You might have seen some interesting data put out last week by eMarketer on Social Networking penetration in Latin America, and year-over-year growth.

Overall, Social Networking penetration among Internet users has grown from 78% in September 2007 to 87% in September 2008.

While this may seem like only an marginally relevant statistic to U.S. marketers, it has huge implications for those of us in multicultural advertising. As new generations of Latin American immigrants arrive in the U.S. and become part of our “Hispanic market” in the next few years, a significant percentage of them arrive as experienced and active social networkers. This is a huge paradigm shift from the commonly held notion that Latin American immigrants to the U.S. are generally disconnected from the Internet and particularly social media.

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