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A new study from social media ad agency ShesConnected reflects many others that show women to be among the fastest growing groups on social networks.

What’s not so well known is the growing role and importance of social networks in women’s lives, something that ShesConnected touched on.

Their recent study, “The Power of Social Networking for Women”, discovered that over a third (36%) of women across North America would give up chocolate, their mother-in-law or even their precious Prada before they gave up social networking. This echoes the findings of a study conducted last year by BlogHer that found one in five women would rather relinquish their chocolate fix than their PDA.

But what does this mean to marketers and advertisers? It means that social networks are an increasingly powerful tool in the buying process.

“Advertisers know that in order to be successful, you have to follow the money. And the money is in the purses of the women who are spending their time on social networks,” said Mark Grindeland, co-founder and CEO of ShesConnected Multimedia. “Women control up to 85% of all household expenditures. They outnumber men online, and are spending a significant mount of time on social networks.”

Another interesting finding from the ShesConnected study (.pdf) is that a significant segment of women are using social networks to promote their business and sell services or products. While some network with other professionals, others used social networks for recruitment purposes or to run sales and marketing promotions. Of the 28% of women who had joined 10 or more groups on social networks, 34% were business related followed by community based groups (17%), hobby related (13%) and charity (12%).

The ShesConnected study found the following to be the top five reasons women belong to social networks:

-          To network professionally

-          To stay up-to-date with friends

-          To stay up-to-date with groups they belong to

-          To promote their business.

-          To research products or services

According to the study, the top five activities for women on social networks are:

-          Viewing video

-          Reading blogs

-          Posting photos

-          Writing in blogs

-          Posting comments