The female of the species is more digital than the male

Many still labour under the misconception that online is a male-dominated space. But digital is very much female terrain these days. Despite the stereotype of lonesome geeky men being locked to their computers, it's women who now rule the web.

Recent Park Associates research shows that women are 73% more likely than men to have watched a full-length TV show online and 40% more likely to play games on Facebook. Likewise, eight out of the 10 Twitter users to have mustered 10 million or more followers are women. Could this be because the internet has become a lot more social?

Women – often regarded as the more sociable, caring and sharing gender – are making the most of social media like never before. Pinterest is currently flavour of the month. It is best described as a picture version of Twitter, where users are encouraged to share their pinboards of images. It's user base is female dominated, with Google Ad Planner calculating that women make up 82% of active US users.

Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg says female Facebookers have 8% more friends and participate in 62% of the network's sharing. "The social world is led by women," she says.

This gender bias in the social sphere is ripe for exploitation. Carat's recent CCS survey on ad engagement by gender found that women were more likely to actively look for ads than men. Porter Novelli, meanwhile, found that 65% of women access social media at least once a week, compared with 51% of men. And – even more crucially – they discovered that UK women are keen brand followers: 64% of social-media active UK females, compared with 56% of men, follow brands as a means of securing better discounts.

Smart brands, especially those with a gender-skewed market, such as health and beauty, need to accept – and exploit – these gender differences in social media consumption. Capitalising on such disparities entails a finely tuned understanding of how differently the sexes communicate. So, at the risk of enraging the gender-equality brigade, I've broken down communication styles into four categories, each pitching male against female:

1. Report-talk v rapport-talk

The purpose of communication for a man is to report a fact, while women use communication in a more social way by building rapport.

2. Voice-male v voice-female

Women believe in context, supported by detail such as history and narrative, with a preference to end on the bottom-line. Whereas men prefer to get straight to the bottom-line ... and that's about it.

3. Hint v literal

Women are more likely to gently beat about the bush with hints, while men go for the jugular with literal and direct terms.

4. Global v compartmental

Women think globally: they connect through conversations and carry part of their last conversation into the next. Men are the opposite: they think compartmentally, discussing discrete topics such as work, football and home with no connections in between.

So how do these differences carry through to social media? In short, women prefer to participate in communities, share information and engage in conversation, while social media communication amongst men is more linear and competitive.

In a fascinating and much-publicised piece called Men are from Foursquare, Women are from Facebook, Porter Novelli's UK head of digital/EMEA social media strategist Helen Nowika concludes that while men use social media as functional tool or a platform to display their status, "women are using social channels to reinforce existing social connections and to interact with friends and family". Ergo, women gravitate to "sociable" social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Bebo and Flickr, while men use YouTube to functionally source content or LinkedIn and Foursquare to display it. Like peacocks.

In a marketing context, these social media disparities become particularly pertinent when analysing online shopping habits. Don't shoot the messenger, but the cliché that shopping is inherent in a woman's DNA carries through to the online and social media worlds.

Whereas men approach online shopping in a targeted way by using social media as a functional research tool for specific items, women are more likely to use browsers to, well, browse. Not only are they more likely to be drawn into idling away their spare online time tracking down sales and coupons, they are also more likely to revert to their more socially responsible natures by sharing recommendations. US customer experience management company Empathica found that 35% of women are likely to recommend on social media, compared with 28% of their male counterparts.

The evidence that social media is an ideal vehicle for promoting a piece of content, brand or product to a predominately female audience is pretty overwhelming. Social platforms provide a great opportunity to supply more background and context. Remember that women use communication to build rapport-connections, so capitalise on social media's natural propensity for intimacy. Build a story and spend more time getting to the bottom line. Respond to comments and feed discussion. Use expressive language and don't be afraid to get a little emotional.

When targeting men, however, just get straight to the point.

By Lloyd Salmons, co-founder & director, and Ronnie Crosbie, planning director at social agency Outside Line

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