I’m an observer of people. I could spend hours sitting on a bench in a park or a mall, imagining the lives of those passing by, trying to peg their personalities through the various ways they present: clothing, countenance, language, even the way they carry themselves.  The Twitterverse is a kind of park bench itself, except in this case, the people passing by are all vying for our attention, hoping someone, somewhere hears them and is listening.

Over the last 7 weeks of life in the Twitterverse, I’ve seen quite a few distinct Twitter Personality Types emerge. Here’s my list of the Top 10, with real life examples you can check out yourself. Do you see yourself here? If so, we’re probably following you!

1. The Political Curmudgeon

This Tweeter is a cranky, irritable sort who is disillusioned with some segment of society and uses Twitter to voice his displeasure. Depending on your own level of political interest, The Political Curmudgeon is either amusing, annoying, or downright inspirational. There are a lot of Curmudgeons right now who either think Obama is the anti-Christ or Sarah Palin is the biggest idiot to enter the political scene, and who believe that anyone who supports the target of their anger is either uneducated, brainwashed, blind, or all three. Political Curmudgeons usually religiously follow Millionaire Curmudgeons who get paid to keep us riled up. Anne Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher — the Talking Head Curmudgeons who dream up ways to demonize their opponents and keep the flame wars going so they can keep getting paid the big bucks. It’s a nice business if you can break into it, I suppose. I follow a couple of non-famous Political Curmudgeons on both sides of the aisle, as well as those who don’t fit in anywhere, because it takes guts to be that open when you’re not being paid for it. I’m sure their inboxes are filled with hate DMs. Not for the faint of heart.

2. The Stay-At-Home Sharer

The Sharer is a sweetheart. She loves to read and learn, and will find any excuse she can to do so. She subscribes to blogs, follows people she finds interesting, and then shares the best of her finds with her followers, complete with links to original source material. She probably has her own blog as well. This is her work. She doesn’t get paid to do it, but that’s not why she does it. She’s helping people. The dishes might pile up and the dust bunnies are sticking to her kids’ socks, but those aren’t her priorities. The Sharer will be the Tweeter you see filling her day with @replies to all kinds of people, many of them other Sharers just like her. Some may call her an Internet Addict, but I have a special place in my heart for The Sharer. She’s always a very nice person, the kind you’d have over for coffee if she weren’t so busy.

3. The Sharer With Purpose

This kind of Tweeter shares so we’ll see them as experts in the field they’re sharing about. They’re staying up-to-date on the latest and greatest that’s breaking in their field of interest, and making sure you know that they know what’s going on. Many have accounts with url shorteners so they can share links to great source material and then track their readership, tweaking their Twitter campaigns accordingly to build credibility among their followers. Most are entrepreneurs who own their own small businesses and are using Twitter to reach a wider market, and quite a few of those have other remarkable interests and talents that they tout on the side. I learn a lot from The Sharer With Purpose and follow quite a few of them, building authentic online relationships and doing what I can to spread the word about them to my followers. May I recommend a few of the latter? @georgebross, @lpgeffen, @dadekian, and @eastofprov. They know their stuff and they’re genuinely nice people. And no, I wasn’t paid to say so.

4. The Celebrity

This Tweeter can be a local celebrity like a news anchor or meteorologist, or a big-time celebrity with national or even international fame. They Tweet for different reasons, but I think it’s safe to say they want to connect with their existing fan base in a personal way and increase their fan base while they’re at it. We all love getting a peek at what a celebrity is like offstage or offscreen, and The Celebrity Tweeter gives us that sneak peek. We follow Celebrity Tweeters for different reasons, but c’mon — who doesn’t feel special when a celebrity acknowledges you, or even better, follows you back? I actually switched news channels after talking to @paulmmueller (ABC6) behind the scenes about the horrors of reporting on The Station fire, and discovering a reporter with a heart who hasn’t been jaded by the things he’s seen.

On this topic, I’ve seen one young woman who has complained publicly that she sends hundreds of @replies to one national celebrity who never answers her back. That’s a little scary, and I’m sure the celebrity thinks so, too.

