• by Natalie Boden , March 11, 2016

Hispanic purchasing power in the U.S. is $1.5 trillion, with a total population of 54 million. 26 million are on Facebook, 12 million on Twitter and 9.6 million on Instagram. And in 2016, the opportunity to capture this $1.5 trillion socially connected, mobile-first Hispanic consumer is larger than ever before. 

From analytics and social listening to audience optimization – here are some of the important elements to consider when building a Hispanic Social Media Strategy in 2016:

1. Insights & Analytics: For the highly segmented Hispanic consumer market, paying extremely close attention to analytics is key. Is your audience bilingual Millennial, Latina Moms, Spanish-dominant males? With the analytics and insights tools at hand, drilling down strategies and analyzing per segment is easier than ever before. 

Tools like Facebook Audience Insights allow brands to break down their target market into specific sub segments — bilingual Hispanics, Spanish-dominant Hispanics and English-dominant Hispanics — and by interest. For example, Facebook’s Audience Insights tools indicate to us that Spanish-dominant Hispanics favor pages like Fox Deportes and Maribel La Guardia, a Mexico based telenovela actress and regional Mexican singer. Very different from bilingual Hispanics, who favor the content of a page like Tecate and George López., an English dominant Latino comedian. Informing social strategies by gauging these insights is key.

2. Social Listening: There are thousands of conversations happening at this very moment about your brand and your industry. Conversations about beauty, sports, food are enormous among Hispanic consumers — in Spanish and Spanglish — and few brands are engaging. 

Brands must keep track of top conversations, influencers and trends to identify opportunities to organically engage beyond the fodder on their own platforms. 

In addition, social listening allows brands to identify top trends among specific audiences. U.S. Hispanic social media trends are some of the top conversations occurring, whether it’s a generic daily trend (#FelizMartes) or it’s tied to novelas (#HotelDLS), sports (#SerieCaribeESPN), entertainment (#Billboards2016) or politics (#LatinosforBernie). 

3. Content: Culturally-relevant content creation that leverage consumer passion points and cultural interests continues to win across social media — but the format is key, which short form video at the forefront. In the last year, platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have taken note with updated native video capabilities. Now, Facebook native video content performs four times better than other video content online, including YouTube. 

For social TV moments like Latin GRAMMYs or soccer’s upcoming Copa América, it’s real-time content that wins with consumers. Brands must follow and listen to the conversation, leveraging top moments in a way that is natural and adds value. 

4. Social Influencers: Hispanic social influencers including Latino bloggers, Viners, YouTubers, and Instagrammers continue to gain traction and influence. They are the news, entertainment and sports personalities our consumers follow, relate to and trust. 

When consumers see content from viners Maiah Ocando and LeJuan James or from TV personality Barbara Bermudo, for example, they see someone who gets them. Social influencers across all categories have built communities on social akin to families. Sometimes, they even give their fans a loving nickname — think of Maiah Ocando’s “cuchuritas” — drawing on cultural values and connections. 

These social influencers understand the Hispanic culture and their audiences, allowing them to communicate brand messages in a way that is creative, authentic and culturally relevant. Even when amplified by paid support, their content is non-disruptive because it’s valuable. When done correctly, influencer content feels right on your newsfeed — even if it does include #ad. 

5. Community Management: Who you place at the frontline of your brands’ social channels – your multicultural, multilingual community managers – is key. Whether it’s finding out what drives engagement or overall sentiment, multicultural community managers participate in real-time conversations with users, absorbing their feedback or their experience with the brand, what they appreciate and what they would like to see changed. 

It is key that multicultural community managers are a reflection of both your brand and your audience. 

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In 2016, the Hispanic social media consumer market continues to grow as a key demographic for marketers. Brands must listen, inform strategy with analytics and develop refreshing content that speaks to them to, ultimately, capture their hearts — and spending power.