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Has the great battle for the Latin audience begun?
It’s a fact! Latin America has become the crown jewel for digital platforms. Every day we see apps and brands choosing the region as their next destination, driven by a young, creative population that makes heavy use of social networks.
With mobile internet penetration at 65% and 413 million active users, and 94.2% of the world’s internet users on social media, it’s no surprise that attention is focused on this side of the planet.413 million active users, and 94.2% of the world’s internet users on social media, it’s no surprise that attention is focused on this side of the planet.
The Latin American audience doesn’t just consume; it also creates and shares trends that later go global. Just look at all the creators, online businesses, viral content and social media celebrities coming out of Mexico, Colombia or Argentina to understand why the Hispanic market is so sought‑after today.
The full story is told in numbers:
TikTok adds 189.7 million users in Latin America, according to Backlinko, which represents 18.29% of its global base and a 32.2% penetration rate among internet users.
YouTube, meanwhile, has more than 500 million monthly active users in the region. The size and engagement of these audiences are so significant that any company with global ambitions will want a slice of the pie. For content producers, the major barrier has always been language, and that’s where automatic translation begins to play a decisive role.
History and context of automatic translation
Why does translation become essential? Simple: because most Latin Americans do not speak English.
In Argentina, only 6.52% of the population has a high level, in Colombia the figure is 4.22%, and in Chile barely 9.53%.
The regional average of English proficiency has stabilized in recent years, according to this article from ef.edu, but it remains low for such a connected region. This means that the majority of the Hispanic audience consumes content in Spanish and that, without translation, it is difficult for a video in English to go viral in Bogotá or Lima. Hence the urgency platforms have to break down these language barriers.
Platforms have taken previous steps. For example, in 2016 Instagram launched its “See Translation button, which converts captions and comments into the user’s language.
Twitter (now X) allows posts to be translated by clicking a link below each message, and Google Translate has long been the best friend of many community managers.
These solutions helped to understand text, but they left out audio and video. Until recently, the voice of a creator remained unchangeable; those who didn’t understand the language were missing half the story.
New contenders in action: TikTok and YouTube
The race to win over the Latin audience isn’t limited to a single app. TikTok and YouTube are the places where people learn recipes, follow tutorials, and discover artists. For any brand, these spaces mean millions of eyes and ears waiting for content that speaks their language.
In light of this, both platforms have made advances in accessibility. TikTok introduced auto captions in 2021 to create automatic subtitles and, in 2022, added translations for captions, descriptions, and stickers. These options appear in the lower left corner of the video and allow a clip recorded in
Mexico City to be understood in Berlin or Seoul. The initial range includes languages such as English, Portuguese, German, Indonesian, Italian, Korean, Mandarin, Spanish, and Turkish, opening the door to a global consumption of Latin content.
Last year YouTube took another step forward: its auto-dubbing feature, launched in December, generates audio tracks in other languages for creators’ videos. The system detects the language, creates dubbed versions that creators can review and delete if they’re not satisfied, and it supports languages like English, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish.
It still sounds a bit robotic, we know, but it reduces the friction of reading subtitles.
A bold new move from Instagram
The announcement that set this battle on fire came in August 2025. Meta revealed that Instagram Reels and Facebook videos can now be automatically dubbed between English and Spanish, using artificial intelligence that clones the creator’s voice and syncs their lips. According to Adam Mosseri, the goal is to break cultural and linguistic barriers.
The tool lets you activate dubbing at the moment of publishing, review how the audio sounds before sharing, and provides language based stats to know how many views each version receives.
This update can be interpreted in two ways. On one hand, Hispanic influencers will face multiplied competition: any creator in the U.S. or U.K. can automatically appear in Colombian or Peruvian feeds, and algorithms will reward the best content regardless of origin. On the other hand, a brand new route opens for Latin creators: someone in Buenos Aires who never spoke English can now appear on the timeline of someone in Los Angeles with their voice dubbed into English. The language barrier fades and the market expands. It’s no longer enough to just be funny or creative; you’ll have to stand out among thousands of global voices, and as a parcero from Colombia would say, ponerse las pilas with the storytelling.”
Conclusion: translation is not enough
Automatic translation is just the first step. Marketing experts remind us that localization and cultural adaptation processes are needed for the message to truly resonate. Localization adjusts content to the idioms and nuances of each country, while transcreation reimagining the idea so that it becomes emotionally relevant creates authentic connections. Without that work, a dubbed video may sound correct but fail to spark empathy; a cuate in Mexico or a pata in Peru will notice when something feel sout of place.
This is where Positive Agency comes in. We are an agency specialized in opening the doors of the Latin American market to brands and companies from other countries.
We understand that translation alone is not enough: you have to adapt the discourse, incorporate local references, and tell stories that connect with your audience’s passions and concerns. If your brand wants to seize the boom of the Latin audience, you need a partner who masters the art of transcreation
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