Overview Latin America comprises of many countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Columbia, Peru, Chile, Mexico, Venezuela and

similar others. Having covered Brazil and Mexico in previous chapters, our focus in this chapter is to cover the other major countries of Latin America. The countries which are addressed in this chapter are Argentina, Colombia, Peru and Chile. Internet penetration for these Latin American countries is given below.

As we can see from the figures above, internet penetration is highest in Argentina at 67%, followed by Colombia at 59%, Peru at 39% and lowest in Colombia at 13%. While internet penetration is low in Latin American countries when compared to the rest of the world, these countries are one of the most active users of internet in the world. Given below is a figure which informs us of the time spent online by an average user in these countries.

Average time spent by User online (in hours)

Peru Chile Colombia Argentina 18.7 22.7 26.7 26.1

While the world average for time spent by a user online is 24.4 hours, Argentina and Colombia clearly surpass that margin. The average time spent will increase as internet reaches more people

and becomes even more popular than it is today. The two figures together (internet penetration rates and average time spent online by a user) show us the untapped potential of these countries. The Latin American online audience is also more active in most categories than the global population. As is demonstrated by the figure below the users in Latin America are not only more actively involved, in some cases the margin is noteworthy.

Online Activity in Latin America compared to the global average

Community News/Information Social Networks Entertainment Search/Browse Portals 70% 85% 76% 86% 82% 89% 89% 96% 97% 96%

Global Latin America

94% 98%

The figure above shows the high involvement of Latin American users online in various activities. In terms of online communities, social networking, and entertainment Latin American users are way ahead of the global average. Use of Portals, Social networking and Entertainment are at the forefront representing 98%, 96% and 97% of the online users in Latin America respectively. The age demographics of Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Peru are represented through the figure below.

Age demographics in terms of number of internet visitors

7% Peru 12% 11% Chile 4% Colombia 10% 13% 14% 22% 28% 15% 21% 26% 27% 26%

32%

55+ 45-54 35-44

20%

40%

25-34 15-24

Argentina

18%

26%

29%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

The above figure represents age demographics in terms of number of internet users. As we can see from the figure above Colombias youngest online users represent the majority of its users. Combine

this with the fact that an average internet user in Colombia is online for 26.7 hours and the internet penetration is very low, Colombia is possibly one of the biggest future markets of Latin America. In Peru the 25-34 age group leads with maximum internet users among all age categories. Argentina and Chile represent a comparatively more even distribution of internet users among all age categories. With the exception of Peru the participation in internet goes down as we go up in the age categories. What is also noteworthy in all these countries is that the young generation (age group 15-34) represent at least 50% of the internet users. Latin American internet population is possibly the youngest population in the Americas.

Age demographics in terms of time spent online

7% Peru 11%

19%

29%

34%

10% Chile 4% Colombia

13%

55+
18% 25% 34%

45-54 35-44

10%

18% 13% 12%

24%

46%

25-34 15-24

Argentina

17%

25%

32%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

When looking at age demographics in order to determine the time spent by each age category, we find the focus moves more towards the younger generation. For example, while in Peru the age group 25-34 represented the most number of internet users, in terms of time spent it is the age group 15-24 which leads the pack. For the rest of the three countries, the categorization of age groups in terms of time spent online, only enhances the importance of the younger age groups. From an online marketers perspective this is the group one would want to focus on. Major places from where internet is accessed in Argentina is given in the figure below. As we can see internet cafes are old news now, as most access comes from home. The growth of internet in Argentina in the past few months has been phenomenal as a result of which we see the shift in major place of internet access.

Major places of internet access in Argentina

Internet Caf School Wi Di Spot Work Mobile Other's Home Home 13% 15% 21% 32% 33% 37% 92%

Internet is still primarily accessed by computers In Latin America. However, Latin American users are not alien to the other devices which can be used to access the internet. In fact the figure below represents the use of these devices in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Peru. The percentages represent the use of devices other than computer.

