What Men and Women are Doing on Facebook – and What this Means for Your Healthy Marketing

foreignwebmarketingcorrespondent

April 28th, 2010
by foreignwebmarketingcorrespondent

Extra extra! Hot off the press! Research is showing that women are dominating social network sites like Facebook!

Jenna Goudreau’s article What Men And Women Are Doing On Facebook states Facebook attracts 46 million more female users per month than male users. But if you think about it, is this really that shocking that more women are active on Facebook? Facebook is the pinnacle of your online life with your profile, pictures, status updates, life history, etc. It kind of makes sense that women, who generally enjoy organizing their life (from labeling the jars in the fridge to tidying up the shoe closet – have you seen the wonder of a woman’s shoe closet?!) would also enjoy sorting out their online presence much more than their male counterparts.

Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg says women (on Facebook) participate in 62% of the online sharing.

But more interesting than this observation are the differences between social media usage by men and women and why they exist.

The article makes these conclusions:
Stats: Women are the majority of users on social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and Flickr, where information sharing and discussion are the drive.  Men tend to keep active on sites that are more content-oriented such as YouTube and self-promotional like LinkedIn.

Our behavior in the online world mirrors that in our offline world: Women use social networking sites to maintain connections, share personal experiences and create new relationships. They tend to be more personal online, posting pictures, keeping up to date with family and friends (is your mom on Facebook? Quite possibly).

Men, on the other hand use social networking to gather new information and increase their status. They tend to use social sites for social climbing and storing contact information.

Lorrie Thomas was quoted in the What Men And Women Are Doing On Facebook article and in true “Marketing Therapist” style, explains men’s social networking use to gather info and increase status as treating social media like an “interactive Rolodex” – aka social media to replace your dusty business card holders.

Psychologist Leslie Sokol expands on these behaviors by stating they are learned throughout time and are inherent in gender roles. She describes women as taught “gatherers and community builders” always working as a team, while men would compete with each other (animal kingdom anyone?)

So what do these different gender behaviors and activities in the online world mean to you? Using your social media to create and sustain relationships with your clientele of course! Your marketing is about building, sustaining and maximizing healthy relationships with your customers, clients and audiences. Your social media should be in-tune with how best to interact and stay in touch with your audiences.

For example, women and shopping is a relationship that is ground in time. Advertisers are starting to look at how social media plays a part in this. In the case of Facebook, women share shopping history as well as brand preferences (as ‘fans of’).  Facebook’s Sandberg, states “If you reach women [online], they will tell their friends.”  This is just one example.

Have a think about how your social media will work best for you!

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Categories: Blog, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, WMT Team News, Wild Web Women

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  3. internationalmanofmystery

    Nathaniel Hansen
    (April 29th, 2010 at 1:02 am)

    Social networks are a feminine phenomena. The action of gathering into circles to communicate during crisis is feminine vs. the masculine movement to fight or flight. The recent advent of social plugins announced at the F8 conference is just one of many movements to weave the social fabric of the internet more tightly.

    Weaving is a classic feminine action and the world needs it now more than ever. The most tantalizing beings in Greek mythology — the nymphs, protectors of forests, meadows and nature — would weave in their caves and then come out into the world to rest, sing, dance and love.

    As a man, it is truly beautiful to participate with the Wild Women in their weaving of the social fabric of the Web. Bravo Lorrie from Greece! Nathaniel

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