Today we learn via Forbes what we’ve known for thousands of years: males compete, women converse.
Of course that’s an oversimplification, yet it’s almost that basic: women use social networking tools to make connections while men use social networking tools to raise their status, leveraging content-oriented sites like Digg, YouTube and LinkedIn; I believe UC Berkeley’s Lorrie Thomas nails it when she says men use social media as an “interactive Rolodex.”
…women, the gatherers and community builders, had to work as a team to survive. They needed to use each other as resources and adapted to be more supportive by sharing their plans, shortcomings and advice. Today, women are still more likely to be forthcoming and verbose than men, she says, a difference that is reflected online.
Women are the majority of users on conversational sites Twitter, MySpace, Bebo and Flickr; because of their predisposition for conversational media, a woman who advocates for a brand online is more likely to influence her friends—the real nugget for marketers.
Facebook is 57% female and attracts 46 million more female visitors than male visitors per month. Plus, women are more active on Facebook. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg says women on Facebook have 8% more friends and participate in 62% of the sharing. “The social world is led by women,” she concludes. And they’re leading that charge online.
This is a powerful statement for the importance of social media and a day we all knew was coming: “The world’s gone social. And women are more social than men,” according to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. And to think that the virtual communication differences between the sexes can be traced to evolutionary methods of survival.
