5 Things You Should Know About U.S. Hispanics Online

U.S. Hispanics Go Digital

Are you considering marketing to U.S. Hispanics online? If so, you should take a close look at your audience and start with a firm understanding of the nuances of this rapidly growing market.

Here are 5 insights into online U.S. Hispanics that you can use as a jumping off point.

1. Both acculturated and unacculturated Hispanics are online

If you look at the total Hispanic population, 61% of U.S. Hispanics are online. Remember though, when looking at the Hispanic marketing, you need to take acculturation levels into account. If you’re talking to Hispanics with high acculturation levels, that number rises to 75-79% (depending on acculturation levels). If you’re talking to unacculturated Hispanics, it’s more like 44-51%

2. Hispanics online tend to be younger than their general market counterparts

In the U.S., the Hispanic population skews younger, having larger households and younger children. This holds true online as well.

46% of online Hispanics are under 35 years old compared to 28% of the general market. This means that if you want to engage with Hispanics in their 20s, online just might be where you want to find them.

3. Hispanics tend to access the internet through a wider range of devices than the General Market

Hispanics outpace their general market counterparts when it comes to accessing the internet through mobile devices.

32% of U.S. Hispanics go online via their cell phone vs. 20% of general market users. This also carries over into gaming devices where 18% of Hispanics access the internet vs. 11% of the general market population.

4. Hispanics love Facebook, YouTube and other social media sites

While it is hard to get a truly accurate number of Hispanics on Facebook and YouTube, we can make some educated guesses. We estimate that the number of U.S. Hispanics on Facebook is somewhere around 13.5 million people and the number of Hispanics on YouTube is around 17.8 million people.

While it is likely that many of the Facebook and YouTube users are fluent in English, don’t forget the power of reaching out to Hispanics on these sites in Spanish. By my count, Univision, the leading Spanish language media company, has 214,588 Facebook “likes” on their combined national Facebook fan pages.

Also consider that since Facebook is an international platform, many Spanish dominant Hispanics in the U.S. are active on Facebook because it allows them to keep in touch with family and friends back home.

5. Spanish dominant Hispanics prefer to be spoken to in Spanish

That said, Spanish dominant Hispanics realize that many Spanish language sites are simply poor translations of the English site. In those cases, they tend to prefer the English site.

When a site is created specifically for Spanish speakers, to be respected, it needs to reflect their experiences in the United States and takes into account ties to their home country.

This means that you can’t simply translate an English site into Spanish. To make it relevant you should trans-create it instead.

Now that you know the basics, let’s get down to business. What are some of the sites, Facebook pages and social media strategies that you’ve seen built specifically for U.S. Hispanics. Why do you think they work or don’t work?