Perhaps the biggest misconception about social media marketing is the assumption that women want to have relationships with most brands.  We are finally learning that women don’t want “to have a relationship” with most brands and if you have to ask why than you need to go back and read some of my earlier posts.  Women, who control 85% of all brand purchases, expect a lot of brands and marketers would be better branding people to concentrate their efforts on where it will do the most good for their bottom line: the brand promise.

According to the She Economy;

The female consumer is breaking up with brands, and she is trying to tell advertisers why. Listen to her.

• We don’t talk anymore. You’re doing all the talking.

• We’re not exactly having dialog

• You’re saying you love me, but you’re not behaving like you love me. It’s not genuine.

• I’ve changed and you haven’t.

• We don’t hang out in the same places anymore.

• You’re not listening to me.

• If you knew me, you’d know I don’t care anything about that

• Guys, be very careful not to assume she is breaking up with your brand because of the recession. It could be because you simply are not listening to her.

Women account for 85% of all purchases and a lot of women have a problem emotionally connecting to brands because men don’t know how to think like women, their primary target audience. Women do not respond to messages because they are people and people don’t like to be segmented and bombarded with messages.

12 Mistakes Male Marketers Continue to Make When Marketing to Women With Social Media

• They are still trying to tell women what they want
• They are not listening to what women are saying
• If they do listen, they are still interpreting from the male perspective
• They are trying to sell before connecting
• They expect immediate results
• They have not defined valid expectations
• They try to find ways around the time required to build relationships
• They assume social media means “Facebook”
• They don’t know how to engage the female
• They open channels with little or no strategy
• They are working from a linear mindset as opposed to a multi-layered process
• Finally, and my favorite – they are looking forward to the recession ending so things can return to normal.

It’s not like any of this information should be a surprise to anyone in marketing (if it is you’re in need of a new career). Women have always been street smart savvy shoppers but now with the distrust of big business and government women are taking control of what they buy and more importantly who they buy from.

Link to the source of the article