Does Your Online Strategy Considers Gender Specifics of Your Audience?

Unless you own a barber shop or a lingerie store, it’s not always clear who your target customer is genderwise. When promoting your business online, you just try to reach a certain age or professional group and don’t bother approaching your male and female audience differently.

Yet, there’s data that shows men and women don’t use the Web the same way. A 2010 report by comScore analyzed the behavior of male vs female Internet users, and came up with some interesting results. Understanding these gender-specific differences can help you make your approach to potential customers online more differentiated – and ultimately, let you reach and engage both men and women more effectively.

Men and Women on Social Media Platforms

You could guess that women are generally more engaged in social media activities than men. According to the report, women spend 30% more time on social networking sites than men. Even though the majority of unique visitors of the sites are male (women are only 47.9% of all visitors). While men spend an average of 4 hours per month on social media platforms, women spend 5.5, and consume 57% of all pages.

However, data differs in various countries. Latin and North American ladies tend to be the most engaged in social media, with the platforms reaching 94.1% and 91% of all women accordingly. In Europe their engagement is lower (85.6%), and in Asia Pacific, where there are cultural and technological factors, the reach is lower still (54.9%).

Men and Women on the Web: Other Facts

The majority of Internet users are men, but women spend about 8% more time online. Women spend 20% more time on retail websites. Health websites reach 6% more female than male visitors. In most countries, men spend more time watching videos online. In the US and Europe the majority of smartphone users are men (about 60%).

The exact data could have – and must have – changed over the last couple of years. But the tendencies paint a pretty clear picture of how men and women are using the Internet in general. If you find a way to adapt your online marketing activities to this gender specifics, you’ll get a more engaged audience – both ladies and gentlemen.

Was this data helpful for you? Were any of the findings surprising? Feel free to reply in the comments.