Social Media: Women who blog

ByLaurel Papworth

I was at a presentation a while ago where an academic (female) said that women weren’t using social media like blogs and virtual worlds and such. Considering that MySpace is overwelmingly women and women have been the most active in nearly all my networks over the years, including MMORPG forums, I nearly fell off my…

I was at a presentation a while ago where an academic (female) said that women weren’t using social media like blogs and virtual worlds and such. Considering that MySpace is overwelmingly women and women have been the most active in nearly all my networks over the years, including MMORPG forums, I nearly fell off my chair. From BlogHer and 6000 women:

Did you know that:

* 36.2 million women actively participate in the blogsophere every week (15.1 publishing, 21.1 reading and commenting)? (Page 3 of report below)

* Women are so passionate about blogging that large percentages of women 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

BUT, some things are sacred … only 20% would give up chocolate! (Page 17)

* More than half of women maintain the original blog they started (Page 8)

* Our time shift from traditional media is accelerating. In the general Internet population:

– 24 percent of women surveyed say we watch less television because we’re blogging

– 25 percent of us say we read fewer magazines because we’re blogging

– 22 percent of us say we read fewer newspapers because we’re blogging

(These numbers are even higher for members of the BlogHer network. See Page 10)

* “It’s about me”: Our own lives are our favorite topic — but don’t assume you know all the different topics our lives represent by lifestage. (Page 11)

* More than half of women surveyed consider blogs a reliable source of advice and information (Page 10)

* Half of women surveyed say blogs influence their purchase decisions (Page 16)

* Despite hype, few women report discontinuing blogging due to problems with trolls or being “outed” (Page 8)

What’s the protocol when a co-panellist is clearly misinformed? Do you correct them? Give them the stats? (I had the Myspace ones handy, and others nearby) Or do you smile and nod and not make waves? *puts on her swimming costume*

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12 Comments

  1. When people like that in high-profile positions in the community or in a forum demonstrate they have absolutely no idea you HAVE to shoot them down. Publicly. Can’t have people running around spreading lies and having others believe them and trust them and perpetuate the darkness of misinformation. Shut it down!

  3. I would definitely present her with the facts. You get let apparent ‘experts’ run around telling people falsehoods.

    While she is wrong about women not blogging, the fact is that most probloggers are men. I wonder why that is? Any thoughts? Is it because men are more likely to blog about technology which is where the money tends to be whereas women tend to blog about their lives?

  4. Women are social by nature no? Perhaps we prefer to use the medium for social first and business second? Not sure…

  5. Time to invoke the ‘nuclear option’ & name the academic in question I reckon!

  6. *coughs* at RMIT *coughs again*
    Actually, while I did try to correct her -she wasn’t having a bar of it – I can’t really name and shame unless there was some kinda proper dialogue right? I mean that would be mean, to criticise someone on bloggy when I didn’t really stand up at the right time?

  7. This is fascinating stuff.

    And I would totally give up chocolate for blogging.

  8. As embarrassing as it could be for the person you’re correcting, and potentially nerve-wracking for you, I think you owe it to your own reputation, the audience and the misinformed expert, to correct them.

    People fronting panels or speaking at conferences should be fundamentally well-informed and should have checked their facts.

  9. aye, and I did correct her politely. But she started to get upset. In the spirit of leading a horse to water but they drink what they want: she would’ve continued to believe whatever… harangueing just upsets the panelist, puts the audience offside and makes sure you don’t get invited again by the conference organisers. 😛

  11. I think you’re right, Laurel, about the difficulty of correcting her in a public forum if she is not open to the conversation. But, honestly, now that the panel is over, I would send her an email. A nice one. Saying something along the lines of, “I found your conclusions about women and online social networks surprising, since I’ve seen data that suggest the opposite — and I thought you might be interested in what I’ve seen. I’d also love to see the data that led to your conclusions, as I am interested in the possibility that perhaps different groups of people were studied in these two cases. Do you have any thoughts on these disparities?” If she’s still nasty, resistant, or ungracious after a gracious approach like this, then she’s not worth engaging. If she’s an academic worth her salt, she will consider your information and change her tune at her next public panel. And you will have gained admirable cred.

    My two cents… partly as an academic and partly as a woman blogger 🙂

    Found you through Good Mom/Bad Mom, and loved this thought-provoking piece.

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