active in social media.  They are the people that are reading, watching or listening to all of the content created by creators and critics.

Inactives
These are the people that are active online, but do not participate in any form of social media.  This group is shrinking all the time.

When you are thinking about your social media strategy, you need to consider how your audience uses social media.  For example, if your audience has a high percentage of spectators, creating some sort of video contest is probably not the best approach.  Be sure that whoever is creating your strategy takes a look at how your audience is using social media before you invest time and money in a program.