Recent studies revealed some interesting facts about the ways in which women use social media.

The “2009 Women and Social Media Study” by BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners shows that women make up the majority of participants on many social networking sites, and they were more likely to turn to blogs than social networking sites for information. In addition, women reported spending less time utilizing newspapers, magazines, radio and TV in order to spend more time on social media sites.

The prevalence of women in the social media world is in contrast to their relative scarcity in the world of traditional media. For example, a smaller percentage of women than men read newspapers, despite continual efforts by the newspaper industry to attract the female audience. (See “Newspapers Execs Clueless about What Women Want” for more information and insight.)

The report surveyed nearly 4,000 women ages 18-77. It broke respondents down into two groups, those who did not engage in social media at least weekly (47 percent) and those who did (53 percent). Assuming that there are 79 million women in America who use the Internet, this means that there are about 42 million American women using social media at least once a week. Usage was broken down by type: status updates (e.g., Twitter), 16 percent; message boards or forums, 40 percent; and blogs, 55 percent. The big winners were social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, which claimed 75% of all weekly social media users in the survey, equating to 31.5 million Americans.

Also, an analysis of usage at several popular social media sites by the proprietors of Information is Beautiful using Google Ad Planner shows that women make up the majority of users at most sites (including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and MySpace), represent half the users at some (such as YouTube and LinkedIn), and are in the minority only at one: Digg.

What does all this mean? First, there is something drawing women to social media that is not drawing, and has never drawn them to traditional media. Without engaging in pop psychology or resorting to stereotypes, it could be that because social media emerged in the 21^st century, they were never subject to a male-dominated way of thinking like radio, TV or print, which all emerged when women were far less influential outside of the home. It could also mean that women prefer the non-linear give-and-take of social media, while men prefer the traditional “push” method of information dissemination found in traditional media.

Whatever the reasons, it’s always important to know your audience. Understanding that most social media sites have a majority female audience and that women rely heavily upon blogs for their information will help guide businesses’ marketing decisions and control the flow of time, effort and money in the social media advertising space.

The British Empire

Did you know that English is spoken as an official language in more than 80 countries, territories and dependencies? Moreover, it is spoken unofficially by nearly everyone in at least two others: the United States and Australia? Add in the many countries in which a large portion of the population speaks English, such as France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, and the countries in which English is spoken for business or political purposes, such as China and Japan, and you can’t help but realize the breadth and depth of the English language around the globe.

This is nothing new, and it reflects the impact of hundreds of years of British colonialism and the global impact of post-World War II American economics and culture. What is new, however, is the Internet. Suddenly, the nearly one billion speakers of English around the globe have access to each other’s newspapers, magazines, websites, blogs, Facebook pages—in short, they can truly tap into the global consciousness of English speakers.

The impact of spoken English clearly has tremendous impact for written communication as well, especially for companies doing business in emerging economies. The potential for miscommunication and misunderstandings is greater than ever before. Slights and unintended insults that may never have had legs 15 years ago will now likely travel the globe in minutes.

Consider this small example that materialized as a result of an opinion column written by New York Times columnist George Vecsey on allegations of football recruiting violations committed by the University of Tennessee. In the column, Vecsey poked a little fun at southern culture, with lines like “If you’re ever in the neighborhood, y’all come see us, y’heah?”

In the pre-Internet era, this column may have gone largely unnoticed, even though it was in the New York Times. But in 2009, Vecsey’s column created a minor blowup in the blogosphere, generating this response from east Tennessee journalist Ben Garrett and this follow-up from southwest Virginia journalist Dan Smith, among others. Smith, a career newspaperman and member of the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame, whose members include Roger Mudd, Ann Compton, and James J. Kilpatrick, called Vecsey “a Yankee newspaperman too lazy to do his homework and too steeped in redneck, inbred stereotypes” and said that Vecsey’s column was “mostly wrong, mostly bigoted, mostly shows his uninformed a** to the rest of the world.”

Yikes. Especially that “rest of the world” part.

The lesson here is for writers: consider the audience. In our electronic age, audiences may be far wider than the primary readership an author intended. A gaffe poking fun at a foreign culture, committed by a careless company spokesperson, could cost millions in lost sales, have a negative impact in vital emerging markets, cause irreparable damage to the company brand, and even generate international political ramifications. Remember, the written word carries a big stick!