Social Media Suffers from Low Testosterone, Survey Finds

When it comes to making recommendations about products or services, Facebook and other social media sites are female territory, a new survey shows. Men are far more likely than women to recommend purchases to family and friends in person than by any other means.

The survey for AskMen.com, which was reported by research firm eMarketer, polled more than 83,000 teen boys and men in the U.S., U.K., Australia and Canada. It found that the youngest respondents were the most likely to make recommendations face-to-face. Phone, email and social recommendations lagged far behind.

Mobile and social networks were chosen by a small minority as the preferred method of recommending purchases, the survey found. Between 5 and 6 percent of respondents under age 35 said they share purchase information over Facebook or another social network. Among older men, this share was even lower.

A third of women (34 percent), on the other hand, said they make recommendations or share content using social networks, according a separate poll conducted for AOL.

But the low testosterone level in social media recommendations doesn’t mean that men’s recommendations are impotent when it comes to steering opinion.

Though they may be relatively rare among men, posts on social networks about products or services are influential. ROI Research reported that 60 percent of U.S. social network users were at least somewhat likely to take an action when a friend posts something online about a product or brand.

Article provided by BusinessNewsDaily, a sister site to Laptopmag.com.

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