The 2nd Annual SES Latino Conference and Expo took place last week in Miami. The following were the main issues discussed by the events speakers and attendees:
· Spanish vs English content (Google study)
– Newly released sites with both English and Spanish content show searches right away for general Spanish terms.
– English results for name-only or very specific keywords
– Spanish content unique
– Spanish initially performs at a higher level than English counterpart
– Spanish appears more authoritative
· Demographics compared to general market
– The US Hispanics tend to skew much younger with smaller households and roughly half (49%) speak Spanish fluently.
– Hispanics online are more usage intensive than the US General Market
Avg pages per usage day – 25% more pages viewed
Avg minutes per usage day – 20% more time online
– US lags considerably behind all other countries in terms of engagement. France is #1, but Brazil, Argentina and Mexico are #2, 3 and 4.
· Google research
Sarah Carberry, Sales & Marketing Multicultural Development Manager, Google, Inc., We’re seeing that US Hispanics are coming to Google wanting more personalization, more engagement, etc. Last year I presented a lot of heavy research, so this year I wanted to give you best practices, some search methods, and some best practices. US Hispanics are surfing online more than watching TV. They’re using the internet more than 17 hours per week, and more than half the time on Spanish sites. More than half of Latino Adults prefer Spanish == 7.1 million.70% of the growth in the US Hispanic market happened with the introduction/availability of broadband.
· Searching in Spanish. The search volume is increasing over the past 3 years (see Google Trends for terms like futbol, recetas, noticias for example). Consumer Pathways are Non-Linear. Consumers leave footprints all over the place. They go to forums, they go to blogs, and they want first hand info from early adopters. They aren’t just going to the TV to get their information.
· Mobile Search: 61% of US Hispanics own cell phones. Mobile searching, and therefore advertising, is on the rise.