Devices used to access internet other than computers

Peru 66% 26% 9%

Chile

79%

17%

4%

Mobile Tablet

Columbia

52%

42%

6%

Other

Argentina

73%

22%

5%

If computers are not included, then mobile leads the internet access devices market. The second best option is tablets. Colombians have almost an even market in terms of tablet vs. mobile. Online users in Chile have the least affinity towards tablets or other devices for using internet, and primarily depend on mobile for access to internet when conventional computers are not concerned. Overall, mobile as an internet device is the most preferred device among other devices. Having looked at the importance of mobile devices one also needs to look at various players in the mobile device market. The figure given represents the various players in the mobile market and their share in the respective regions.

Platforms used on internet access devices other than computer

17% 9%
4% 33%

7% 4%
10%

6% 4% 3%

11%

Other Symbian

60% 66%

47%

RIM iOS Android

39% 27% 14% Argentina Columbia Chile

35%

Peru

The iOS is clearly the leader in all the four countries. Exception Argentina, It accounts for almost half the market in all the three countries. In Argentina, Android leads the pack. Also mobile users in Argentina are more open to experiment with new devices therefore representing a diverse market. Peru on the other hand is primarily an Android and iOS market, together representing 82% of the market.

Social Media Some of the highly active countries in the world are in Latin America. The figure below is a list of top 10 countries in terms of time spent on social media.

Top 10 countries in the world in terms of average time spent by User on social networks (in hours)
Russia Argentina Israel Turquia Chile Peru Phillippines Canada Colombia Mexico 7.1 7.6 8.2 7.9 8.7 9.5 10.1 10.1 10.9 10.7

Average time spent by a user (in hours)

As we can see here that of the top 10 countries listed here, 5 of them Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Mexico come from Latin America. We have already seen that when online activities

are taken into account and compared with global averages, there exists a difference of 14% in social networking. 97% of internet users in Latin America are actively involved in social media. We now observe the four countries in review and look at the various factors involved in their social media profile. We will start off by looking at Argentina.

Social Networking Demographics in Argentina

55+ 45-54 35-44 25-34 15-24 89.4% 90.2% 92.4% 94.9% 95.7% 96.4% 96.1% 97.6% 99.8% 99.3%

Female Male

As seen in the internet demographics, here too the youngest age group is the one which is most involved in the social networking sites. The age group with individuals aged 15-24 have a penetration of almost 100%. For the age group 25-34 it is approximately 97%. Now considering that the same age group also accounts for majority of the internet population, this is a big part of population which is active on social media. Female social media users are more involved than male users, the least penetration being 94.9% in age group 55+. Overall, at least 90% of the online users in Argentina are using social media.

Average time spent by a user on social networking sites in Argentina

55+ 45-54 35-44 25-34 15-24 7 8.8 9 9 15.4

In terms of time spent on social networking sites, users in the youngest age group spend the most time with 15.4 hours being the time spent by an average user. Time spend by the rest of the people in other age groups is around 9 hours, with lowest being 7 hours spent by the people in the oldest category. Social Networking has grown in Argentina. The figure below shows how social networkings growth has been greater than any other activity. While behind Portals, the faster growth indicates that social networking will be the major activity soon.

Top activities by time spent in Argentina

E-mail Entertainment Instant Messenger Social Networking Sites Portals 15.2% 7.1% 9.2% 8.1% 7.7% 19.6%

2011
26.2% 27.8% 29.0%

2010

38.6%

Major social networking sites in Argentina are given below. As per the stats by comScores media Matrix, Facebook leads the other social networking sites by a fair margin.

