September 15 marked the beginning of National Hispanic American Heritage Month — four weeks to recognize and celebrate the cultural contributions and influence of Hispanic Americans across the country.
At Tubular, we believe that social video is a mirror to culture and over the next few weeks we want to shine a spotlight on video trends related to Hispanic Americans, Spanish-speakers, and the Latinx community.
Spanish-Language Content in the U.S. Continues to Grow
The rich Latinx community has made big moves to increase its presence on social video — in August 2021 alone, Spanish-language YouTube content in the U.S. generated over 15.9 billion views. For reference, that’s more than all U.S. baseball videos in the same timeframe and a 30% increase since 2018.
YouTube engagements also ballooned in the past three years, growing to nearly 278 million in August 2021 up from about 108 million in October 2018.
Latinx creators keep up across a variety of different categories, but music makes up the largest portion of views over the last three years (we see you J.Lo). However, kids’ entertainment & toys, sports, movies & TV, and video games have racked up hundreds of millions of views as well.
These categories also represent a mix of content types, too. For example, some are natively created in Spanish, while others are adapted from English versions.
Tuning in for Tunes
Music out-paces other categories of Spanish-language videos in the U.S. by nearly 17x the next-closest category. The overwhelming focus on music above other categories is a testament to the abilities of Latin music creators and a note for creators in other categories to grow views with a captive audience.
On average, Spanish-language music videos received 1.9 million views, while only 11% of kids’ entertainment & toys videos received a little over 1.0 million views per.
Insights to Actions: Latin music is unique in that it’s grown to captivate a global audience, regardless of language and country — remember Despacito? The opportunity for creators in other categories to earn viewership is huge. Tubular data is built to inspire creators and content that resonates best with key audiences.
A Brand New Influence
U.S. brands have created hundreds of thousands of Spanish-language Facebook videos… but those uploads and views pale in comparison to the sort of views that influencer accounts are able to generate.
Over the last three years, Spanish-language influencers in the U.S. have generated 245 billion views, while brands only generated 8.6 billion. Influencer videos receive over 51K views per upload, and brands, only 30K.
This is not to say that U.S. brands shouldn’t create Spanish-language content. Rather, it’s an opportunity to actively engage with influencers that are receiving more views on average, and have a built-in audience for Spanish-language content on the platform.
Insights to Actions: Sponsoring videos, and integrating product or brand messaging within videos creates a more natural point of interaction with audiences. Brands can leverage opportunities to work with influencers to gain a better understanding of the market and how it compares to English-speaking viewership.
As we embark on National Hispanic American Heritage Month, it’s crucial to remember that this audience is important year-round. In 2020, the Latinx community represented an estimated buying power of $1.9 trillion dollars – a serious cut of the economy – and an audience that deserves to be represented beyond just four weeks a year.
Interested in spicing up your Latinx social video strategy? Get in touch with Tubular Labs today. Valé!