Gender Differences on Social Media

From MarketingCharts.com:

More Women Than Men on Social Networks, Have More Friends Than Men Do

More women are on social networks and on average have slightly more “friends” than do men, even though men tend to be more focused on acquiring “friends” than building relationships with them, according to a Rapleaf study of 30.74 million social networkers.

Rapleaf examined the number of friends that men and women have on Bebo, Facebook, Friendster, Hi5, LiveJournal, MySpace, Flickr, among others.

The following are highlights of the study of people with at least one social-network friend:

• Of those with at least one friend, 53.57% are female and 46.43% are male.
• Social Networkers (those with 1-100 friends):
  • Constitute about 80% of the sample set.
  • Women have on average 62 friends.
  • Men have on average 57 friends.
  • Women are more likely to be “Social Networkers.”
• Connectors (100-1,000 friends):
  • Constitute about 19% of the sample set.
  • Women have on average 185 friends.
  • Men have on average 172 friends.
    Women are more likely to be “Connectors.”
• Super Connectors (1,000-10,000 friends):
  • Constitute 0.66% of the sample set.
  • Women have on average 1,837 friends.
  • Men have on average 1,944 friends.
  • Men are more like to be “Super Connectors.”
• Uber Connectors (10,000+ friends)
  • Constitute 0.02% of the sample set.
  • Women have on average 24,077 friends.
  • Men have on average 24,584 friends.
  • Men are more likely to be “Uber Connectors.”

A prior Rapleaf study found that women spend more time on social networks than men do. And though on average women also have slightly more friends than men do, the difference isn’t substantial. Rapleaf therefore theorizes that women are spending more time on social networks building and nurturing relationships, whereas men are likely spending more time acquiring relationships (a transactional approach) than nurturing them.

Rapleaf provides search services to businesses and consumers seeking information about people on social webs.

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