A study by Rapleaf shows that women outnumber men in social networks. An impressive 49,3 billion users were included in the study. The difference between men and women is big; some of the major networks such as Facebook and Myspace, count 3 times as many female as male users. Women aged 14-24 years turn out to be the biggest user group in social networks and have many more friends than others as well. In the age range, 35 to 40, men outnumbered women.

This pattern is yet to be seen in LinkedIn, the business network. Rapleaf says the difference is due to the fact that women spend more time on social networks to build and nurture relationships, whereas men want transactions as well.

Many studies report that women by nature have a much stronger focus on communication and relationships with other women, and also use many more words to work on this verbally. Social networks offer women an easy and accessible way to do what they've been good at for ages: being part of a social web.

This article was written by Marianne van Leeuwen, co-founder of Sisteract, a digital agency focusing on marketing to women. Marianne founded webshop www.welikefashion.com and price comparison website www.miepkniep.nl. She blogs about marketing to women at www.marketingtowomen.eu