Why Firms Need to Market to Hispanics
Hispanics are young and on Social Media, so why aren’t you marketing to them? And oh yeah, 1 in 3 Americans will be Hispanic within our lifetime (by the year 2050). The ever-growing Hispanic market within the United States offers tremendous opportunities for marketers. Today an estimated 17% of the US population is Hispanic. Furthermore, Hispanics are the largest growing demographic in the country. The rate of growth in Hispanic purchasing power is equally impressive and by 2013 it is estimated that Hispanic purchasing power will be$1.3 trillion annually.
In addition to those inspiring figures, Hispanics are also avid users of the internet. In fact, Hispanic consumers are younger than the market as an aggregate. They are also often early adopters of technology and frequently use social media sites. More importantly, Hispanics frequently seek out product information online. 57% of Hispanics always go online to find product deals as opposed to 43% of the general market. Hispanics also prefer to learn about brands, compare prices, and make final decisions online. One of the most interesting statistics we found is that 72% of Hispanics trust an online product rating over a friends opinion.
These market conditions make social media a great tool to connect with Hispanic consumers. Social media is excellent for creating a discussion with people, building brand awareness and loyalty. As Hispanics are already very active on social media it makes sense for marketers to add this approach to their overall campaign. However, there is more to it than just posting content on Facebook and hoping it works. The US Hispanic Market is very diverse. It is made up of people from multiple countries with their own culture living within various levels of acculturation to American life. For example, some Hispanics prefer Spanish, while many prefer English or Spanglish. Overall, successfully engaging Hispanics can be tricky but is an opportunity that cannot be ignored.
Related Articles:
What to read from the Top 2010 Hispanic Online Marketing Reports
How Fortune 1,000 Brands Engage Spanish Speaking Facebook Fans
Why Marketing to Hispanics using Social Media Works
Check out this quick presentation which covers:
- Why is the Hispanic market important?
- Do Hispanics use Social Media?
- Why is Social Media an attractive way to target the Hispanics?
- Benefits of Marketing to Hispanics using Social Media
- How businesses will engage the Hispanic market?
- What is Social Media Spanish?
What to Read from the Top 2010 Hispanic Online Marketing Reports
Since there are already too many 40+ page reports out there instructing marketers as to where the opportunities lie in engaging with Hispanic consumers, we’re here to make it easy. This is our analysis of the 3 most current free Hispanic Online Marketing reports; the 2010 US Hispanic Social Media and Marketing Overview, the 2010-2011 Hispanic Social Media Guide, and the 2010 Hispanic CyberStudy. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses and we have ranked them in the order that we recommend them to a marketer with a limited amount of time for research on the Hispanic Consumer.
1. 2010 US Hispanic Social Media and Marketing Overview
This was our favorite report and a clear case of why not to judge a book by its cover. While the title page and overall design may look a bit like a 12th grade History Paper, this report is full of useful statistics as well as qualitative data from industry experts that make it a good read. Recommended reading includes: “The Latino Research Story” (pg 9-10), “Who’s Best to Handle it All” (pg 21-23), “The Pan Latin Connector” (pg 33-34) and “Expectations, Propositions, & Future Thought” (pg 35-39).
This is the shortest and most visually attractive by far of the three studies, you can actually get through the entire report in about 15 minutes. The focus of this report is on internet usage by Hispanics and it breaks the Hispanic population down by level of acculturation and details the language and usage preferences of those groups. While it does not have the sheer amount of information as the other two studies, we found it to be very educational and succinct. Must reads include: “American Yardstick” (pg 15), “Young Hispanics” (pg 11), “Technology Leaders” (pg 15), and “Life Stages” (pg 22-26).
3. 2010-2011 Hispanic Social Media Guide
This report reads like a conglomeration of differing opinions from a multitude of firms in the Hispanic Marketing industry. So if you are looking to shop a number of these firms, you can find plenty of advertising and contact info in this report. Besides that, the only articles that I would recommend reading would be “How to Build a Hispanic Online Community” (pg 19-22) and “How to Effectively Work with Latino Bloggers” (pg 24-26).
There is a notable lack of quantitative data as the first graph doesn’t show up until page 27 and it is borrowed from an eMarketer Ad of their own report. Additionally, a majority of the other statistics found in this report are copied over from the Hispanic Cyber Study Report described above.
All three of these reports bring something a little different to the table while educating the marketer looking to engage Hispanic customers. Hopefully this guide saves you a little bit of time in trying to read all three.
Engaging Spanish Speaking Consumers through Social Media – the March of Dimes Way
After years of fielding thousands of phone calls and emails from Spanish speaking mothers and parents to be, the March of Dimes realized the necessity to expand their outreach efforts. And while reports are now streaming in bearing statistics about how much more active Hispanics are on social media, it seems that the March of Dimes knew all along.
100% Comment response is the goal at NacerSano
The March of Dimes launched its Spanish-language site, nacersano.org, in 2004 as a response to the deficiency of trusted and accurate health information among Spanish-speaking women and their families. In 2007, realizing they needed to have an even bigger presence within the Spanish-speaking community; they kicked off a social media initiative with their Spanish-language blog, located at blog.nacersano.org. This blog enabled the March of Dimes to engage with their consumers in a more organic and informal setting.
Social Media is not new to the March of Dimes. Beverly Robertson, a National Director at the March of Dimes, who heads up social media efforts, has gained approximately 8,000 twitter followers to date (@marchofdimes). Their Facebook page has over 70,000 fans. But what is quite noticeably innovative & impressive is the manner in which they are able to converse openly with their Spanish speaking fans. To enable this, Miss Robertson’s Hispanic Outreach team, spearheaded by Lilliam Acosta-Sanchez, has established Spanish language Facebook Fan page and Twitter accounts, all linked through their Spanish-language brand “nacersano.” The overall goals of the team are to use social media for health information outreach and to raise awareness of the March of Dimes and its mission among Spanish-speaking Latinos.
During our conversation in May, Mrs. Acosta-Sanchez noted that an average month will bring approximately 400 questions from consumers that need a response via social media. They are proud that their team is able to respond to 100% of the questions that come in through their blog, Facebook Fan page and Twitter accounts. An impressive feat, considering the low or non-existent engagement levels of many large firms and organizations.
We at DK wanted to dig deeper, so we looked at the numbers to verify the March of Dime’s claims. We found that they were indeed very active conversing with their fans and consumers. The nacersano.org Facebook page is able to maintain a 335 Engagement Score, indicating a very high level of interaction with fans on their page. This ranking (take a look at our ranking system) calculates how often a fan comments or ‘likes’ a posting, and evaluates all Facebook pages on a pound-for-pound scale. The nacersano Twitter page obtains an equally high Engagement Score of 60, calculated by dividing mentions by nacersano by the times nacersano has been mentioned.
The team behind nacersano also discussed growth of their Spanish social media presence with us. They explained that their growth to date is primarily viral and that their objective is less about growing and more about building relationships with their current fans/followers. Based on their ability to engage their consumers thus far, we also believe their growth will come naturally.
nacersano’s web presence:
•www.nacersano.org – The March of Dimes Spanish-language Web site
•http://blog.nacersano.org – Spanish-language blog on pregnancy-related topics.
•www.twitter.com/nacersano – Pregnancy-related tips.
•www.twitter.com/nacersanobaby – Baby-related tips.
•www.facebook.com/nacersano – Fan page.