Study: Socnets important to women

There's no doubt that women are one of the fastest growing groups on social networks, and recent research from social media ad agency ShesConnected Multimedia backs this up. What's not so well known is the importance of social networks in women's lives, something that ShesConnected touched on.

Their recent study, "The Power of Social Networking for Women", found that over a third (36%) of women in the US and Canada would give up chocolate, their mother-in-law or even their precious Prada before they gave up social networking. This echoes the findings of a study conducted last year by BlogHer that found one in five women would rather give up chocolate than relinquish their PDA.

But what does this mean to marketers and advertisers? It means that social networks are increasingly powerful tools in the buying process.

"Advertisers know that in order to be successful, you have to follow the money. And the money is in the purses of the women who are spending their time on social networks," said Mark Grindeland, co-founder and CEO of ShesConnected Multimedia. "Women control up to 85% of all household expenditures. They outnumber men online, and are spending a significant mount of time on social networks."

Another interesting finding from the ShesConnected study (.pdf) is that a significant segment of women are using social networks to promote their business and sell their services or products. While some were networking with other professionals, others used social networks for recruitment purposes or to run sales and marketing promotions. Of the 28% of women who had joined 10 or more groups on social networks, 34% were business related followed by community based groups (17%), hobby related (13%) and charity (12%).

Tags: advertisers, business, buying process, chocolate, groups, Prada, social networking, social networks, women