• by Karl Greenberg , February 20, 2014

Hispanic consumers are more social, influential and impressionable online than non-Hispanic consumers, according to a new study commissioned by Unilever with its media planning agency Mindshare and executed by Palo Alto, Calif.-based social media platform ShareThis.

The study, based on about four months of data on social media use garnered from 42 million users and nearly 70 million shares, found that Hispanic consumers are twice as likely to either share content or click on shared content than Americans in general. 

The research also showed that Hispanic consumers share via social media five times more often than non-Hispanic users, and content shared by Hispanic consumers is 35% more likely to be clicked on than content shared by the non-Hispanic population. And Hispanic consumers are twice as likely to purchase the kinds of products they share about compared to non-Hispanic consumers who are only 1.3 times as likely to make a purchase compared to what they share online. 

The gap between Hispanics and non-Hispanics in terms of purchasing what they share about is most pronounced in health food, personal care, beverages and sweets and snacks categories, per the study. Arts and entertainment, family and sports are the most searched and viewed content categories, followed by politics and government, food and drink, health and fitness, style and beauty, technology, home and gardens, business, travel and leisure, education and automotive.  

The ShareThis data suggests that Hispanic consumers are also more influential on social media: content they share garners more "click-backs" (the act of clicking shared links to view the shared content) than content shared by non-Hispanic consumers. But they diverge on platforms from non-Hispanics. They are less likely to use Pinterest or Twitter, and twice as likely to use email and nearly 50% more likely to use blogging channels such as Tumblr and Blogger, per the study.

Hispanic consumers also appear to read more content on mobile devices than do non-Hispanic consumers, but they are generally less inclined to share on these devices. The study finds that nearly 20% of Hispanic consumers consume mobile content (6.4% iPhone, 8.1% tablet and 5.1% Android), but only 7% share on mobile, versus 13.6% of non-Hispanic consumers. But the study also finds that younger Hispanic consumers are more likely to want to share on mobile devices -- as much as non-Hispanics -- and also index just as strongly with Twitter and Pinterest as do non-Hispanics. 

"Women on Smartphone" photo from Shutterstock.