Latin America's social media presence is expected to reach 227.4 million people, and advertisers are set to spend millions in the region.

With more than one-third of the region's population logging into social media, marketers are reportedly set to spend up to $481 million on social network advertising spending, which is a 9.1 percent increase from 2013.

According to eMarketer, social network ad spending will continue to grow into 2015 with a 9.6 percent digital ad improvement from this year. Marketers are projected to spend approximately $593.6 million on social media ad spending in 2015. In comparison to 2012 figures, marketers spent $237 million.

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While social network ad spending is forecast to grow, the general percentage change is expected to decline on a year-to-year basis. For 2014, social network ad spending is down from 47.5 percent in 2013 to 37.6 percent for 2014. Entering 2015, the overall ad spending will decline by double digits to 23.4 percent.

The social network spending is a result of growing users in the region, as highlighted in the top three Latin American markets of Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. For 2014, Brazil is projected to provide the largest social media users with 76.4 million, followed by Mexico are 47.2 million and Argentina's 19.2 million. The rest of Latin American will provide 84.7 million social media users.

Brazil will continue to provide the most social users through 2018. Brazilians are projected to account for 94.5 million users in 2018, ahead Mexico's 67.2 million. Argentina will remain third with 23.3 million while the rest of the region will add 126.9 million users. As a result, eMarketer forecast Latin America to have 311.8 million social media users.

Specifically, 28 million users on Twitter will be from Latin America. Twitter, however, is reportedly struggling in the social media market in the region because of "tough" competition from texting and instant message services such as LINE, WeChat and WhatsApp. For example, The Cocktail Analysis revealed 92 percent of daily Mexican Internet users, from ages 18-55, are active on Facebook. Google+ ranked second with 59 percent of respondents ahead of WhatsApp's 45 percent. Twitter ranked fourth with 41 percent of respondents.

Facebook still trumps in the region as it attracts 208.9 million users this year. Brazil has been credited for Facebook's large Latin American base with 70.5 million Brazilian users.

"We expect Mexico to have 44.4 million Facebook users, ahead of Argentina's 18.2 million," eMarketer said. "But more importantly, Facebook has branched out to the rest of the region, and there will be 75.9 million people logging in from countries like Chile, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela."

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For the latest updates, follow Latin Post's Michael Oleaga on Twitter: @EditorMikeO or contact via email: m.oleaga@latinpost.com.

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