Think blogging is only for young, geeky males? Think again. A recent release of a new social media benchmark study of more than 6,000 women by BlogHer, in conjunction with Compass Partners, shows that 36.2 million women actively participate in the blogsophere every week, with 15.1 million publishing and 21.1 million reading and commenting. Granted, this study was done by a female blogging site, so the data is skewed. But it’s still valuable.
68% of this BlogHer community is concentrated in the 25 to 41 age group (the GenXr’s), compared to 42% for the general blogging population. Together, the Millienials and the Matures account for only about 10% of this community. Two thirds have completed college, and 46% earn over $75,000 compared to only 25% of the general community.
| Online Women Demographics | ||
|---|---|---|
|
|
General Population | BlogHer Women |
| Married/Living together | 62% | 77% |
| Number in HHD | 3.2 | 3.2 |
| Have children at home | 46% | 58% |
| Employed full time | 34% | 45% |
| Education | ||
| High school graduate or less | 20% | 4.8% |
| Technical or trade school graduate | 5% | 3.0% |
| Some college/university | 40% | 25% |
| Graduated from college/university | 22% | 37% |
| Some post-graduate work | 5% | 10% |
| Masters or doctorate degree | 9% | 20% |
| Income | ||
| Under $25,000 | 18% | 8% |
| $25,000 – $34,999 | 14% | 9% |
| $35,000 – $49,999 | 20% | 14% |
| $50,000 – $74,999 | 24% | 23% |
| $75,000 – $99,999 | 14% | 18% |
| $100,000 – $124,999 | 5% | 13% |
| Greater than $125,000 | 6% | 15% |
| Source: BlogHer & Compass Partners, April 2008 | ||
The blogging rates are highest among Millennials and GenX “digital natives,” says the report, and Online media participation rates decline with increasing age.
| Online Media Habits by Age | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Online Women (18-75) | Millennials (18-24) | GenX (25-41) | Boomers (42-60) | Matures (61-75) | |
| Reading Blogs | 53 | 85 | 41 | 26 | |
| Writing/updating blogs | 28 | 66 | 35 | 17 | 5 |
| Posting comments to a blog | 37 | 67 | 48 | 27 | 11 |
| Source: BlogHer & Compass Partners, April 2008 | |||||
Additional highlights from the study:
Women are so passionate about blogging, says the report, that large percentages said they would give something up to keep the blogs they read and/or write:
- 55% would give up alcohol
- 50% would give up their PDAs
- 42% would give up their i-Pod
- 43% would give up reading the newspaper or magazines
- only 20% would give up chocolate
Time shift from traditional media is accelerating in the general Internet population:
- 24% of women surveyed watch less television because of blogging
- 25% read fewer magazines because they are blogging
- 22% read fewer newspapers because they’re blogging
In addition:
- More than half of women surveyed consider blogs a reliable source of advice and information
- Half of women surveyed say blogs influence their purchase decisions
So as marketers, what do we do with this info? Well, for one, we must keep up with posts to all sites related to our products and services. Women are reading — and writing — so why not? Second, we must engage them in dialog and lead them to sites where they will allow us to communicate with them. Our landing pages need more than a “contact us” button, but rather a “keep me informed” which allows the viewer to register to receive important information.
