3 Social Content Snafus To Avoid When Engaging With Hispanic Millennials
When it comes to publishing and content marketing, what gets professionals more excited than millennials? Hispanic millennials.
After all, the more specific you can get with your audience targeting, the better engagement performance you’ll see. And the Spanish-speaking millennial is one of the most alluring, yet dreadfully misunderstood, ethno-demographics.
Hispanic millennials have enormous spending power, which is growing rapidly. About half of all U.S.-based Latinos are millennials, and about a quarter of all U.S.-based millennials are Latinos. They’re upwardly mobile, too, thanks to a set of values that emphasizes the home, higher education, fiscal responsibility and entrepreneurship.
Improving Global Engagement Tactics
Millennial, Spanish-speaking media audiences are finally coming into their own, with a great deal of demand from around the world to reach them and engage with them in a meaningful manner. Few agencies, brands and publishers are creating content experiences that match the values and consumption habits of this sector, and as a result, few are finding that their media activity actually drives noteworthy performance. But it seems like the tide may be turning.
Late last year, I had the honor of participating in a panel at the FICOD conference in Madrid, one of the largest gatherings of Spanish-speaking digital media professionals in the world. Sharing the stage with Alfredo Murillo, who is the founding editor of BuzzFeed España, and engagement experts from leading news publications, we discussed content consumption patterns of millennial audiences.
Based on the extended questions and answers session that followed the panel, and on my ongoing discussions with the players in this sector, I’ve compiled these three common misconceptions about Hispanic young adults and media.
1. Thinking It’s a Homogenous Group
The Spanish-speaking world spans continents and includes scores of distinct cultures – as well as countless subcultures. Want your message to resonate with Catalonians and Miami-based Cubans alike? Time to rethink your strategy.
In our experience, localizing your editorial calendar to take these niches into account is the way to go. But hybrid identities come into play as well, especially in the U.S., where immigrants and children of immigrants are struggling to find themselves in the context of their adopted cultures. According to a study recently commissioned by PopSugar, for example, less than one-third of U.S. Latina millennials identify with the Latina portrayals they see in mainstream media.
2. Underestimating the Revenue Potential
There’s no need to go into the false stereotypes about Hispanics and their economic prowess. As we’ve seen in the stats listed at the top of this page, these stereotypes are simply untrue.
A recent study by the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies (AHAA) even went so far as to demonstrate that brands which aggressively target Hispanics are seeing faster growth than brands that don’t.
3. Assuming It’ll Be Easy to Break In
Now that the word is out that there’s money to be made by creating content in Spanish, it seems like everyone’s coming out of the woodwork and trying to get in on the action. With great opportunity comes great competition. Carlos Santiago, CEO at Burbank-based Santiago Solutions Group, is predicting a major spike in Latino-targeting ad spend this year, for one.
But to reach Spanish-speakers effectively and drive real engagement, professionals need to truly understand the market.
Onwards and Upwards
It’s an exciting time to be involved with Spanish-language media. Momentum is building, and as a whole, the industry is waking up to the gargantuan opportunities to be found by offering content experiences that are snackable, mobile-friendly, visual and optimized for social engagement.
