The Sprout Social Index, Edition VII (Latin America): The Great Divide Between Brands & Consumers

When it comes to social media, Latin Americans represent some of the most active users worldwide—with 141 million unique visitors on Facebook, 23 million unique visitors on LinkedIn and 18 million unique visitors on Twitter each month, according to a recent report by Statista.

For The Q2 2016 Sprout Social Index, we wanted to examine how brands in this region are responding as a result. Here is what we found.

Facebook vs. Twitter: The Disconnect Between Brand & Consumer

In keeping with the numbers from Statista, The Sprout Social Index shows that brands receive more messages from people on Facebook than on Twitter. Those Facebook messages are also more pressing, with the number requiring a response being 4 times higher than those on Twitter.

In spite of this, brands are more responsive on Twitter than on Facebook, with a response rate of 12% versus 11% and a response time of 8 hours versus 12.

A Few Other Highlights:

• Response rates have declined for both Facebook and Twitter since the last quarter.
• Twitter has consistently proven to be more of a focus for brands.
• More messages from fans on Facebook now require a response.
• Brands are increasing their ratio of promotional messages to replies on Twitter, while brands are maintaining this ratio on Facebook.

Industry Highlights

Depending on industry, brand engagement varies by network. Some key takeaways:

• Banking/finance, retail and real estate: these two industries offer a good response rate and time on Twitter but not so much on Facebook.
• Government, media and entertainment, and internet: each of these industries present a similar response rate on both Facebook and Twitter, but the three of the are offering half the waiting time on Twitter.
• Utilities: boasts much better response rates on Twitter but with a similar waiting time for both Twitter and Facebook.

Country Performance by Key Metrics

Response Rate

Brands in Argentina offer the highest response rates on both Facebook and Twitter, although neither is all that high (just 18% and 19%, respectively). Brands in Brazil, on the other hand, provide a response to just 8% of people on Twitter and just 7% of people on Facebook.

Response Time

Mexican brands have the best response time on Facebook, at 13 hours—but still far too long of a wait. On Twitter, brands in Colombia offer a much more reasonable waiting time, at just under 6 hours.

Percentage of Messaging Needing a Response

Brands in Chile receive the most messages that need a response on Facebook, representing almost 75% of their total incoming messages. On Twitter, brands in Mexico receive the most messages, but the percentage of messages that actually require a response is only 18%, very low compared to Facebook’s levels.

Posts per Reply

Brands in Ecuador and Colombia post way more promotional messages than replies on both Facebook and Twitter, with the ratio being much more imbalanced on Twitter. Colombian brands post about 156 messages on Twitter for every reply sent to an audience member. Meanwhile, Ecuador’s brands on Facebook post 42 promotional messages per reply. Brands in these countries should focus more on engaging with their audiences.

Instagram in Focus

When it comes to Instagram, large companies send out more posts, while medium companies receive the most comments. In terms of industry, media and entertainment uses Instagram more than anyone else and receives the most comments from fans. Government, meanwhile, attracts a noteworthy amount of comments but without posting much at all on Instagram. So to all government community managers out there, take the opportunity to engage more deeply with your constituents on this growing platform!

Brands in these countries enjoy the most engagement:

1. Ecuador: 37.7 comments per post
2. Brazil: 21.1 comments per post
3. Panama: 17.7 comments per post
4. Chile: 6.8 comments per post
5. Mexico: 5.3 comments per post

Final Thoughts

Facebook is clearly the go-to platform in Latin America, and with good reason. It’s the most popular among consumers. Brands also receive the most inbound messages there. But when it comes to brand investment, most are focusing their attention on Twitter and providing a better overall experience there to their customers—responding to more messages in less time.

Based on all this data, our final recommendations for all brands in Latin America are as follows:

• Dedicate more resources to your social media team: This will help improve response rates and times to create stronger relationships with your audiences, especially on Facebook.
• Integrate your efforts: Cross-promote all the platforms where you have a robust presence so that fans will know they can reach out to you through many avenues.
• Invest in Instagram: This platform enables great visual content, which can really spark engagement.