The New Generation Latino: A secret niche market that social marketers should be aware of.

To most marketers and advertisers when you mention the Latino Market they immediately think of the Spanish speaking community. By identifying the Latino market as a Spanish speaking market, marketers are ignoring the largest percentage of Latinos in the United States. In fact 60% of Latinos in the United States are 2nd and 3rd generation Latinos who prefer English language media in comparison to Spanish language media. In addition, 80% of Latinos online are 2nd and 3rd generation Latinos.

The new generation Latino consists of 2nd and 3rd generation Latinos who prefer English language media and are between the ages of 18-34. These facts are extremely important when looking at the social media channels which are trying to appeal to Latinos. MySpace Latino and Bebo Latino are trying to appeal to the Latino audience by translating their English websites into Spanish. The truth of the matter is that most New Generation Latinos are ignoring the “Latino” versions of these websites and are sticking the English versions.

If social media networks that are trying to appeal to Latinos begin by doing some research of the Latino demographic online, they might have better luck at attaining an audience. The New Generation Latinos are out there just waiting for social networks to discover them.

New Generation Latino Market Profile:

• 2nd and 3rd Gen. represent 60% of total (35 million) Latino population.

• 78% of Latinos who are English-dominant and 76% of bilingual Latinos use the internet, compared with 32% of Spanish-dominant Latino adults.

• 12-34 year olds control an estimated $400 out of $800+ billion of U.S. Latino Purchasing Power.

• Latinos represent 3 million or 12% of all U.S. college educated students.

• 2nd & 3rd Generation Latinos represent 80% of Latinos Online.

• 26% of Latinos online have a college degree.

• Latinos remain the youngest group overall with a median age of 27.6 and almost 34% of the population younger than 18.

Sources: Pew Hispanic Center (2007), U.S. Census News (2008), U.S. Census (2004), Forrester Research Hispanic Technographics (2007)