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A look at the Web’s most influential user… and her motivations

Elisa Camahort Page Co-founder and COO Erin Kotecki Vest

Political Director

Women and Social Media

2 Source: 2009 Women and Social Media Survey by BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners.

Women are Power Users of Social Media The question: Do you participate in the social media space at least weekly?

U.S. women online= 79 million

Equals

42 million American

women are active

in social media every week.

3 Source: 2009 Women and Social Media Survey by BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners.

What are Woman Using Online?

16% 6.7 million

55% 23 million

75% 31.5 million

40% 16.8 million

(e.g. Facebook, MySpace)

(e.g. Twitter)

* Activities are not mutually exclusive

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Women who blog are significantly more active across all forms of social media:

• 80% read daily or 2-3x/week

• 57% blog daily or 2-3x/week

• >80% use social networks (1/3 of social network users do no other social media activities weekly)

• 35% do status updating

• Leading edge of new trends (25% “strongly applies to me”)

• Most tech savvy segment (30% “strongly applies to me”)

Source: 2009 Women and Social Media Survey by BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners.

Women: The Bloggier the Better

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We trust what we use, and we use what we trust

•  Whether we are active in social media or not, we trust friends first

•  “Active” social media users trust every single social media source more than they trust every single traditional media source

•  Those are are not active social media users trust every single traditional media source more than they trust every single social media source

Source: 2009 Women and Social Media Survey by BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners.

Women: The Trust Factor

6 Source: Twitter.com

Women: We Tell Our Friends

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Activity “Are you spending more, less or the same time on

these media?”

General Populatio

n Less Time

‘08 (%)

General Populatio

n Less Time

‘09 (%)

BlogHer Network

Less Time ‘09 (%)

Reading newspapers 22% 39% 57%

Reading magazines 25% 36% 44%

Listening to radio 20% 31% 36%

Watching TV 24% 30% 53%

Talking on the phone N/A 28% 39%

Message boards and forums N/A 25% 31%

Meeting with people in person 12% 19% 23%

Visiting traditional websites 12% 6% 16%

Source: 2009 Women and Social Media Survey by BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners.

Women: Shifting Time Away from Traditional Media

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>50% of women said they tune into blogs for news on: •  Technology •  Social issues •  Politics •  Current events •  Green issues •  Pregnancy and baby •  Travel •  Business and career •  Personal finance

Women: Hard News Junkies and Frugalistas

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Top Ten search terms on the BlogHer Network of 15+ MM women in October 2008: 1. obama 2. palin 3. sarah palin 4. mommy 5. infertility 6. michelle obama 7. barack obama 8. sex 9. null* 10. kitchen

Source: BlogHer Network search. * “null” indicates a carriage return in an empty search box

Women: Searching for Conversations about Politics

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•  Number one most-trafficked post on BlogHer.com in 2008 was about: The presidency*

•  Number of top ten posts most-trafficked posts on BlogHer.com in 2008 about politics or the economy: Seven

•  Number of blogs by women about politics listed in BlogHer's directory of 30,000 blogs across 24 topics: January 2007: 379 October 2008: 2,664

Source: BlogHer.com and BlogHer Network search

Women: Talking about Politics and the Economy

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•  The technology exists, leverage it –  "If you truly want to reach women, moms particularly, you have to come

to them, especially online. By only doing it "your way," i.e., on your own Web sites, you are doing your campaign a disservice.”

–  "Not all women are mothers or married. Reach out to single women and women without children as well."

–  “It’s important for the campaigns to reach out to women, but not by stereotyping them or a “marketing” gimmick.”

•  We want to hear directly from candidates –  “It does no good to hear information from third-party sources.” –  “It’s irrelevant what they [the media] think. I want to hear the candidates

and decide for myself!” –  “I'm sure this is a terrifying thought to the candidates, but technology

has enabled us to actually have a conversation. Let's have that conversation.”

Source: 2007 BlogHer.com survey of voters about how to cover 2008 Election.

What do Women Want from Politicians? Talk with us directly, and let us participate

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"I'm a mother. I'm a writer. I'm a taxpayer. I'm a citizen. I'm a member of corporate America. I'm a recycler. I'm a daughter. I'm a consumer. I understand needing to break people into demographics when you're trying to get messages out in a short amount of time, but the candidate who stops treating women as [having just] one facet of their personalities will make a lot of inroads with BlogHers - I'm sure of that, regardless of political affiliation.” ~ Rita Arens, Surrender Dorothy