Marketers have always had a very bifurcated landscape when it came to advertising: reaching men versus reaching women.
Advertising is nearly as old as humanity itself, and savvy sellers realized early that women’s dominance over the home in centuries past meant they likely to make more purchasing decisions than men.
By and large, television advertising today is aimed at women: household products, clothing, vacations and even family cars are purchases that have traditionally been dictated by women, with marketers focusing their efforts on men in only a few categories: sports cars, beer and liquor and men’s toiletry products.
Today, marketers continue to be challenged by gender differences when it comes to reaching male and female audiences, but their difficulties have been compounded as the landscape has expanded to include social media. In recent years, as we observed the explosion in social media usage, no one spent too much time and effort to learn if men and women used social media differently. Few companies spent much effort learning how Americans used social media when it came to interacting with brands or purchasing.
That was then, and this was now. Recent research (there’s a helpful infographic below courtesy of Finances Online) has found that men and women use social media very differently, so it’s important to understand this before embarking on marketing via these channels.
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Click here for the full resolution infographic