How Do Women Really Feel About Their Facebook Friends? Archetypes Have Emerged

The more new information emerges about social network attitudes, the more careful marketers need to be about assuming the network is going to answer their sales goals prayers. The results of a recent survey of female Facebook users suggests that pushing anything too hard - your family, your perfect life, your complaints - is a turn-off to those who receive the communication. Managers who are preparing budgets based on the assumption that Facebook or other networked messages about favorite cake mixes or restaurants will lead to increased sales may be in for a very rude shock:

Jolie O'Dell reports in Mashable:

"When it comes to Facebook, we have friends, and we have “friends.” A recent survey found that for many women on Facebook, their true feelings about many of their Facebook friends might be less than friendly.

Daily deals site Eversave talked to 400 women about their Facebook relationships. The company originally conducted the survey as market research on the social network’s influence on the daily deals ecosystem, but Eversave was surprised to uncover the love/hate relationship between women and their online friends.

For example, the majority of female respondents said they had at least one friend who was a “drama queen” on Facebook. A majority also said they had at least one obnoxiously “proud mother” as a Facebook friend.

Most women — 83% of respondents in this survey — are annoyed at one time or another by the posts from their Facebook connections. For these respondents, the most off-putting post was some kind of whine; a full 63% said complaining from Facebook friends was their number one pet peeve, with political chatter and bragging coming in a distant second and third.

The respondents also said at least one of their Facebook friends tended to:

Share too many mundane updates too often (65%)
“Like” too many posts (46%)
Inappropriately or too frequently use Facebook to promote causes (40%)
Project false information or images of a perfect life (40%)

These kinds of Facebook archetypes have become part of the cultural lexicon. We recently covered an amusing music video about Facebook “types.” But it’s fascinating to see these characteristics quantified by the women who get teed off by them.