Is it really true?

As a Social Media Consultant and Manager, I pay a lot of attention to fan engagement – especially on clients’ pages. So when I noticed that one of my client’s pages was bucking the gender split trend, I perked up!

His Facebook analytics show about a 50/50 gender split in fans which is not typical on FB!

You see, usually, you’ll see far more female than male fans on Facebook – about a 70/30 split, but on Twitter it tends to be closer to 50/50.  As one male Twitter workshop attendee pointed out, Twitter might be more suited for men because they don’t need more than 140 characters to say what they want! Obviously implying that women can’t!

Hmm. I won’t go there, at least today

Personally, I think it’s about sharing. Women expect other women to share their thoughts. Men don’t. Men almost deliberately avoid sharing their thoughts. This is starting to sound like couples therapy!

At any rate, back to my client who has the unique 50/50 on Facebook. I got excited when I noticed because I had hoped I would get more insight on how to engage men on Facebook. Well, I am disappointed! Most men on that page will “like” but rarely comment or post. Most women click “like” AND comment or post.

Huh?

So, we still don’t know what the men are thinking on Facebook.

And the same holds true for my client. When he sends me photos to post for his business page, that’s all I get. No caption, no info, nothing. Just a picture sent to me through his iPhone. He might say, “did I send this one yet?” but that’s all. Fortunately, like they say, a picture is worth a 1000 words, so I generally can craft something to say about the photo. But again, this seems to follow the mostly male thing of “why do I need to say anything at all?”

To RT or not to RT

So, it appears that Twitter is the favorite for most men since they aren’t required to share thought there… Facebook by nature focuses on that  social sharing approach. Twitter is more about a quick thought, question or comment. You can even say all you want with a quick RT of a tweet you agree with. Ahhh, heaven for many men! Women frequently like to quote a tweet and add a comment. We’ll go to the work of shortening the original tweet just to be able to squeeze in our comment. But the men are happy enough with just an RT in response to someone else’s tweet.

So, apparently, along those same lines, a “like” is all we are going to get from most men on Facebook. Oh, I forgot – men do love to share humorous photos and videos, too. But, as expected, without a comment or caption …

You know, I never thought I’d write a post with so much gender bias! But the behavior is there, right in front of me, day after day on Social Media… really obvious.

Would you agree?