Social Media continues to expand around the world and impact it, in its own way. In Guatemala, e-Marketing didn’t start picking up until about 3 to 4 years ago and it wasn’t only until about a year and a half to two years ago that agencies started to develop social media strategies.

After seeing some of the success from local companies, restaurants started taking advantage of it, to get their share of the market. It continues to expand throughout the years, with Facebook being the biggest social media platform utilized in Guatemala today. With only 2.5 million people with access to the internet in Guatemala, 1.6 million people have a Facebook account.

However, before Facebook, hi5 was considered one of the most popular social networking sites. In 2008 hi5 had 12,831,000 Latin American unique visitors ages 15 and up, while Facebook had only 7,711,000. MySpace became very big 2 years ago. According to comScore, social media has always been huge in Latin American countries. They are heavy internet users and mainly use the internet as a way to communicate with others.

According to Enrique Parros of TPP Emarketing, Twitter is a Social Media platform that is starting to grow in Guatemala and the reason for this growth is that mobile phones are becoming more easily attainable. The demographic segment in Guatemala that is currently active on twitter is mostly made up of kids, but 24- 35 year olds are starting to pick up on Twitter. This is why twitter is still an educational process in Guatemala.

The main social media Platform used for marketing in Guatemala is currently Facebook, due to the high concentration of people logged into Facebook. Facebook, to TPP Emarketing, is a great way for consumers to communicate with a brand. It is also a great way for people to interact with the brand, which will later help them to decide the future of the brand, and where it is heading. Another way Facebook is being used in Guatemala is as a focus group.

One major success story for TPP Emarketing is from the Facebook page Claro, which has 264,196 likes on Facebook. Gallo was also another great example of how successful Facebook was in helping to boost sales. In April of 2011, Gallo had about 90% of the market share in the country.

TPP Emarketing works with so many brands, such as Claro, P & G, and McDonald’s, that it would be hard to manage each account separately. This is why they use Hootsuite. It is a service used to manage social media accounts on one dashboard. With Hootsuite, companies like TPP E-marketing can manage their Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Foursquare and myspace accounts at once, and even schedule posts for later dates.

E-marketing is still growing in Guatemala, and for some it is still a learning experience, but digital marketing is always growing and expanding. Agencies are starting to pick up on it and take advantage of the marketing tools that are accessible. Some of the services offered today are SEO marketing, Public Relations, E-Mobile, Social Media and E-Advertising.

Digital marketing may be growing but TPP E-marketing understands the importance of utilizing it in their marketing campaigns and strategies.

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