When it comes to increasing digital engagement, traditional eCommerce can take cues from social media and messaging. As new PYMNTS data found, a spike in social and message app use in 2022 is reflective of a consequential shift in how people are using digital tools in their everyday lives.
For the latest sounding, “The ConnectedEconomy™ Monthly Report: The Who’s Who of the Digital Social Scene Edition,” PYMNTS surveyed over 2,600 United States consumers and found that social media and digital messaging is notching up as a daily activity among more consumers, with intriguing differences in how men and women use social and messaging for fun and flirtation.
PYMNTS research found a 7.6% increase in consumers’ daily use of social media and an 8.5% increase in their daily use of messaging apps since January 2022, but this activity surged in the summer months as more consumers leaned on digital messaging as primary communications channels.
The new data found that social media engagement rose 4% between July and September, bested only by the use of to-the-point messaging platforms that increased by 7% in the summer.
When it comes to talking about buying and intentions to do so, we can infer from the new data that women are more engaged in this form of usage than men.
“Women go online chiefly to keep up with friends and family on social media; men go online primarily to find dates,” the report stated. “Women browse 14% more and post 4% more on social media than men, while men are 150% likelier than women to use dating apps and 128% more likely than women to conduct background checks on potential partners.”
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Another telling stat from the new data is that “women are 55% likelier than their male counterparts to check for social updates daily, with 62 million women across the country scrolling their social feeds every day to catch up on the latest news from their friends, family, and romantic partners.”
By comparison, just 38 million men browse social media with the same frequency, leading to our conclusion that “women remain the internet’s foremost socialites, even among the most active users,” with browsing often leading to buying, indicating a gender divide in online buying.
However, the study noted that “the most digitally social men and women — those who communicate online daily — have more similarities than differences. The men who socialize online daily are still more likely than their female counterparts to use dating apps, for example, but only by roughly 8 percentage points. This is far less than the 24 percentage-point gap that separates men and women who only communicate online weekly or monthly.”
Income and the Digital Social Scene
Those with more disposable income available are driving the surge in social and digital messaging, as 57% of the 54 million consumers who went online to connect with friends, family and romantic partners in the last month earned more than $100,000 annually.
It’s not limited to higher-earning cohorts, however, as we find those with lower incomes also engaging at higher rates as 2022 has progressed.
For example, consumers living paycheck to paycheck were found likely to be communicating online now more than ever.
Per the study, “54% of the consumers who lived paycheck to paycheck with issues paying their bills last month went online to chat, browse and share, as did 53% of those who lived paycheck to paycheck without issues paying bills. Just 43% of consumers who did not live paycheck to paycheck reported socializing online.”
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