“People will happily pay more to be entertained than to be educated.” ~ Johnny Carson

A social media personality or online engagement professional constantly seeks a better path to educate while entertaining. They have experience building an online community and how to keep them engaged.  Subtle learning that influences decisions is an art that many are embracing in this era of the conversation. So, what does it take personality wise to craft a story that educates while entertaining? One of the most important lessons that social media continues to teach us, is that we’re all human, and that’s what our audience wants – to interact with other humans, not a corporate logo. To embrace this, in social media we must risk being vulnerable, show our personalities and converse with those who choose to follow us as we would with our closest friends. That’s what it’s all about. So, here are three quick thoughts around what personality traits it takes to be a social media professional.

The 3 R’s!

Reading. Social media professionals read copious copy. They can digest and skim over crap to find the right words that engage and sound interesting. They are the expert skim readers of our time. They share little gems of information, source interesting articles and spit “compelling content” out at the drop of a hat. Research. In all that reading comes a natural flair for research. Cross referencing, delving into topics previously completely foreign to them, will be devoured (mark my words). They can converse and call out on a community member who’s going too far because they know their subject. Righting. Conversations on all the (social media) platforms are human as we said earlier. It’s true, not all conversations will be easy, as is normal in any human relationship. A social media professional will look into the conversation in a way that will draw out real issues in a hope to righting the wrong (or perceived wrong). They have a good sense of balance and don’t pick sides. They also don’t take themselves too seriously, they genuinely enjoy people and conversations and have a deep sense of empathy. Now, without dampening the party… all this leads to a fairly nerdy lifestyle. Reading, research and righting while having conversations online? Yep, that’s about it. Who do you know?