Tuesday, August 25, 2009

What Women Want...from Social Media Sites

As a female business professional working for a woman-owned PR firm, blog topics and research on female motivation in the business and social media realms always seems to catch my eye. A very interesting article was published last week by eMarketer.com and it analyzed what women want from social media sites.

What do you think women want from social media sites? Everything, dependability – all depending on their mood that day…I can freely make these comments as a member of the gender.

Well, here is what eMarketer.com found. “Women who are core social network users expect a lot, according to ‘The Power of Social Networking For Women Research Study’ from female-oriented social networking site ShesConnected. Survey participants were recruited through several social networks and were encouraged to share it with friends. ShesConnected respondents were heavy users of social networks: 59% reported visiting such sites multiple times per day.”

The study found that Facebook was the most popular site with 83% of the survey participants having profiles on the site. Nearly three-quarters (73%) were members of LinkedIn and 55% were on Twitter. Almost one-half of respondents (48%) reported belonging to four or more social networks which was the most common response.

Professional networking and staying up-to-date with friends were found to be the most compelling reasons to visit social networks for females. Other motivators for using social media sites were researching products and services (79%) and finding deals and discounts (64%).

However, the group of surveyed female social network users expressed concern about privacy issues of these social media sites. 93% of respondents said control over privacy settings is very important to them. The ability to block specific users from contacting them is a major factor to 96% of the users.

This feedback was also reflective when the topic of social media marketing was brought to the table. A majority of the survey participants were fine with social networks displaying advertising, but the prospect of the sites selling data to advertisers was another story. More than four in 10 respondents said they would not be comfortable with the idea, and 36% of the survey participants said they would refuse to use a site that sold their data.

I find it so interesting to understand the dynamics between different genders and their needs and demands in regards to everyday personal and professional resources. Check out the full article by clicking here.

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