Content Marketing trends in LATAM

Amongst the latest updates in content marketing, HubSpot's State of Inbound 2016 has marketers in Latin American very surprised. For Inbound Marketing or a content strategy, the region has one very distinct outlying trend: contents are short, and copywriters take shorter to draft an average blog. 

1. Globally, LATAM marketers write the fastest, followed by EMEA and NAM.

Source: HubSpot, The State of Inbound 2016

2. LATAM blog posts tend to be shorter, which is likely why they’re so quick to write.

Source: HubSpot, The State of Inbound 2016

These digital content marketing trends and news caught our attention. But, comparatively speaking, any blog we adapt to and from Spanish turns out larger in size than its English counterpart: words are more extensive, and it requires more grammar resources.

If Latin American copywriters write shorter pieces and invest less time in blogging, it is more understandable to see how much Latin Americans read.

How much do Latin American's read?

Paraguay portal Ejempla has revised digital readership in the region.

 “Latin America is not a continent marked by good reading habits.  If Argentina (55%) and Chile (51%) stand out as the countries with the largest reader population in Latin America, Venezuela (50%), Brazil, (46%) and Peru (35%) foll. At the opposite side is Mexico, where barely 20% of the population are good readers”.

For instance, if there is a widespread ebook industry in Europe and the United States, Latin America is just getting used to the format.

According to Unesco, Chile is Latin America where fewer people read voluntarily, as published in La Tercera. However, after Argentina (70%), Chile is the country where most people read books (51%).

Chile is also where fewer people tend to read at home, and more at work or in the classroom, mainly because they “don’t have the time" (28%).

Home readers:

• 56% of Chileans.
• 93% of Brazilians.
• 80% of Peruvians.

Fernando Zapata, director of the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (Cerlac), tells La Tercera that,

"To a large extent, most complain that they don’t have time to read. Even those who were great readers in college or academia stop doing it when they are in the workforce, as they say that they don’t have time ".

HubSpot’s Ana Isabel Sordo recommends that people run business in Latin America, deeply understand these markets, and adapt to its trends to impact and be successful in this region.

How blog for readership in Latin America?

For Guillermo Franco, from the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas of the University of Texas at Austin, there are several tips for blogging. He states that writing a website has several particularities.

First, he admits that users tend to read more words in newspapers due to its inherent credibility than on any other website.

“Reading the news implies a disposition to process more words than the average tasks, which is directed to finding specific information and concrete solutions.”

Users probably spend less time on other types of websites. “Ten minutes is perhaps a long visit to most sites,” he says.

That is why users would:

• Read 28% of the words if they've been dedicated to reading a blog.
• They tend to scan only 20% of the text on an average website.

 “Writing for the web requires word economy more than any other written style, which has finally become the way to write any content.”

Franco quotes the studies and expertise of User Experience consultant Jakob Nielsen: people like short articles. He states that  “people tend to be ruthless in abandoning long-winded sites; they mainly want to skim highlights.

“If you want many readers, focus on short and scannable content. This is a good strategy for advertising-driven sites or sites that sell impulse buys.”

How much time do you spending reading blogs every day?