5. The Bona Fide Expert

These are the Tweeters we follow because we want to learn from them, and they know it. They’ve built their social media careers on being seen as experts who started out just like us, Tweeting into the void and hearing nary a DM or @reply back. But they kept at it, tweaking and learning and applying and tweaking again, until doggone it, people started listening! I love The Bona Fide Experts, and learn as much as I can from them. The Bona Fide Experts also blog and join forces with other Bona Fide Experts to help the rest of us seize the day like they did, and maybe even make a respectable living using Social Media Marketing. Some I follow closely are @ChrisBrogan, @lkr (Laura Roeder), @JasonFalls (Social Media Explorer) and @DuctTape (John Jansch). I mention them because not only are they Bona Fide Experts, but they take the “social” in social media seriously.

6. The Christian Evangelist

This Tweeter sees the Internet as a mission field, and spends his day Tweeting about Jesus, sharing scripture, and encouraging people. He has a lot of followers, most of whom are already Christians. Once in a while The Evangelist will get into a stirring apologetics debate with an atheist who seems hell-bent on winning an argument that simply can’t be won or lost on this side of death, and who accuses The Evangelist of believing in fairy tales. Eventually, when the debate dissolves into name-calling and personal attacks, The Evangelist usually wishes the atheist well, ends the debate, and goes back to Tweeting about Jesus to the Twitterverse until another atheist itching for a fight comes along. In the meantime, followers of all spiritual persuasions lurk in the background and read The Evangelist’s evidence, and some are changed by it. I like The Evangelist, and I follow a couple of them if they’re polite and intelligent, like @MikeJody. It’s a tough gig, I’m sure. Like The Political Curmudgeon, this Tweeting purpose is not for the faint of heart.

7. The Activist

The Activist is a Tweeter driven to Tweet about a heart-felt cause, even if it’s not the original reason they joined the Twitterverse. There’s the single Dad whose passion is to support and encourage other single Dads (@lagresto), the Mom who’s fighting back at the insurance company she says screwed her when she lost her husband and home to a fire (@STATEFARMSUCKS), the sports fanatic who knows every statistic and can’t get enough of the local sports scene (@bossprtsthennow), the conservative who’s convinced America is headed in the wrong direction (@walterga), and the Tweeter who’s made their passion their life’s work (@RIBloodCenter). These Tweeters see the Twitterverse as a vehicle to change the world one listener at a time. And once in a while, they make inroads and raise awareness about the things that mean so much to them, getting enough fuel to keep them going for another day.

8. The In-Your-Face Salesperson

This Tweeter makes no apologies for his Tweeting style. All he tweets about is himself and his awesome incredible money-making venture that you just have to get in on because holy crap you’re going to be rich just like him and then you can have all your dreams come true by working from home and you have to sign up NOW! I’m not sure how he garners so many followers (some of them have thousands!), but I suspect a lot of that might be through numbers inflation tools. You know what, though? If he’s making money and it’s honest money, more power to him! You know who The In-Your-Face Salesperson is, but just in case you’re wondering if this is you, here’s what you look like: @inetmarketing4u. I only name this Tweeter because they were the most recent to start following us — it was an easy find.

9. The Porn Pusher

What more do I need to say? When it comes to pornography, the only limits are your imagination, and you name it, they’re pushing it. These are the Tweeters who have no qualms about making money off loneliness and addiction, and who are bent on getting as many in their corner of the world as possible, for a host of sordid reasons including their own deep-seated issues with sexuality. I block these people, and I’m certainly not going to name names. I don’t want to do a thing to help send them traffic. I’d say more, but I won’t.

10. The Business Owner/Entrepreneur

This is my “people group,” the reason I blog and Tweet, and the people I want to help through this blog. The Business Owner/Entrepreneur Tweeter knows that social media is a must if he wants to compete in today’s marketplace, and he’s usually hungry for information that will light his path in the middle of the cacophony of Twitter chatter. There are many who are in it for the same reason I am, to help others along the way as they share about their own business — people like @monikamcg . A few, like @hardwareguy860, make regular use of Twitter to give updates on projects they’re working on. Others seem lost and unsure of how to proceed, and then there are those who are up to their ears in projects and can’t find the time for social media, even though it’s the one tool that might enable them to break out of the daily grind and into another sphere of influence.

This is where we were until we decided that the time we invested into social media was worth the man-hours and would give us more bang for our buck than traditional marketing. I live for The Business Owner/Entrepreneur who follows us, no matter where they are in the Twitterverse experience. Seeing these Tweeters succeed is what drives me.

So, Reader, do you lay claim to any of these Twitter Personality Types?

Which Twitter Personality Types did I miss?

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Michelle handles all Social Media for New England Multimedia. You can contact her by email, on our Facebook, or on our Twitter.