DIDO Social Media Users – Dip In, Dip Out

Do you know people who say any or all of the following:

“I don’t know how you get the time to go on Twitter so often”?

“I like checking my Facebook every so often – I don’t really get Twitter”

“I like following celebrities on Twitter and funny people like Charlie Pickering, Adam Hills and Wil Anderson or while MasterChef is on.”

“I get my news from Today / Sunrise / The Project / 60 Minutes / Sunday Night”

“I like those lifestyle blogs – the ones some people write off as “Mummy Blogs”.

I think we all know people who say this. These people are what I am calling Dip In, Dip Out Social Media users.

Dip In, Dip Out social media users are people in the community with pretty busy lives that like to be connected to social media, but usually to people they know, through Facebook and / or Instagram. They will read the status updates of their friends and post comments or their own status updates. They will also share things they like. They may also use Twitter, but usually aren’t Twitter broadcasters – usually they will see what others tweet and might have conversations with others they meet and/or know.

These same users will also be interested in the news, but only in bitesize, easily understood ways that helps them apply that news to their own lives. This is why Sunrise, The Project, Mamamia and the various lifestyle blogs are very successful in connecting to a wide audience. Their audience Dips In, watches or listens, get what they want, then Dip Out and get on with their day.

It is easy for many in the community – especially frequent users of Twitter – to sneer at the DIDOs, but politically savvy people write them off at their peril. The team behind Julia Gillard tried to engage with DIDOs, especially by engaging with The Project and the “Mummy Bloggers” – and did so with some success. Kevin Rudd showed ability to engage with this audience with Sunrise and is sure to work again to charm this audience, rather than concern himself with Insiders and other non-DIDO programming.

Tony Abbott’s advisers, however, has perhaps realised that he needed to stop avoiding interaction with Today and Sunrise. This is why he appeared, as if by magic, on Sunday’s Sunrise – looking pretty lost – especially at the 5 minute mark where Andrew O’Keeffe asks one of the best questions of the year about Abbott’s climate change policies.  Abbott will need to improve his DIDO style pretty quickly, or else he will do the DIDO lament.