Offline the Latin culture is very warm and social – this seems to be translating online. According to Comscore and Analytics 2.0 the number of people creating profiles on social networks has increased by 103% from Jan 07 – Jan 08. The study included Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico.

Some interesting figures:
• Orkut - 12.9 million (up 27% from 10.1 million in ‘07)
• Sonico - 7.3 million (Sonico launched during the second half of ‘07)
• hi5 - 4.2 million (up 72% from 2.2 million in Jan. ‘07)
• MySpace - around 3 million (13 million users in all markets analyzed)
• Facebook - 2.2 million (up 4,152% from the Jan. ‘07 count of 52,000)

Says Ramiro Prudencio, Managing Director at Burson-Marsteller:

“The growth of social networks in Latin America is extremely important for those of us who manage brands and issues. People are engaged, sharing information and shaping public opinion – especially younger internet users – through these networks. If practitioners and clients think they will drive successful and effective communications programs through traditional media alone, they will be missing a tremendous opportunity. Moreover, there is an opportunity to quickly apply what we’ve learned from working in the US and Europe over the past couple of years as social networks have taken off, and offer clients unique insight as to how things are likely to trend in Latin America.”