I reached out to Annie Wilde whose Twitter feed, Enneagram Reactions, has gotten much attention from the #millennialenneagram followers. I asked her to tell IEA Nine Points how she went from 0-over 5000 followers on Twitter where Enneagram tweets are lighting up the Wild West of the Twittersphere. Here’s her story:
I first heard about the Enneagram in college. Some friends of mine were getting into it and were certain that I fit the profile of a certain number perfectly. I wasn’t very interested at the time and immediately forgot everything they said.
After college, I got deep into the Myers-Briggs. I became a personality fanatic and could type people from a mile away. So, when my company announced a 3-day Enneagram course hosted by a local Enneagram professional, my ears perked up. I remembered the references my college friends made and was finally ready to dive in.
As the speaker made his way around the circle, I remember feeling connected to every type. I thought “how can I be all of these at once?” When he finally made it to type 9 and said they tend to relate to every number in the circle, I immediately knew this was most likely me. It was confirmed when he continued to list all the traits of a 9 and it put me on the verge of tears for the rest of the talk. I didn’t actually cry though, because that would be revealing too much emotion which might create conflict. And I’d rather die than create conflict.
After the Enneagram course one of my coworkers (type 5) and I were making jokes on Twitter about our types. He suggested we make an account entirely dedicated to enneagram humor. I then made a joke about how as a 9 and a 5, this would most like never actually happen as it would require one of us to act. Which was the source one of the very first tweets I posted on Enneagram Reactions. So I can’t take credit for the idea, but I can take credit for actually making it happen. Maybe it was me being a healthy 9, or maybe I just had too much caffeine that day. The world may never know.
I feel like having the insight of relating to all the numbers helps me create better content for the twitter page. If I can’t relate to each type, I know I can empathize with them, and that has been helpful. The number I understand the least is 3s. They are a conundrum to me. I have a hard time not making every 3 tweet about them being too over the top and needing to chill out.
Initially most of the posts were about very surface-level stereotypes of the types. It made sense to me and people seemed to resonate with it. I also wanted to do a lot with how the numbers interact with each other. It was easy at first as I had just come out of the Enneagram conference and had lots of ideas flowing through my brain. I also typed my friends and used them as sources of inspiration. This is still a major part of how I come up with content. But as time went on I did have to work a little harder to create new tweets. I listen to a few different podcasts and read articles that have given me new ideas. Oftentimes I will find a funny gif or picture and work backwards to come up with a type and scenario that goes with the image.
FROM 0 TO 100 FOLLOWERS
A post from Annie’s feed.
The response has been incredible. I started with zero followers and it almost immediately blew up. I am currently at 5,715 followers and the page has been active for 9 months. People love the Enneagram, because people love to be known and understood. So if you’re a 3 and a looped video of an exploding bird from Shrek accurately represents your pent up emotions and makes you feel known and understood, you’re going to share it. And that’s what keeps me in business. And by business I mean what keeps me up at night trying to please the masses.
I stick with Twitter mainly because it is the easiest. I’m not entirely sure how to upload gifs to Instagram and no one I know is very active on Facebook anymore. Twitter has a gif section built into the platform, so going from idea to reality can happen relatively quickly. It’s really the idea part that takes the most time.
All in all, making the page has been eye-opening to the different types and how I can relate and respond to them. The notifications also give me the dopamine rush I crave. As a 9, it allows me to interact with the world without having to risk the loss of energy that comes with face to face encounters. Feeling connected without conflict. Which is probably not very healthy, but is the internet really a healthy place in general? Probably not. But I’ll still be logging in.
If you’d like to find Annie’s Twitter feed, check out @enneagramGIFS
