BlogHer Study Shows Women Embracing It

More this morning on last week's AdAge article by Beth Snyder Bulik, about a new study showing how "mainstream" blogging is now among women. The study was based on surveys of two sample groups which together included several thousand respondents: one composed of participants in the BlogHer community and the other of online women selected to represent the general population of U.S. women. Demographically, BlogHer users are fairly similar to average online women, although they skew much higher in the 25- to 41-year-old Gen X range, with 68% of the BlogHer users in that age range vs. 42% of overall women.

Writes Bulik,

"Blogosphere" may not be a pretty name for it, but it is a pretty attractive destination -- for women at least, and maybe for marketers courting them, too. According to a recent study by BlogHer and Compass Partners, more than one-third (35%) of all women in the U.S. aged 18 to 75 participate in the blogosphere at least once a week. And that number increases if less-frequent visits are factored in. Of those women who are online any amount of time, 53% read blogs, 37% post comments to blogs and 28% write or update blogs, according to the study.

Other tidbits of interest from the study:

-Of the general population of online women who write blogs, 58% post entries at least weekly -- and of those who read blogs, 80% do so at least weekly.

-Most women who blog do so for fun (65%); to express themselves (60%); to connect with others (40%); as a personal diary (34%); and to give advice or educate (26%).

-Women read blogs for fun (46%); to get information (41%); stay up to date on family and friends (36%); stay up to date on specific topics (34%); connect with others (28%); and entertainment (26%).

-Some 24% of the women overall watch less TV, as do 43% of BlogHer users; another 25% and 22% of the general consumers read fewer magazines and newspapers, respectively, as do 31% in each category of BlogHer users.

Is this a specialized population that applies to early adapters, or is this study a harbinger of what's generally to come?

The full report is available for download from Blogher's site, here.