How Women Blog
Ann Handley (of MarketingProfs and their Daily Fix blog) and I have been having an off- and on-line discussion about women and blogging, since my post on the Online Gender Agenda went up last week. The topic was also discussed on the Synergy Blog in April.
How women choose to participate in blogs is a matter of that editing/filtering/curating life thing, if you ask me. Women who know of blogs and read them likely have given parameters or limits to the number of blogs they follow. They have also likely chosen a top few that they’ll take the time to really dig into and perhaps comment on.
It is less about making sure their name and words are known in many places than it is about having more in-depth discussions about the key topics about which they are passionate (biz and non-biz). A senior marketing executive at a Fortune 100 company, for example, may check in on 30 blogs, with the bulk of them being business related and a handful being more home/family/lifestyle-focused.
Which ones really feel like many-way conversations and not monologues of the blogger? Which ones work to include lots of different voices and welcome the gamut of comments? Which ones offer up fresh ideas and creative solutions to the problems the reader faces?
The where/how women blog question is similar to where/how women shop. It can be influenced by a lot of different things. If a successful female entrepreneur is going through a particularly hard period of parenting, for example, those types of blogs will get her attention for a while. If she’s struggling with a sales issue, she’ll more likely be participating in that blog realm until she’s found or derived the answer she needs.
And, then, there’s word-of- mouth. Lots of women aren’t out there looking for more blogs to read. They likely become more avid readers, and then potential participants, once a friend or two has emailed them a specific post that really struck a chord.
A women may be more deliberate about where she is spending her time, and how much time she is spending online. Women are certainly out there participating in blogs - they are just more selectively seeking conversations they can be passionate about, business-oriented or not.
If this is a topic you are passionate about, lend your voice to the Daily Fix discussion - or right here.
May 23rd, 2006 at 4:08 am
I so agree. Nice post! I have been reading stuff on women bloggers and have written one myself too. I believe that women have equal potentials as men bloggers. Sexuality is not really the case here.
http://onlinepr.gbwatch.com/
June 4th, 2006 at 4:07 pm
Again, this is a hot topic and one I hope to write more about, myself. How women blog, or WHY women blog, is a study in personality, focus, and technical ability.
With so many excellent blogs available - like this one - it’s hard to choose which ones to follow. I have hundreds of blogs in my Bloglines subscription. When I come across a blog I like, no matter what gender writes it, I subscribe via bloglines… and then, often lose track of it until I see a link to it in another’s blog post.
My gut tells me that more women blog than are counted. These may be the Mommy bloggers (and I know they dislike that title but it should be a proud one to bear, from my point of view), or young women just writing to chat with friends. Regardless, this medium - this social tool - is a perfect example of women connecting with other women, nation to nation, all over the world. We don’t advertise it, we don’t push it on each other, we just do it and connect and continue to - be sociable.
That’s how women are. In the end, the sociability of blogging is what matters. Because, when we’re being sociable, we’re connecting about life, business, products, services, movies, books…and all the lies between. Can you think of a better way to tap into the likes and dislikes of a “target” market?