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Women dominate online world

Monday, March 5, 2012 - 13:59 by Simon Crisp

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While most think of the web and associated technological devices as dominated by male users, the reality is quite different, with women increasing their stake in the digital universe in which we all must operate.

It is not just safe shopping online which is a particularly popular pastime amongst female web users, as a study published by Park Associates, shows that if you are a woman, there is a 40 per cent higher chance that you have played a social game on a site like Facebook.

In addition women are 73 per cent more likely to have watched an entire TV programme by streaming it from the internet, with men lagging behind in both of these areas.

For retailers, this is significant, because it means that a lot more online ad space will be dedicated to things which will interest female consumers. A survey by Carat, found that women are more likely to engage with e-commerce adverts than men.

Yet another report, this time by analysts at Porter Novelli, looked at the ways in which women use social media and it found that 64 per cent of females actively follow branded accounts on Facebook and Twitter. They do this in order to find out about discounts which are made available via safe shopping online.

When it comes to men, only 56 per cent of males who are active on social networking sites are brand conscious and out there looking to get bargains from their favourite companies, so women are clearly leading the way in this respect.

Interestingly, a deeper study of the ways in which men and women use social networking reveals that while the males are more interested in fact-driven reportage of information, females look for a more narrative-driven, social approach to things, which could modify the shape of the e-commerce market in the future.