Ethnic investors have unique attitudes towards social media websites, in both their past usage and future usage plans.

Spectrem’s Ethnic Segmentation Series quarterly report Using Social Media and Mobile Technology in Financial Decisions details the social media attitudes of affluent investors of African-American, Asian and Hispanic backgrounds.

In terms of overall usage, ethnic investors are more involved with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube than general population investors. With Facebook, the general usage is 57 percent, to 66 percent for African-Americans, 62 percent for Hispanics and 55 percent for Asians.

For LinkedIn, 56 percent of African-Americans are on the site, to just 45 percent in the general population. For YouTube, the general population of investors report 28 parent involved, while 41 percent of African-Americans, 38 percent of Hispanics and 33 percent of Asians use YouTube.

Asians report less social media usage than the other ethnicities as well as the general population, and cite concerns about privacy. Of the 25 percent of Asian affluent investors who use no social media at all, 66 percent said privacy issues prevent them from being involved. Sixty percent of Hispanics not on social media cite privacy and safety issues, while 44 percent of Hispanics say they consider social media to be a waste of time.

Twenty-five percent of the general population of investors do not use any social media, and 53 percent of them say they see no value in the purpose of those programs. Forty-percent of Hispanics agree with that assessment.

Only 15 percent of African-American investors use no social media at all, and among them, 43 percent report fears over privacy, 38 percent said they see no value, and 33 percent consider them a waste of time.

So how about the future? Asians apparently have little interest in increasing their social media usage, as 66 percent said they will not increase usage in any mainstream social media site. But 22 percent of African-Americans say they will increase usage in LinkedIn, and 18 percent of African-Americans plan to increase usage of Facebook. Among Hispanics, 18 percent will increase usage of LinkedIn, 12 percent on Facebook and a surprising 11 percent said they will increase usage of YouTube.

 

All of the mentioned social media sites have ways for financial advisors to connect with current and future clients, which is why usage plans are so important to know.

 

For more information on Spectrem Group's Ethnic Segmentation series, click here