Craze Of WhatsApp Increasing Among Women

With more than 160 million Internet users, India has a significant population logged online. About 86 million people access the Internet using mobile devices. Interestingly, women’s online behaviour is increasingly becoming significant for everyone to watch for, including businesses, brands and marketers.

WhatsApp is one of the popular mobile messaging applications with more than 50 million monthly active users in the country. And it is no more just the youth, which is toying with this application, the middle aged as well as the older folk, too, are increasingly preferring mobile messaging services like WhatsApp over SMS.

WhatsApp is touted as the app with the largest reach in the Indian app economy, amounting to 76%. Among chat apps only, Google Hangout is second with a reach of about 25% and WeChat has a reach of 22%. Clearly, WhatsApp is much ahead in the pack of apps. And with more than 50 million monthly active users in the country, the consumer behaviour on this app is quite significant to watch for.

Women spend more time on apps, including WhatsApp
Women are spending more time on online apps, about 46 minutes in a day. While men are supposed to be spending an average of 25 minutes on online apps daily. Out of the total time spent by women on apps, 70% is spent only on instant messaging or chat apps, including Google Talk, WhatsApp, WeChat, etc. This is much more than the average time of eight minutes that men spend on instant messaging apps in a day.

Key insights on women on WhatsApp
Not just women spend more time on WhatsApp, they are also more receptive to brand relations through this medium. One of the researches in the digital space indicates that about 71% of women, compared to only 18% of men, will ‘like’ or follow a brand on the social media conversations on apps like facebook, WhatsApp, etc.

Also, when it comes to interacting with brands, women are more savvy on platforms like WhatsApp, facebook, etc. They also tend to consume and share info more frequently on a platform like WhatsApp than men, who rather prefer to check news or sports websites for information.

Zafar Rais, CEO, MindShift Interactive, says, “WhatsApp is part of our daily mode of communication and has revamped our outlook towards texting. It’s not surprising that WhatsApp has comfortably lead the line in India, with more than 50 million active users coming from urban and rural areas. A preliminary research conducted throws light on the insight that women are more receptive to brand relations through social media platforms than men. Hence, it's important for brands targeting women to understand the platform’s virtue and adapt accordingly. With one of our television clients, we used the route of opt-in WhatsApp conversations which resulted in a higher outreach and sustained conversations. The platform is personal and must be treated in a similar manner when adopting a strategic route for a brand."

Another key insight on women’s behaviour on WhatsApp is that they are more interactive and responsive in group conversations than men. This presents an interesting opportunity for brands targeting women to engage them at a deeper level with relevant and smart content. However, the important thing to keep in mind is the difference between engaging and intrusive content. As Rais also rightly pointed out, WhatsApp is certainly a very personal medium and thus, interacting with clients on this medium must first involve seeking their permission in the right way and then ensuring relevance of content. Moreover, keeping the message short is also very important to ensure the consumer does not lose interest and listens to your entire message.

One more interesting insight about women’s behaviour on WhatsApp is that they are more likely to share pictures and videos than their counterparts. Thus, a brand focusing on catching women’s attention can use WhatsApp effectively to capture women’s attention by going beyond the text content and weaving their message into smart picture and video content.
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