As Social Platforms Continue to Evolve, Do You?

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Usually I spend most of my time focused on healthcare marketing, social media and the changes taking place within our industry. However, occasionally something pulls my attention in a different direction. These healthy distractions often serve to inform my perspective on healthcare marketing and consumer engagement. That was the case when my wife showed me a new social networking platform called ArchetypeMe. I've always been fascinated by archetypes and have used them in my consulting practice to help clients understand their brands. Archetypes are easy to grasp.

Here's how they introduce the concept of archetypes on the website:

"Your Archetypes are the blueprints of the soul. You are born with them. They can change according to the time of day or time in your life. They live above all else, and that includes such elemental factors as age, race, religion, gender, education, profession, and socioeconomics. Archetypes are often grouped into Archetypal families. These families include Caring, Creative, Thinking, Physical, Visionary, Royal, Spiritual, Fashion, Advocate, and Rebel."

So what?

"Knowing your archetypes gives you an intuitive language to help you understand yourself and others. Once you know your archetypes, every choice you make—from a new friend, relationship, job, choice of clothing, or home décor—will be made through the prism of those archetypes. ArchetypeMe provides you with a new social platform to connect you to yourself as well as to others."

You start by taking a quiz that helps you to identify your archetypes. When I took mine (see chart with results below), I ended up 30% Creative, 31% Intellectual, 19% King/Executive and 20% other. They define Intellectual as: ""You know that the world would be a dumber place without people who look at things and then ask why they are as they are." Creative equates to: "Creatives do especially well around people who appreciate beauty. And, of course, all the world’s your stage." And King/Executive is defined as: "Kings are leaders, CEOs, and head honchos. They’re not ashamed of putting on the ritz and showing some bling." Interesting.


So how does this impact the way I view my role as a healthcare marketer or as one of the principals of Jennings? I guess it is affirming. I have been the president of my firm for the last 6 years; I work in a creative field; and I thrive on intellectual growth and challenges.

Back to the Site

Once you fill out the quiz and identify your archetypes, the site takes on the character of a series of Pinterest Pinboards. I can sort posts by each of my dominant archetypes - evidently meeting the needs or appetite of each of my archetypes. So I can sort the world by Creative, Executive or Intellectual and delve into the content. This is an interesting way to organize a social platform, but I'm not sure I find it relatable. One challenge is that the site is still in its Beta phase, so the number of members is limited. But even if it were over-run with individuals in each of these categories, I'm not sure it would capture my attention. But, that doesn't mean that it won't work for others. Pinterest is incredibly hot, but not everyone relates to it.

ArchetypeMe reminds me that we have only begun to see what the social web has to offer. And it is not a one-size-fits-all universe. Social platforms are going to take a lot of different forms - some will work and some won't. As marketers, we have to stay open to what opportunities each new experiment may present. Even in the last year, platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat and Tumblr (incredibly popular with young people) have changed the way I view social media. The young people using Snapchat and Tumblr will be the consumers we're trying to engage tomorrow. It is important that we understand how they like to consumer and share information, and relate to brands.