Articles tagged ‘social media’

Andy from bigmouthmedia sent me this interesting piece of visual stats yesterday. It seems, when it comes to the social web, ‘chicks rule’!

It’s not surprising that when it comes to the Internet, the genders differ. After all, ‘Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus’ right?

According to the stats, social networks like YoutTube and LinkedIn are seeing a 50 -50 balance in terms of gender usage but look further down the line at the usage of Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Myspace and the ruling is simple, women are using and engaging with the social web more than ever.

Stereotypically, we women are known to be the more social gender and web 2.0 is all about being social – so no surprise there.

But, what is interesting is that it also shows that women are using the Internet for a variety of things.
In my recent post, I quoted research from ComScore stating that women were splashing their cash on buying kids toys, cosmetics, fragrances and food. Combine that with usage of social media and it seems that women spend more time shopping online, engaging online and yes, as our mumpreneur article shows, even selling online.

Interestingly, with the equal usage on YouTube and LinkedIn, you could also conclude that men are more selective when it comes to the social networks they use while women tend to adopt a plethora of networks to engage with. If this is so, could it be that we women are spreading ourselves too thinly (especially if you put this in the business perspective)? Only time will tell.

Even if we are, there are few things we can glean from the gender differences online.

1. If your target market is women and you’re on a social network like BT Tradespace then, you’re in the right place.
2. We’re going to see more innovation on the web steered towards capitalising on women’s usage of the web.
3. Finally, if you wanted to work data like this to your advantage as a business, you need to use different strategies when selling to the different genders. Time, place and method of communication being key to the results you get.

Do you agree with stats? What social networks are you on? Let us know by leaving a comment!