So how many Hispanics could potentially be inspired to join your brand’s newly launched Facebook page?  Well, before you look at your options for engaging Hispanics on Facebook you need to decide is whether your page will be targeting Spanish or English dominant Hispanics.  This makes a great difference to many parts of the Facebook page including the overall potential reach.  So let’s review how many US Hispanics could potentially sign up as a fan on your brand’s Facebook Page.

How many Hispanics are English or Spanish Dominant?

In today’s environment there are 13.5 million US Hispanics on Facebook. Of that amount 31%, or 4.2 million Hispanics, prefer Spanish and would be encouraged to become a fan of a fan page providing Spanish content. 5.9 million Hispanics favor English and are more likely to fan a page that is providing stories and media in English. And last but not least, 25% of US Hispanics (3.4 million) are bilingual and consume content in either language.  The graph below sums it up:

Are the portions what you would have imagined?

What Facebook Pages would these different groups prefer? Spanish preferring Hispanics would likely gravitate to pages offering daily content in Español including the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) page.  Two other pages catering to Spanish dominants are the Castrol Facebook page and the NBA’s Spanish Facebook page. Hispanics that speak and consume media in English are likely to prefer general market English pages.  However, a good example of pages catering to US Hispanics preferring English include the Mexican Word of the Day page as well as the American Latino Museum page. A few good Bilingual pages include those of the artist Manu Chao as well as page operated by Proctor and Gamble, Tu Pantene.

And how in the planet do we know this you ask?

1. Total US Facebook users = 150MM (500MM * 30%).  Facebook estimates that 30% of its users are located within the US.
2.Total US Hispanic Facebook Users = 13.5MM (150 * 9%).  Based on Facebook’s estimate of diversity amongst its users using Census data.
3. Spanish Dominant US Hispanics = 4.2MM (13.5MM * 31%). Combines Latin Americans and all Spanish favoring Hispanics in the US.
4. English Dominant US Hispanics = 5.9MM (13.5MM * 44%). Includes 2nd and 3rd generation Hispanics and all other English favoring Hispanics.
5. Bilingual US Hispanics = 3.4MM (13.5MM * 25%). The large portion of Hispanics whom are comfortable with either language.

Note: There are differing thoughts on how best to calculate the number of Hispanics on Facebook.  Other notable resources (See AOL Cyberstudy below) would suggest that an appropriate measure may be estimations of the portion of Online-Hispanics that are bilingual or English or Spanish dominant.  These estimates vary from different sources and may be helpful to consider for your campaign.

Thoughts? How do these figures compare with what you would imagined?   What other factors are key when determining the tonality of messaging to the US Hispanic audience?  Please place your thoughts in the Comments below.

References:

http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=205925658858

http://dkwebconsulting.com/Why-Marketing-to-Hispanics-with-Social-Media-Works.pdf

http://advertising.aol.com/sites/default/files/HispanicCyberStudy-2010.pdf

Eric Diaz

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