Are communities more influential than social media among women?"
Are women’s communities more influential than social media among women? That's kind of hard to believe, considering that women already numerically dominate sites like Facebook, Bebo, Twitter and Flickr, where they are also more active (in social gaming, for instance). But iVillage EVP Jodie Kahn believes that women's communities have more influence among women.
"The iVillage Women Like Me study clearly validates that women's communities engender an unmatched level of trust among their viewers," says Kahn, "and are ideal places to go for product and brand information."
The Women Like Me report, issued yesterday by the NBC Universal-owned site, shows that that more respondents of the proprietary study lean toward meaningful discussion on women’s online communities for information on products and brands (51%) than for the same information on social media sites (14%).
Those findings mirror those found in the Beauty is in the Eye of the Blog Holder study on women's shopping behaviors. In the study, blogs were found more than twice as likely as magazines -- by 63% to 26% -- in driving beauty product purchases over the last six months. The study had a sample size of 1,027 women and was conducted last October by BlogHer in conjunction with DeVries Public Relations. The study's most interesting finding: when seeking recommendations about beauty products, participants turn to and trust "familiar" bloggers more than store websites or social networks. Familiar bloggers were just over twice as helpful as social networks, according to the study.
Finally, a third recent study, Women, the Web and their Wallets, done in August 2010 also by BlogHer but this time partnered with Create with Context, offers similar results to the other two studies on women's online behavior. This study found that when offered multiple reasons for making beauty product purchases, the top motivations of women participants in the study were cost savings and recommendations from friends. No big news there for the cosmetics and beauty business, a $7 billion a year industry, by the way. But here's where it gets interesting: when asked to determine which resource provides the most helpful advice in assisting with cosmetic and beauty purchase decisions, 61 percent of women in the study chose "Familiar Blogger." "Store Website" came in second, with "Social Network" coming in third.
Underlying all of this is the question: Do women and men approach social media differently? It's a question of interest to all publishsers and advertisers. Jenna Goudreau of Forbes wrote an interesting piece last year titled "What Men and Women Are Doing on Facebook" that may go a ways in explaining the differences. Goudreau found that most women on the Forbes Woman Facebook page -- with over 11,000 fans -- agreed that women are more likely to value and trust information from online women's communities than other social networks and portals.
What do you think?
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