How are women using Facebook?
Some fun facts from a new study released earlier today by Oxygen Media and Lightspeed Research (via Mashables).
The study sampled the habits of 1,605 adults using social media between May and June of this year in an attempt to break down their social media habits. While some of the results are in line with previous studies we’ve read, others simply shocked us (e.g. 42% of young women think posting photos of themselves “visibly intoxicated” is okay).
- More than half of young women (57%) say they talk to people online more than face-to-face.
- A full 39% of them proclaim themselves Facebook addicts, while 34% of young women make Facebook the first thing they do when they wake up, even before brushing their teeth or going to the bathroom.
- 21% of women age 18-34 check Facebook in the middle of the night
- 63% use Facebook as a networking tool
- 42% think it’s okay to post photos of themselves intoxicated
- 79% are fine with kissing in photos
- 58% use Facebook to keep tabs on “frenemies”
- 50% are fine with being Facebook friends with complete strangers
- 50% of women believe that it’s just fine to date people they’ve met on Facebook, compared to 65% of men. 6% of women use it to “hook up” (20% of men do the same).
- 49% of women believe it’s fine to keep tabs on a boyfriend by having access to his accounts (42% of men think the same way). 9% of women have broken up their relationships via Facebook, as compared to a full 24% of men.
- 54% of 18-24 year old women do not trust Facebook with their private information, and 89% agree that “you should never put anything on Facebook that you don’t want your parents to see.”
I can see why women are obsessed with Facebook. The same way women can be obsessed with their hair, wardrobe, or significant other, they can be obsessed with Facebook. It is an extension of the perceived self, and unlike your hair or significant other, you can control it.
As a marketer, the smartest thing to do is to help your Facebook following use you as a resource to express themselves and their identity. What are they telling the world by fanning you? What are they telling their friends by interacting with you and having it show up on their newsfeed?
The easiest and smartest marketing is to help people do what they are already doing, but better and more efficiently. E.g. carrying around mp3s by burning them on to CD was completely changed by the mp3player.
From this research we can see that women want to express their best self via Facebook, whatever their interpretation of that maybe…fashionista, hippie, or too cool for facebook. How will you help them express that? :)
