Mashable hosts Google Hangout to discuss social media in Latin America
Meghan Peters - Mashable’s Community Manager - hosts the Google Hangout.
By CONZ PRETI
I was surprised when I read that Mashable was hosting a Google Hangout to talk about social media in Latin America. It makes sense, of course. In June, comScore published a study titled “Latin America Leads as the Most Socially-Engaged Global Region.” My reaction was rather a “it’s about time!” for Mashable to cover the region.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve loved Mashable since day one and had the amazing opportunity to be part of their community team during 2011, but something that always struck me from this, the top tech website in the world, was their lack of coverage outside United States.
To have an idea of how little they are covering the Latin American market, take this: Mashable publishes around 45 stories a day. If you search for the topic “Latin America” the results page shows you 112 stories written by the staff. If you then search for “Europe” the results are almost ten times more, with 977 stories written.
The participants of the Latin America Google Hangout were:
José Ignacio Stark Valenzuela - technology analyst and digital strategist based in Santiago, Chile
Florencia Lujani - online community manager at TBWA Buenos Aires
Dionisio Guerra - editor at Tecla a Tecla and Social Media Day organizer in Panama
Anderson Marques de Andrade - co-founder at MobMob and Social Media Day organizer in São Paulo
Although it was a bit bumpy at the beginning — I must admit I still don’t fully understand Google Hangout format and would love to see more of them to learn best practices –- it was interesting to see people from different areas of the online industry discussing what role social media plays in their community.
In Brazil, Facebook overtook Orkut last year in number of users making Brazil the second largest country to use this social network. According to Marques de Andrade, there is no other network that can take the place of Facebook today. About Facebook’s growth, Marques de Andrade added “Influencers start using the new social network and very fast the other people follow and try to use this new social network.”
According to Lujani, the biggest networks in Argentina are Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. “It is even more difficult to become the mayor of venues now,” said Lujani, “all social networks are going high in Argentina”
In Chile, the biggest trends are Facebook and Foursquare. “[Chile is the] fourth country in users and penetration,” said Stark, “everybody here is on Facebook, spending up to 296 minutes per day.”
For Stark the importance of Foursquare in Chile relies on the lack of other recommendations tools such as Zagat or Yelp, so the social network fills in this gap.
In the case of Panama, it is their third year organizing Social Media Day and although it is a very small country, there is a growing interest for everything social. Last year 1100 people showed up at the Social Media Day, organizers were expecting half of that.
It is obvious that the region is growing exponentially with regards of Social Media and networks. It will be interesting to see if Mashable will keep an eye on Latin America or if this was a one time thing considering they were part of Rio Plus Social which took place in Rio de Janeiro a few weeks ago.