Major Social Networking Sites in Argentina

Badoo Sonico Fotolog Twitter Windows Live profile Facebook 982 996 1607

Total Unique Visitors

2391 3059 11758

Following Facebook are Windows Live Profile, Twitter and Fotolog. Another popular social networking site is Badoo. Argentina is one of Badoos major market. There is definitely a lack of local social networking sites in Argentina, but almost all the major global social networking sites are doing well here. Having looked at the social landscape in Argentina it is time we look at another major Latin American market, Chile. Some of the stats below display the social networking user demographics in Chile. The users in the age group 25-34 are the leaders in terms of penetration. Approximately 98% of the internet users in this age category uses social networking sites. Female user across all age groups are more active than male users with a minimum penetration of 94% exception being the oldest at 89.4%.

Social Networking Demographics in Chile

55+ 45-54 35-44 25-34 15-24 94.0% 94.2% 87.0% 89.4% 91.5% 91.5% 95.9% 96.4% 96.8% 98.6%

Female Male

The decline in participation in social networks goes down more prominently in male users as compared to female users. Even though male users may not be as active as female users the average penetration is still high at 92%. Overall Chile has a consistently even penetration of social networking sites among all age categories.

Average time spent by a user on social networking sites in Chile

55+ 45-54 35-44 25-34 15-24 7.1 8.7 14.9 6.7 8.2

Average time spent by a user is highest among people in the youngest age group with 14.9 hours. Even though the youngest age group is behind the users in 25-34 age category in terms of social networking penetration, they more than make up for it by averaging more than 150% in terms of time spent. Keeping apart the youngest age group, the time spent averages approximately 8.5 hours in the 25-34 and 45-54 age category. Interestingly unlike the usual consistent decline in time spent among people in different age categories, the users falling in the age group 35-44 (7.1 hours) are less active than their older counter parts in the 45-54 age category (8.2 hours).

Top activities by time spent in Chile

E-mail Entertainment Instant Messenger Portals Social Networking Sites 19.6% 5.4% 6.6% 10.9% 9.3% 19.1% 26.0% 25.2% 28.5% 34.2%

2011 2010

The figure above highlights the major activities online and changes from 2010 to 2011. As we can see here the only category which has grown other than Social networking is entertainment section (9.3% to 10.9%). Social networkings growth and the simultaneous decline in other activities is an indication how social networking is taking up the time spent on other activities and is growing into the major online activity in Chile.

Major Social Networking Sites in Chile

LinkedIn Slideshare Bligoo Fotolog Twitter Windows Live profile Facebook 584 638 761 1117 1166 1443 6676

Facebook again leads the pack by a fair margin. The second in line social networking site windows live profile has almost 1/4th less visitors, but this is where the social networking sites come close in terms of popularity. Twitter is quickly growing with 1166 visitors in 2011. Other major social networking sites are Fotolog, Bligoo, Slideshare, and LinkedIn. Colombia is another major country of Latin America in terms of social media. The following statistics provide us a look into the demographics of users in Colombia.

Social Networking Demographics in Colombia

55+ 45-54 35-44 25-34 15-24 85.0% 89.8% 94.8% 94.6% 96.0% 96.0% 98.9% 98.9%

91.2% 92.3%

Female Male

The young age group 15-24 has the highest social media penetration at 98.9%. As has been the trend in most Latin American countries, Female users across all age groups show a consistent and high penetration rates while penetration among male users declines even though marginally in Colombia social media users. What is noteworthy is that social media penetration in the age group 15-24 and 25-34 is same for male and female users. The average penetration rate is 93.7% including all age categories and both genders. The average penetration rate for female users is 95.1% and among male users it is 92.6%.

The age demographics as per the time spent is given in the figure below.

Average time spent by a user on social networking sites in Colombia

55+ 45-54 35-44 25-34 15-24 5.8 6.8 11.5 5.6 6.4

The youngest age group 15-24 spends on an average 11.5 hours almost double the time than any other age group. What is interesting here is that like Chile, time spent does not decrease gradually but rather has its shifts. Time spent decreases for age group 35-44 (5.8 hours) but then again picks up for age group 45-54 (6.4 hours) finally declining again for age group 55+ (5.6 hours).

