It’s been almost a year since I wrote Latin American Social Technographics® Revealed, which demonstrated this group of consumers’ voracious love of social media. In that report I highlighted how this high level of social engagement is not exclusive to just entertaining themselves or connecting with family and friends. In fact, it also extends to interacting with companies, with activities such as reading their blogs, following them on Twitter, or even watching a video they produced.

Given the ease with which companies can connect with online Latin Americans via social media, I’ve now published a new report entitled Take Advantage: Latin American Consumers Are Willing Co-Creators that examines whether companies can extend this interactive and social connection with consumers into the realm of co-creation in the social online world. My colleague Doug Williams, who focuses on co-creation processes for the consumer product strategy professional, defines “social co-creation” as the process of using social technologies as a vehicle to execute co-creation engagements.

To examine the viability of social co-creation in Latin America, we assessed the factors that we feel are crucial for a successful social co-creation engagement to occur. They are:

  • A high level of engagement with social media — especially at the Conversationalist and Critic levels.
  • A high degree of interaction with companies using social media tools.
  • An inherent willingness to co-create with companies.

We find that all three factors are present in Latin America. In line with what we have already examined with Latin Americans’ voracious consumption of social media and engagement with companies, you also see a high degree of willingness to co-create with companies. Specifically, 75% of online Brazilians and 85% of online Mexicans are classified as “willing co-creators” — that is, those individuals who would consider providing input to help companies design and build new products or improve existing products.

Even though the online world has not reached mass consumption, online Latin Americans are not shy about leveraging social media as a way to connect with companies. Companies with a Latin American presence must take advantage of this unique opportunity that is not as easily found in other markets like the US and Europe.

I hope you find this new report useful in shedding more light on how Latin American online consumers are using social media tools. If your ongoing focus is specifically on Latin American consumer research, then I would also recommend having a look at some other earlier blog entries: Do Latin Americans Want To Interact With Companies Online? and Marketing To Latin Americans Is A Long-Term Commitment.

As always, I welcome any reactions to or comments on the findings or recommendations in the report. Happy reading!