Spanish-Preferring Hispanics Flood Facebook

Interesting news in Acento‘s email newsletter today from Steve Roth, their director of business development.

Back in February 2008, Facebook tapped its own user base to translate the social network’s interface into Spanish. That project is a great case study on how to leverage the power of social media to enhance a brand and build a user base.

At the time Facebook had about 2.3 million active users in Spanish-speaking countries. Fewer than six months later, Facebook reached 2.5 million active users in Chile alone! In fact, the launch of a Spanish interface was so successful that between February and July of 2008, new Facebook accounts in Spanish speaking countries grew 325%, from 2.3 million to 9.9 million. That means that in six months, more than 7.5 million Facebook accounts were created in countries where Spanish is spoken.

A true network effect had taken hold in Spanish-speaking countries, and the phenomenon also took hold among Spanish-preferring U.S. Hispanics as they received invitations from family and friends to join Facebook and vice-versa.