Latinos Spend More Time On Social Media Than Other Groups
By Juan Elizondo
Given the habits in my own home, I wasn’t surprised to read more evidence that Hispanics spend more time in social media channels than other ethnic groups in the United States. That was one of the findings of an electronic survey conducted in mid-February by American Pulse.
According to the data analysis, Hispanics who are 18 or older spend an average of 4.5 hours a day in social media channels. Overall, the 3,349 people who responded to the survey said they spend 2.6 hours in social media during an average day. Blacks reported 4.1 hours per day and non-Hispanic whites said they spend an average of 2.4 hours per day.
Facebook was the dominate social media channel for the three reported groups, with 60.7 percent of the self-reported Hispanics saying they visit the site at least once a day. Overall, more than half of the respondents said they visit Facebook at least once a day.
The survey also tested time spent and the frequency of visits onTwitter, Foursquare, Google+, Pinterest and LinkedIn.Those registered far lower than Facebook in both areas.
Alejandra Suarez is an assistant account executive at theHispanic-focused iNSPIRE! marketing firm and director of the Dallas chapter of Latinos in Social Media, a national nonprofit organization that seeks to empower Latinos through social media.
She says the communal nature of most Hispanic culturesdrives Hispanics to social media. That, in turn, creates another channel for advertisers to reach Hispanics.
Suarez says there is a wide mix of retailers and marketers who are successfully reaching Hispanic audiences in traditional and new media, as well as those who are trying but not hitting the mark.
“The key part of this is understanding this audience,” she says. “A lot of brands fail to recognize that this is not one giant audience and that you can’t talk to them as one big group.”
Suarez notes that there are significant differences among the bicultural nature of what iINSPIRE! calls Lateens, recent immigrants, and 2nd and 3rd generations residents who remain more firmly rooted in their native cultures. Layered within those generational differences are cultural and communication differences between people of various Hispanic origins.
Another challenge in marketing to Hispanic audiences is theresearch role that younger Hispanics take in purchasing decisions for products and services aimed at their parents and grandparents. That role comes, in part, because of language barriers, as well as access to and comfort with technology. The role of younger family members means advertisers must shape messages that appeal to those younger people while also providing the information that the older members of the family need to make their buying decisions.
“It’s challenging,” Suarez says.
Unfortunately, less than a third of the survey’s Hispanic respondents said they visit LinkedIn once a week or more and more than half said they don’t have accounts with LinkedIn, the social media of choice for professional recruiters, business owners and corporate hiring directors.
Social media is a great tool to stay connected to friends and family. The same power can be used to connect with people in our current fields of work and in the fields to which we aspire.
In addition to measuring total time in social media channels, the American Pulse survey looked at total time in all Internet channels. Blacks reported 7.2 hours per day on the Internet. Hispanics said they spend an average of 6.6 hours per day online. Non-Hispanic whites reported 5.3 hours per day.
Those findings also lend credibility to advertisers’ investments in online marketing.
[Photo By the italian voice]