Architecture that automatically generate concise descriptions of users in social media. The descriptions communicate classification or category of a given social media user in a small amount of viewing space. The description can be based on available metadata (e.g., user profile biography) and/or other information about that person, as may be obtained from the information data sources (e.g., structured knowledge bases) on networks such as the Internet and enterprises, for example. The descriptions can also be query-dependent, by assuming there is some relationship between the social media user and a query, in which case, the descriptions illustrate that relationship.