Women Prefer Social Media to Talk about Products, Men Like Phones

A vast majority of social media users who researched a product online went on to talk about it face to face with others.

That’s just one of the conclusions of new research on the habits of social media users from The Retail Advertising and Marketing Association, a division of NRF. The study compares social media users to the average U.S. adult taking into consideration differences in demographics for each group, including male and female usage as well as age differences in social media users compared to other adults.

Some 71.8% of social media users say that after an online search, they communicate with others about a product or service with face-to-face communication. Men prefer to communicate by cell phone to talk about what they have learned about a product or service.

Facebook rose to the top among seven out of 10 social media users between the ages of 18-34 who said they regularly use the social networking site more than other sites including MySpace, Twitter and Classmates. Just over 70% of female social media users regularly use Facebook, compared to 61% of males, the study found.

The power of social media seems best used for pull marketing, with more people using who use social media prefer to give advice about a product or service rather than receive it.