Major Social Networking Sites in Colombia

Fotolog Sonico Badoo Slideshare Twitter Windows Live profile Facebook 628 1206 1227 1361 2274 4383 11798

In Colombia, Facebook leads again. However unlike Chile and Argentina, the second spot and the third sport is also firmly occupied by windows live profile and Twitter with 4383 and 2274 unique visitors respectively. The other major social networking sites are slideshare, Badoo, Sonico and Fotolog.

Another important country in Latin America is Peru. Demographics for social media users in Peru are represented through the figure below.

Social Networking Demographics in Peru

55+ 45-54 35-44 25-34 15-24 92.0% 93.8% 95.4% 95.4% 97.6% 99.1% 96.6% 94.9% 96.5% 98.3%

Female Male

While the younger generation again leads the social media penetration in Chile, what is interesting is that the gradual and consistent decline which we observe in social media penetration in most countries as we go up in the older age groups is not so consistent here. For example social media penetration for age group 15-24 is 99.1% for female users, followed by a decline to 95.4% in 25-34 age group. After that the penetration increase in the next two age groups 96.6% from 35-44 and 98.3% for 45-54 for female users. It then again declines to 94.9% in the oldest age category 55+. While in the male users the decline is consistent with the only sudden increase in 55+ age group where it jumps to 96.5% from 92% penetration of 45-54 age group. The figure given below represents age demographics in terms of time spent by an average user on social networks.

Average time spent by a user on social networking sites in Peru

55+ 45-54 35-44 25-34 15-24 4.9 5.8 6.8 7 13

Youngest age group again leads with 13 hours. This is almost double the time spent by any other age category. The time spent then gradually declines from 7 hours for users in age group 25-34 to 6.8 hours, 5.8 hours and 4.9 hours in age groups 35-44, 45-54 and 55+ respectively. The top social networking sites in terms of unique internet visitors Peru are listed in the figure below.

Major Social Networking Sites in Chile

LinkedIn Slideshare Bligoo Fotolog Twitter Windows Live profile Facebook 306 336 539 640 807 1517 3690

Facebook leads the region with 3690 unique internet visitors. It is followed at the second spot by Windows Live Profile with 1517 visitors. The other social networking sites are way behind in Peru as compared to Facebook and Windows Live profile. Other popular social networking sites are twitter, Fotolog, Bligoo, Slideshare and LinkedIn.

Facebook Facebook as we have already seen is the clear leader in all the above mentioned Latin American countries as well as in Latin America as a whole. The only place where Facebook did face some competition in Latin America was Brazil where Orkut was very popular. However in 2011 Facebook gained the top position in Brazil as well, and is currently the most popular social networking site in Latin America. Facebooks reach in Chile is 90% which makes it the most penetrated market in Latin America. Facebooks top 10 markets have 5 Latin American countries in it. The figure below displays Facebook registered users in Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Peru.

Average time spent by a user on social networking sites in Peru

Chile Peru Colombia Argentina 9610060 10310080 18175100 21069440

Argentina represents the most number of Facebook users among the four Latin American countries under review. Colombia takes the second spot followed by Peru and Chile. The figures below from social bakers display the growth of Facebook in all the four countries in the period of May 2012 to April 2013.

Argentina

Colombia

Chile

Peru

As we can see here, Facebook has had most consistent growth in Peru. While Facebook has experienced growth in other regions as well in Chile and Argentina the growth has slowed down.

Argentina

Colombia

The age demographics for Facebook reflects the general demographics of social media population in Argentina and Colombia. Colombia has marginally more users falling in the young age group of 18-34 years.

Twitter Twitters performance in the four countries under review is summarized in the figure below.

