Tiago Bianchi
Research expert covering internet & gaming in Latin America and Spain
Get in touch with us nowHow do Brazilians use social platforms?
Even though access to social media in Brazil is projected to increase over the next years, the country does not reach the top positions regarding penetration rate in the continent, ranking behind neighbors like Argentina, Peru, and other nations in the Caribbean. Still, social media enjoys huge popularity among Brazilians: more than 84 percent of its population uses such platforms daily, with access rates among adults of around 92 percent.Instant messengers are the most popular type of social media platform in Brazil, followed by content-sharing networks like YouTube, Snapchat, and Pinterest, and finally networks like Facebook. But the popularity of these platforms in Brazil does not bring only positive prospects, with blatant problems between social media and politics in Brazil being one of them, intensified by a polarized atmosphere and spread of fake news.
Challenges in every front
Meta’s success in Brazil is such that its products earned nicknames of “Face,” “Insta,” and “Zap” by the country’s users, holding the hegemony of the Brazilian social media market. Installed in virtually every smartphone in the country, the popularity of WhatsApp in Brazil is such that its presence goes from personal communication to an expansion into e-commerce, plus its influence in the country’s politics.Meanwhile, Facebook is the most visited platform in Brazil. But the growth of mobile-first social platforms like TikTok, the diversification of the Brazilian messaging apps’ market with the likes of Telegram and Signal, and the presence of YouTube and Pinterest already pose challenges to the conglomerate’s decreasing dominance.
A hot influencer market
Despite the problems in the political sphere, the size of its social media advertising market is a land of opportunities for influencer marketing in Brazil. With more than 1.4 billion Brazilian reals invested in social media advertising in 2021, the investment in this market pays off, as social influence strategies remain effective to more than half of its Brazilian audience.And again, Meta still reigns: Instagram is the most popular platform among influencers in Brazil, followed by Facebook. YouTube and TikTok followed with an equal usage rate by these content creators, as the ByteDance-owned company continues its expansion in the country and throughout Latin America.
