Inside Twitter’s push to connect advertisers with its Hispanic audience

Twitter has chosen Marco Botero, the Head of Twitter Miami for the past three and a half years, for the new role of Head of US Hispanic. He officially began last week with the combined title Head of Twitter Miami and US Hispanic. Botero and his team will be largely based out of Miami, with some representation in New York. Botero would not reveal the size of the team, but said it will continue to grow as interest in the audience does.

“The [Hispanic] audience is a focus for us internally now, and we have people dedicated to growing this audience and its value for our partners and clients,” said Botero. “The business unit will make sure our Hispanic audience is baked into the strategy from the beginning and make sure they are not an afterthought.”

The push comes with new targeting capabilities for advertisers looking to reach this audience. At the end of September, Twitter launched a way for advertisers to target bilingual Spanish and English speakers on the platform. Before, advertisers could only target campaigns to predominantly Spanish tweeters or predominantly English tweeters. With the new capability, advertisers can target Hispanic users that tweet in both Spanish and English.

“We know that bilingual is a growing segment of the population and our user base as well,” said Botero. Twitter did not give a percentage of bilingual growth.

Twitter is also adding additional layers of targeting around events tied to the Hispanic culture. This month, advertisers are now able to target Hispanic Heritage Month and the Latin Grammys in November.

Also, as of this month, Twitter is selling Spanish language sponsorships with content from major sports leagues, content producers and publishers. Twitter has partnered with the NFL, MLB and MLS to provide Spanish language content for advertisers to sponsor, and is now working more closely with the Latin Grammy organization, Fox Deportes and ESPN Deportes to have relevant Hispanic content for companies to sponsor as well. Twitter would not reveal the cost around these deals.

“We are actively looking for more Hispanic-relevant publishers we can build partnerships with and bring that content to the platform and allow brands to sponsor that content,” said Botero.

Twitter already has new advertisers testing out these capabilities for campaigns timed to Hispanic Heritage Month this month. Xfinity Comcast, for instance, is targeting the Hispanic Heritage Month on Twitter as well as using the bilingual targeting option to reach people who might be interested in the company’s new bilingual remote control. And Nestle’s DiGiorno is working with the NFL on a football campaign with Spanish tweets.

A redhead with perfect English isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of a Hispanic American. Luis represents the diversity of Hispanics that make up the tapestry of this country. Watch Luis here: https://t.co/ApKOq85sXG #WeLaGente #HispanicHeritageMonth pic.twitter.com/Ea7rDaa9HU

— Xfinity Latino (@xfinitylatino) September 20, 2018

Si quieres pizza durante el juego, más vale que sea DiGiorno. pic.twitter.com/OYbdtza2zi

— DiGiorno (@DiGiorno) September 26, 2018

Although Botero officially began this month, he has been working with Hispanic-specific research groups like Latinum, Twitter’s internal research team and Twitter’s online focus group Twitter Insiders for the past six months, and has been pitching advertisers ahead of October, Hispanic Heritage Month, on the findings.

There are currently 24 million active monthly Hispanic U.S. users on Twitter, according to ComScore. That’s a large portion of the platform’s overall 68 million active monthly U.S. users, a number reported in Twitter’s last earnings report. The growth of that audience is what has driven the most excitement at Twitter, said Botero. There has been a 35 percent year-over-year growth, up from 17.8 million people last August, according to ComScore data. It’s also an active group. Twitter findings show that 60 percent of those 24 million Hispanic users, or 14.4 million of them, are active on the platform with around 11.5 million of these users tweeting at companies.