• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, February 25, 2014

The evidence keeps piling up, as more studies confirm that U.S. Hispanics lead the general population in social media, mobile and e-commerce adoption.

The latest piece of research comes from BIA/Kelsey’s Consumer Commerce Monitor Study, which found that Hispanic consumers are more likely to use social media for local shopping, at least on some platforms.
 
Overall, 17.7% of Hispanics surveyed said they use YouTube for local shopping, compared to 10.3% of non-Hispanics, while 16.8% of Hispanics use Yahoo for the same purpose, compared to 16.3% of non-Hispanics. 11.1% of Hispanics use Twitter, compared to 6.7% of non-Hispanics. One important exception to the trend was Facebook, where non-Hispanics led in local shopping, with 67% versus 61% for Hispanics.
 
The BIA/Kelsey survey also found that Hispanics over-index in using mobile devices for local shopping: 23.6% of Hispanic consumers say they use tablets for local shopping, compared to 15.5% of non-Hispanics, and 48.5% of Hispanics report using any kind of mobile device for local shopping, versus 32% of non-Hispanics.
 
As noted, this research fits with a number of other studies of Hispanic digital behaviors.

According to the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project, 80% of U.S. Hispanic adults use social media, compared to 72% for the country overall, with 68% of U.S. Hispanic adults saying they used Facebook, Twitter or similar platforms, compared to 58% for the U.S. population. Of note for marketers: U.S. Hispanics are also more likely to follow a brand on social media.
 
Another study, commissioned by Unilever with its media planning agency Mindshare and performed by ShareThis, found that Hispanic consumers are twice as likely to share content or click on shared content than the general population. Hispanic consumers also 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. 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.
 
Turning to digital coupons, 84.2% of U.S. Hispanic consumers said they have searched for an online coupon based on a recommendation, compared to 70.6% of all U.S. consumers, according to a national consumer panel survey by Valassis. Also, 69.6% of U.S. Hispanics surveyed said they have used coupons found on social-media sites, compared to 53.9% of the population at large. In addition, 61.2% said they have shared coupons via social media, compared to 39.4% of all consumers.
 
In December 2013, a study by Experian Marketing Services’s Hitwise service found that Hispanics are more likely to shop online in general. Overall, Hispanics’ share of visits to the top 500 retail Web sites tracked by Experian’s Hitwise measurement service was 21% higher than the online population in general. Hispanics also spend more time browsing retail Web sites than non-Hispanic smartphone owners.

In terms of specific behaviors, adult Hispanic smartphone owners are twice as likely as non-Hispanics to say they are interested in receiving ads on their phone, 58% are more likely to purchase products they see advertised on their phone, and 13% are more likely to say they use their phone while shopping to find local deals.