Who is in control of your brand?

This post on marketingcharts.com discusses the difference between under 30′s and over 40 yr old women. And in summary 40+ yr old women are online for one main reason – to shop! And they’re sophisticated too…

In contrast, women over forty have higher incomes overall and say shopping is their #1 online activity. They also research products online more than their younger counterparts and are more likely to post product reviews on shopping websites (62% vs. 53%) and to purchase products based on e-mails from companies selling things (50% vs. 45%).

Younger women are more likely to be online for social networking:

• Shopping online is less of a priority to younger women (51% vs. 59% overall) and they research products less online (37% vs. 42% overall).
• Younger women are more likely to post photos online (78%) than product reviews (53%), while older women are more likely to post product reviews.
• Younger women are less responsive than average to emails from companies, and have less disposable income.
• Younger women are more likely to have social networking profiles: 86% of those 30 years or younger have profiles.
• Young women are relatively more likely than older women to respond to someone else’s blog post (63% vs. 50% overall), post photos online (78% vs. 50% overall) write their own blog entries (46% vs. 27% overall).
• Facebook (65%) and MySpace (63%) are the most popular social networking websites for women, though 40-somethings are more active on Classmates.com (42% vs. 19% for those under 30).
• LinkedIn is more popular among high earners (41% for those with a household income of $120K+ vs. 17% overall).
• Among all women, connecting with others is the top activity on social networks, while beauty products are the top category discussed on social networks (69%). Food/restaurants and movies/entertainment are also popular, especially for younger women.

• The highest proportion of younger women have between 20 and 49 contacts on social networks, but some have hundreds of contacts, driving the average up.
• Younger women have more contacts than middle-aged women (25% of those <30 and 4% of 40-somethings have 200+ contacts.
• Women over age 40 are more likely to be connected to people they’ve met on a social network (20%) vs. women under 30 (14%).