Florida State University (FSU)’s Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication (HMC) and the Latina Mom Bloggers network released the results of their first annual State of Latino Blogging Survey.

FSU School of Communication Assistant Professor and Center for HMC Associate Director, Dr. Sindy Chapa, presented the research findings with collaborators from Latina Mom Bloggers at the annual Hispanicize 2014 event that took place April 1-4 at the InterContinental Miami Hotel.

The unveiled survey findings identified attitudes toward blogging as a business and opportunities currently influencing blogging as a profession among Hispanics.  With the growing presence of Latino and multicultural social media influencers, the research aims to identity key trends relating to why bloggers are engaged in content production, what areas are relevant, what motivates these entrepreneurs and what are some of their key concerns as they continue developing their online media platforms as a business in many cases.

The results were presented by Dr. Chapa, and research partners, Co-CEOs of Latina Mom Bloggers: Piera Jolly, Angela Sustaita-Ruiz and Cristy Clavijo-Kish.  “This partnership provides an important opportunity to present at a distinguished Hispanic-focused event and for our students to engage in substantial research,” said Dr. Chapa. “We look forward to building this collaborative research partnership with such an innovative media brand like Hispanicize.”

Hispanicize is the umbrella brand that sponsors several Latino-focused organizations, causes and events such as Hispanicize 2014.  These gatherings bring together many influential thought leaders and media professionals of the Hispanic community to exchange ideas and share their work.

In their presentation session, Dr. Chapa and the Latina Mom Bloggers shared survey information including: data from the geographic locations of Hispanic bloggers in the U.S., language preferences/trends, how bloggers see the evolution of the industry, and trends that are impacting how bloggers approach their craft

More than 250 Hispanic bloggers, ranging from 25 to 50 years old, participated in the online survey.  The large majority of respondents mirrors the blogger community at 97% female.  Participants were categorized by level of experience in the blog industry.

According to the survey completed in March 2014, the most popular topic covered by Latino bloggers is ‘Parenting.’  Parenting tops the content production list with 16% of time allocated to writing about it, followed by food (14%), lifestyle (11.6%), product reviews (11.3%), and Beauty (11.2%).  The highest percentage of Latina bloggers live in the Southeast (e.g. FL, AL, GA), and these Southeast bloggers dedicate the most time to their blogs.

Other key findings include:

• Paid Campaigns: 97% of Latino bloggers accept sponsored, paid campaigns. 25% of the bloggers are hired more than 24 times a year and 57% of them at least once a month.  Most participants consider their blog their business, but only 41% consider their blog their main source of income.
• Non-Paid Campaigns: When bloggers accept non-paid campaigns, the primary focus of the campaign is most often “Social Causes” (46%), followed by education (19%) and health (12%).
• Product Reviews: 41% of participants review products on their blogs.
• Social Media Traffic: The top social networking site referring traffic to the respondents’ blogs is Facebook, accounting for 47% of the referrals, followed by Pinterest (22%) and Twitter (19%).  In the last 12 months, the most significant growth in traffic comes from Instagram.
• Benefits of Paid Campaigns: Latina blogger attitudes toward monetization are highly positive.  Participants feel sponsorship opportunities empower blogs in many forms.  The top benefits resulting from paid campaigns include: increased social media traffic, more visitors, increase in quality, increase in editorial content, and easier site navigation.
• Language: Not surprising, bloggers are English-dominant.  When both languages are used the average distribution is 60% in English.
• Main Obstacles: 47% of participants listed “Financial” challenges at the main obstacle.  No Business Partners/Networking (31%) and Cultural/Language Issues (22%) followed.

“Understanding the trends and mindset of Latino bloggers helps marketers and communicators better plan and connect with blogs as viable platforms for their messages,” said the Latina Mom Bloggers Network partners.  “We appreciate the work completed by Dr. Chapa’s team and look forward to continue analyzing the results to report added findings in the coming months,” they added.

For a copy of the survey results, email your requests to Dr. Chapa at Sindy.Chapa@cci.fsu.edu.  

Read more about their survey collaboration from the press release published April 2, 2014 on HispanicAd.com at: hispanicad.com/agency/research/latino-blogger-trends-2014-insight

This research project was also mentioned in a Feb. 25, 2014 article from about the Hispanicize event by PR Web: prweb.com/releases/hispanicize/2014/prweb11614158.htm

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The Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication at the FSU College of Communication & Information is the first of its kind in the United States devoted to educating students and professionals in the field of Hispanic marketing and advertising.  The Center focuses on educating students and training communications professionals to better serve the U.S. Hispanic and multicultural markets.  Faculty and students working with the Center are conducting groundbreaking research and serving as an innovative resource for the marketing industry.

To learn more, please visit the Center’s website, follow on Twitter.