Hispanic Online Community Behavior.

* Hispanics, regardless of age, income, primary language, gender or generation, will give willingly of their time and ideas in a private, online forum. In fact, their rate of contributions – almost six per week – indicates an above-average level of engagement compared to similar English-language communities.

* Second-generation Hispanics demonstrated lower participation rates than their less acculturated, first-generation counterparts, indicating that they may feel less comfortable communicating in Spanish-only environments than in bilingual ones. The finding suggests that marketers should strive to communicate bilingually with acculturated Hispanics, so as to more closely match their offline lives.

“With the number of Hispanic Internet users in the U.S. expected to rise to nearly 21 million by 2010, it’s clear that marketers have a tremendous opportunity to grow their consumer base by successfully targeting Hispanics online,” said Katrina Lerman, research associate at Communispace and author of the study.
For more information at http://www.communispace.com