Twitter in Latin America

Peru Chile Colombia Argentina 3094 1517 1443 4383

Twitter seems to be gaining popularity in Argentina. According to a report by eMarketer, Twitter has 8 million users in Argentina. Social media users in Argentina are also very active on twitter. In December 2012, they topped the charts in terms of time spent in Twitter from home and work. As per a report produced by Semiocast, Argentina also falls in the top 20 countries for twitter when number of twitter accounts are taken into account. Of the 8 million twitter accounts, 6.3 million are rated as active users, which gives Argentina the 7th position in the world on twitters list of most active countries in the world. Even the President, Cristina Kirchner is an active twitter user with 1.5 million followers and is rated as the 7th most influential head of state among others present on a social media platform such as twitter or similar other social networking sites. Chile ranked ahead of Argentina in 2011 with an average penetration of approximately 13%. Even though Argentina took over in 2012, it still ranks 4th globally in terms of Twitter users per capita. As of 2012 it had 1.4 million twitter users who spend 9.8 hours per month per user on an average. Twitters influence on politics can be seen here as well, when in 2010 every member of the Chilean President Sebastian Pineras office had an active twitter account. Colombia is not far behind in terms of twitter accounts. It ranked 12th globally according to a report by Semiocast in 2012. This rank is made possible by an approximately 6 million Colombian twitter accounts. Colombian twitter users have a preference towards using cellphone to access twitter with almost 40% of them doing so. As far as the demographics for Twitter in Colombia, male users account for almost half the accounts (49%), female users account for 46% of the twitter accounts and the remaining 5% are accounts held by a company. According to a report by Future Labs, Peru has 335,512 twitter account holders. The demographics are again divided among male users at 45%, female users at 36% and company accounts at 19% of all the twitter accounts in Peru. Perus political arena has not been left untouched by twitter. President Ollanta Humala took the initiative to connect to a social media platform and became the first Peruvian President to connect with people on twitter. Windows Live Profile

Another social networking site which consistently does well in Latin America is the windows live profile. The figure below summarizes Windows live profiles performance in the four Latin American countries under review here.

Windows Live Profile in Latin America

Peru Chile Colombia Argentina 3094 1517 1443 4383

As we can see here, Windows Live profile is most popular in Colombia with 4,383,000 unique visitors. This is followed by Argentina with 3,094,000 unique visitors. These two countries have far more windows live profile visitors than Chile and Peru which stand with 1,443,000 and 1,517,000 unique visitors respectively. Fotolog Fotolog is another popular social networking site in Latin America. Started in 2002, this site quickly grew in popularity in Latin America. It had more than 3 billion page views and 20 million unique visitors each month in 2008. The site provides two types of membership. The first type is a free membership and limits the number of photos that can be uploaded to 1 and number of guest comments to 20. The second is the Gold membership which increases the upload limit on number of photos to 6 and of comments to 200. In addition, better customer care service options are available to Gold Camera Patrons as they are called. The figure below summarized the performance of Fotolog as reported by comScore. It displays the number of unique visitors the site gets from the four Latin American countries under review.

Fotolog in Latin America

Peru Chile Colombia Argentina 1610 807 1166 2274

Again Colombian social media users take the lead with 2,274,000 unique visitors followed by Argentina 1,610,000, Chile 1,166,000 and Peru 807,000 unique visitors.

Social Media Monitoring Tools Some of the social media monitoring tools which can be used for Argentina and Chile are listed in the table below. Company
Flaptor SocialMetrix BrandMetric

Platform
Trendistic (formerly Twist) SocialMetrix BrandMetric

Media Type
Twitter All All

URL http://trendistic.com http://www.SocialMetrix.com http://www.brandmetric.com

Country
Argentina Argentina Chile

Apart from these tools there are other social media monitoring tools available which are aimed at Latin America. Some of these are Buzzient: Buzzient provides an add on which can be added to your existing CRM enterprise applications such as Seibel or Salesforce.com. It then allows you to leverage social media for customer service and lead generation. Some of the things Buzzients apps allow you to do are Collect social data from various social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube. It also fetches data from androids, iOS and blogs. Its engagement API allows you to use to 3rd party software for communication on Social media channels To push leads, service requests and activities by integrating them with your existing applications. Next Principles: This provides solution for social media analytics and for engagement in social media. Some of the applications provided by Next Principles are Campaign and events apps allows monitoring and measurement of the effectiveness of your online campaigns in terms of reach, engagement and impact of campaigns and events. Community Engagement allows you brand management on social media platforms by engaging into conversations with the customers Contact management allows you a complete view of your customers across various social media platforms and also the traditional channels Social Performance creates a social portfolio and allows you to view the performance and govern activities in your social media campaigns

