As a small business owner or entrepreneur, do you take gender into consideration when developing design and/or content for any of your online or offline marketing, including the design and content of your Web site or blog? This question can also be applied to any social media marketing efforts in place within your company (you’ll learn why in a few moments).
If you don’t, a new study suggests you may want to. In fact, this study goes as far as to suggest you may want to significantly limit your social media marketing efforts to men altogether (we here at UnderstandingMarketing.com aren’t ready to go that far – not just because the author of this blog post happens to be a man).
As reported recently in BusinessWeek, a new study by information gathering service, Rapleaf, was conducted to seek answers on who’s using social media more – men or women. In fact, more than 13 million people took part in this survey. It found that not only do women far outweigh men in social media usage, but women between 35-50 are actually the fastest-growing segment. Surprisingly, this demographic scored high on MySpace.
Boiling down the reasons, social media is,well, social. Men tend to use computers and the Internet to gather intelligence, which is why they scored high on LinkedIn use. Women, on the other hand, prefer to use computers and the Internet to build their social circles, create relationships and communicate with friends. Sites such as RockYou and Slide were pointed to as being popular social sites that are designed almost entirely to and for women. Sites like Sheconomy are even designed to target women in marketing efforts.
So this information raises a good question. In fact it raises a lot of questions for any small business person or entrepreneur designing online and offline marketing programs (since the two are growing more integrated when done correctly). Think about how your message and call to action is different to men and women and even women of color. What kind of language and words should you use? And how should you use that language? What about the look and feel of your marketing and social media campaigns? How should you design your campaigns and with what colors? These are all important questions for all marketing efforts, like e-newsletters, brochures, direct mail, online marketing, loyalty programs, rewards and incentives, and even PR efforts.
Keep in mind that some products/services will always be skewed towards one gender vs. another. But the days of drawing a line in the sand are over, for the most part, and both genders are involved in just about every industry. The key is understanding marketing in terms of reaching both genders effectively, especially through social media marketing.
How do you approach gender in your marketing and social media efforts? Please share your thoughts here.
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