Facebook Is A Great Online Niche For Latinos

I stumbled across an interesting post today that I initially found offensive, then realized was tongue-in-cheek, but nonetheless made some valid points about how it is that Latinos flock to the Facebook platform.

Companies are taking to social media platforms like Facebook to get after potential Latino consumers more and more. But it’s figuring out exactly what’s driving these Latino social media users — English vs. Spanish, mobile vs. computers, or how exactly to go about doing so — that seems to hamper these marketing efforts. All Facebook’s Ruth Manuel-Logan wrote a post this week entitled, “4 Reasons Why We Latinos Love Facebook” in which she attempted to answer some of these questions. She made some really valid points:

• Because Facebook is online, it allows Latinos in the U.S. to communicate with Latinos in Latin America.
• Facebook, unlike TV or radio, can be used in English and Spanish simultaneously or separately, so no one is left out for their linguistic proficiencies.

The point that struck me as strange is that Latinos are particularly apt to express themselves on Facebook versus everyone else. Studies have been done to prove what we all pretty much know to be true: Facebook is all about vanity. Manuel-Logan writes:

We Latinos love status updating and commenting with a no-holds barred ‘tude. We call it as we see it, with a hands-on-hips way of letting you know, exactly what we think.  Since we are very gregarious, Facebook tends to bring out our social butterfly side to the fullest extent. We also don’t mind getting personal and even sharing nitty-gritty intimate details, moreso than other users.

Whatever the case, it’s likely that Facebook will continue to be a place where companies make their pitch to the $1 trillion Latino market. Figuring out the best way to do so, however, is more than likely going to be an experiment that we’ll be talking about here at News Taco.

Follow Sara Inés Calderón on Twitter @SaraChicaD