Just who is taking all those Facebook quizzes?

This is the third post in my series on Facebook use by demographic. The results herein were obtained via survey of Facebook user that I conducted. The details of the survey can be found here.

I asked the respondents about some of the common activities on Facebook, to see how often they performed those activities. Many of the results aren’t a surprise to me, but a few of them are. Among the surprises are the results for photo-posting.

Posting Photos on Facebook

My first surprise was who posted photos the most, men or women. I expected the women (social creatures that we are) to post photos more frequently. But actually, the men did!

56% of women posted photos monthly or more frequently. But 75% of men did! About even numbers never posted photos (17%), and the remainder posted quarterly or yearly.

Aside from the fact that women are generally known to be more social, I also thought women who were moms would post photos of their kids, increasing their frequency. It was a mixed answer on that front. Check it out:

The most frequent posters were, indeed, moms. 80% of at home moms reported posting picture monthly or more frequently. At home, childless women were the next most frequent posters, with 60% posting monthly or more frequently. 50% of the working, childless women posted that frequently. And only 44% of working moms managed to post photos at least monthly. As someone in that demographic, the low rate for working moms didn’t come as a surprise to me. It’s all about time.

Now, take a look at the picture (pardon the pun) for men:

100% of at-home dads reported posting photos bi-monthly. (Now, it should be noted that my sample size for at-home dads was small, reflecting the smaller sample in the population. So, the at-home dad numbers should be taken with a healthy grain of salt.) 100% of the at home, childless men posted monthly or more frequently. 83% of the working but childless men posted that frequently. And, again, the working parents had the lowest rate, with only 71% posting photos monthly or more frequently. The working men were also the only ones that had any reports of never posting photos.

Even between working dads and working moms, there remains a substantial difference, though. 44% of working mom post photos regularly, less than half. While 71% of working dads do. So, if you’ve got a photo or photo-posting app or campaign, target the men!

Page Decoration

As far as doing fancy—or anything—with your Facebook page, the men beat the women, again. But not by as large a margin. 88% of men decorate their page, 73% of women expended the effort at some point. A larger percentage of women than men report never doing it, 27% versus 13%. For both groups, as one might expect, this was an infrequent activity.

Again, the big losers for this activity are working moms. 60% of working moms never take the time to work on their FB page. And the most frequently that any working moms reported working on their pages was quarterly! At home moms were also less frequent, with 16% making the effort bi-monthly and 32% doing so monthly. A significant number of these moms also never bothered.

Not surprisingly, at home, childless women spent the most time making their page attractive and interesting, with 80% spending time on it at least monthly. And working, childless women expended a reasonable effort, as well, with 52% spending time on their page at least monthly.

The men?

Those at-home dads are at it again! 100% reported spending time bi-monthly on their FB page. (Who’s watching the kids, guys?)

Working, childless men also spent a reasonable amount of time on their page, with 67% decorating it at least monthly. At home, childless men apparently are spending time doing other things, as most of them decorated their page monthly or quarterly only. And the working dads gave up on page decoration, with only 43% spending the time monthly or more frequently, and most of those only monthly. The highest numbers of yearly or never decorating pages came from working dads, followed by working men. Guess decorating your FB page is one of the things you cut out when you have less time.

Facebook Mail

What about interacting privately on Facebook, via mail? Once again, I was surprised. The men beat out the women on using FB mail.

Of the women using FB mail, the at-home, childless women used it the most frequently, weekly. With 60% using it at least bi-monthly and none reporting never using it. Working childless women used it the next most frequently, at 53%. Just over a third, 37%, of working moms used FB mail bi-monthly. And stay-at-home moms? They’re lucky if they get on FB mail once a month.

Note, however, that significant numbers of women use FB mail only quarterly, or never.

Oddly enough, at-home dads—those big photo posters and page decorators—didn’t use FB mail that often. 100% reported using it monthly. 67% of childless, working men use FB mail at least bi-monthly. And 57% of working dads, do. The at-home, childless men—whom you would think have the time to chat on mail—use FB mail monthly at best and report the highest incidence of never using it.

Wall Comments

What about public interaction, via wall comments?

Women somewhat outnumber men on the frequency of wall comments, with more commenting daily. They are about even on weekly comments. A larger number of men report never doing wall comments.

Working, childless women comment the most frequently, with the vast majority commenting daily or weekly. 20% to 25% of the other categories of women comment at least daily. Most women comment at least weekly. But, once again, working moms are the ones that suffer the most in this category, followed by at-home moms with both of these groups having the highest percentage who report never commenting.

Still, overall, women of all categories are pretty engaged in wall-to-wall, the vast majority commenting on people’s walls with reasonable frequency.

Men, also comment frequently. The numbers are pretty close to the women’s number, except that at-home men (dads or not) have the highest frequency of commenting.

Quizzes and Games

And finally we get to the question that was of most interest to me—and frankly, my inspiration for doing this study in the first place. Who the heck is playing all those games and quizzes?! First, the men versus the women:

Apparently, both genders play games and take quizzes. However, the women beat out the men slightly. 59% of women play a game or take a quiz at least once a month. Only 43% of men do. Also, a higher percentage of men report never doing so: 52% of men versus 36% of women. Read that again. A solid majority of men NEVER play games or take quizzes. And over a third of women never do either.

Here’s the breakdown for women:

Guess who the big quiz/game people are? At-home moms! You’d think they wouldn’t have the time. But I guess we all need some entertainment other than doing puzzles and imagination games with our toddlers.

Almost 100% of at-home moms reported playing a game or taking a quiz at least monthly. And a whopping 40% did so weekly! 75% of childless, at-home women reported playing a game/taking a quiz at least monthly.

Once again, the least frequent participants were working moms, of whom only 44% reported monthly use. And working women, in general, had the highest incidence of never playing a game or taking a quiz, with 40% or more never doing so.

As for the men:

Those at-home dads are at it again, with 100% playing a game or taking a quiz at least monthly. At-home and childless men did so most frequently, with 100% reporting monthly or more frequent use. But a surprising 82% of working dads played games or took quizzes at least monthly, followed closely by the working, childless men at 80%.

Overall, the men beat out the women as far as frequency of playing games and taking quizzes. Although, significant numbers of men and women just aren’t spending the time on these things.

So, now you know who’s playing around on Facebook, and who’s interacting, and who’s putting up pretty pictures. If you’re conducting campaigns or creating applications for Facebook, I hope this information will be of help to you. In my next post in this series, I’ll take all the information I’ve gathered and presented in these three articles and combine it with what we know about the income and spending habits of the various demographics, to draw some conclusions about marketing to different demographics with Facebook.