Use of these social media tools along with other global tools should allow a social marketer to leverage the growing social media market in Latin America. Tips for Social Marketers The growing and highly vibrant social media of Latin America has gained the attention of the world in the recent years. Being a young and developing social media market, not only is there a lot of untapped potential but also there is room for the users to experiment with new and innovative

products. There are certain things which a social marketer will have to keep in mind to best utilize this market More than half the internet Population and the social media population is young. The youngest generation spends the most time online and on social networks. This is the age group which should be targeted by social marketers Existing smartphone penetration and the growth is still behind the rest of the emerging social media countries especially as compared to Asia. Social media campaigns should be targeted to the desktop/laptop screens. Facebook is the most popular social networking platform by far. This should be the central focus for campaigns by social marketers. Even though Orkut is a leading social platform when the whole of Latin America is seen, the numbers mainly come from Brazil. Windows live profile is very popular in most countries in Latin America. Along with Facebook this would be another platform to target by social marketers for their campaigns. Fotolog is the major option for sharing pictures. Promotional images circulated here would gain more traction than other popular services such as Pintrest and similar others. The social media demographics suggests Female users across Latin America to be more active than male users. Products and services which create messages on the social media platform will have to keep this in mind when creating content. Twitter has recently picked up in Latin America. Social marketer would do well to use twitter as a conversation platform now while it is still young and growing in Latin America. The low penetration and high involvement on the internet presents two situations. Since social media already has a high penetration in the existing internet users, as internet grows, social media users will grow in number. But since it has a young population, it is more open to experiment with new social networking sites and may have a high switch rates on social networking sites. Social Marketers would be wise to plan their long terms strategy keeping this in mind and watch out for new social media platforms which can make their mark. Most of the social networking sites are global sites and there is a lack of local players. This would mean that the social media monitoring tools meant for these global sites will work well as long as they can cope with the change in language especially when tracking and engaging in conversations.

References Wi-Fi, mobile and home access usurp role of internet cafes http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Internet-Cafes-Relic-of-Past-Argentina/1009139 Emerging Social Networks Shake Up Landscape in Latin America http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2012/12/Argentina_Ranks_First_in_Worldwide _Desktop_Social_Networking_Engagement Top social networking sites in Argentina and Chile. http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/44/23/57524.html Google+, Twitter Make Headway in Latin America

http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Google-Twitter-Make-Headway-Latin-America/1009403 Explainer: Twitter in Latin America http://www.as-coa.org/articles/explainer-twitter-latin-america#argentina Twitter se expande en Latinoamrica y lanza plataforma publicitaria en Chile http://www.latercera.com/noticia/negocios/2012/10/655-488761-9-twitter-se-expande-enlatinoamerica-y-lanza-plataforma-publicitaria-en-chile.shtml Per: Hay ms de un milln de usuarios de Twitter y nueve millones de Facebook http://peru.com/actualidad/mi-ciudad/peru-hay-mas-millon-usuarios-twitter-y-nueve-millonesfacebook-noticia-102937 Fotolog http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fotolog Top 10 Need-to-Knows About Social Networking and Where Its Headed http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Presentations_and_Whitepapers/2011/it_is_a_social_world_to p_10_need-to-knows_about_social_networking Futuro Digital - Latinoamrica 2012 http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Events_and_Webinars/Webinar/2012/Futuro_Digital__Latinoamerica_2012 The Rise of Social Networking in Latin America http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Presentations_and_Whitepapers/2011/The_Rise_of_Social_Net working_in_Latin_America