HootSuite chief Ryan Holmes’ recent Forbes article documents the rise of social media in Brazil and the opportunities this offers marketers to connect with the country’s rapidly expanding consumer base. But do these opportunities exist in the clear-cut way Holmes suggests?

Social media in Brazil: the honeymoon continues

Holmes’ figures indicate that Brazilians are still happily on honeymoon with social media. In September 2012, while average Facebook time fell by 2% to 361 minutes per user per month globally, this figure rose 208% in Brazil. Today, Brazilian social networkers clock up on average 535 minutes on Facebook monthly. Brazil is on course to become the biggest Facebook user group behind the USA by the end of 2013, and is already in the top five for You Tube and Twitter.

There’s more good news for marketers: Brazilians are increasingly integrating social media into their shopping activities. A recent study by Brazilian media consultant eCRM123 found that 77% of users had a positive attitude toward shopping via social networks. Latin American market research firm Oh! Panel also found that 80% use social media to research new products, and are more inclined to trust recommendations from social media contacts than from other sources.

This all promises a bright future for brands able to ride Brazil’s social media boom. Right now digital spend is small in Brazil (10.67% of budgets) compared to the global average (nearly 20%), but research firm eMarketer predicts this will double to around $4bn by 2017. Coca-Cola, Nike and Bradesco are already unleashing torrents of tweets and posts to thousands of subscribers, and many other brands will be elbowing their way into the conversation in time for the World Cup and the Olympics.

Brazilians: not totally happy right now.

Yet there’s another side to this story. Its absence in the Forbes article should scream out to anyone who hasn’t spent the last six months in a concrete bunker on Jupiter. Since June, millions of Brazilians from both the established and new middle classes have been participating in the largest demonstrations for a generation. These are the very people that Holmes identifies as driving future social media expansion, and they are protesting because of the fundamental disconnect between the big story of Brazilian growth, and the fact that their own standards of living are not rising accordingly.

Is it possible that this is affecting the way they use and engage on social media?

Having borne the brunt of rising taxation, the old middle class is understandably angry because all there is to show for their hard-earned contributions are increasingly dilapidated public services. Further down the income scale, the 40 million Brazilians who have become middle class in the last decade are already finding that their recently acquired purchasing power is being eroded by rising inflation. Beyond these factors, everyone is raging about the endemic political corruption that continues to vanish billions of dollars of public money and frustrate real progress.

Add to this the fact that consumer power is being further weakened by an increasing burden of personal debt (Brazilians now spend around one fifth of their income servicing debts – twice that of the USA), and it is not surprising that Brazilians are starting to feel somewhat ambivalent about the invasion of their digital space by brands seeking attention and money.

Indeed, a recent survey by eMarketer concludes that while Brazil’s social media users are open to engagement, they are increasingly frustrated at marketers for not delivering what they want: value in the form of discounts and offers, as well as more interesting content. This finding is echoed by commentators who insist that just like every other social media market, in Brazil it will be quality of engagement that counts, not just the number of ‘likes’.

World Cup and Olympics: engagement opportunities or synapse-stripping tweetstorms?

So, will the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics provide opportunities to create such quality engagement via social media?

Now, the Euro 2012 final elicited 16.5 million tweets from an audience of 300 million. That’s one social media platform and one game. The last World Cup final had twice as many viewers, and World Cup 2014 will include 64 matches. That’s a big, unwieldy social media conversation, and one in which only the best brands and the strongest creative ideas, stories and technological innovations will be able to stand out. And even this won’t necessarily ensure success.

This is because Brazilians, like everyone else, use social media to do more than just buy things. Big companies are already learning, often the hard way, about the dangers of shouting too loudly, and too out of context, in the social media sphere.

Think you’re in control of your brand message? Good luck with that.

In June, Marketing Magazine ran an article following two major campaigns by two global bands – Fiat and Johnnie Walker. Playing more or less subtly with revolutionary tropes – Rio’s Sugar Loaf Mountain ‘waking up’ and the slogan Vem Pra Rua Brasil (Come to the streets Brazil) – both campaigns succeeded in tapping into the feelings on the streets so successfully that the protestors promptly appropriated elements of both for their own purposes. Needless to say these didn’t include selling whisky or cars.

This mashup tells you everything you need to know about what happened next.

This was all good fun for sociologists, who pointed out the irony of today’s protestors using ad jingles and tag lines, rather than the folk songs and polemical mantras of the previous generation, to articulate their demands. Not so much fun for the brands in question, mind, and both were quick to distance themselves from the protests and have now refocused their campaigns.

Their actions reflected a warning given by Michel Lent, managing director of the Pereira & O’Dell agency in São Paulo, to companies rushing into Brazil’s charged social media scene:

“We have been recommending to halt posting unrelated content on social networks when protest movements are happening on the streets. During those times, we feel brands should clear the space on the timelines to let the political discussions flow.”

Marcelo Tripoli, CEO of the São Paulo-based creative agency SapientNitro iThink, echoed Lent’s sentiments:

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to [go forward] with a social media strategy if your brand is not prepared to connect with what people are talking about.”

If you have nothing to say, don’t say it too loudly

And what people on the streets of Brazil are talking about today are better services, better infrastructure, better education and less corruption and crime. In a word: change. Jerry Clode, founder of House of Jezmo, a consultancy based in São Paulo, neatly summarized the implications this has for brands in an article published during the peak of the protests:

“Brands will have to make a clear decision on whether they want to be part of the discussion about change, or if they want to play it safe. Those erring on the side of caution will risk being caught off-side with a public impatient with the status quo.”

With this in mind, Holmes’ argument – that now social media saturation has been achieved in the US, we should all saddle up for the next gold rush in Brazil – seems to miss an obvious point. More social media doesn’t mean more effective marketing opportunities, or even better campaigns; but it often does mean a whole lot more valueless media clutter that gets in the way of creating engaging and meaningful brand connections.

Maybe we shouldn’t “forget the US” just yet?

 Less ÷ (relevant + respectful + timely) = more

So while social media will undoubtedly be a powerful marketing tool in Brazil in the next few years and beyond, it will never bypass the core challenges that have always faced the advertising and marketing industries. As David Ogilvy once said: “What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form”.

In other words, while the prospect of a trend-bucking surge of social media participation in Brazil might offer a unique ticket to the game for brands, they better be willing to play the game, and play it well.

This will mean resisting the urge to flirt with polemics. It will mean seizing the opportunity to deliver strong stories that make sense in the context of rapid, radical social change, or at least the desire for it. It will also mean finding new ways to engage with people on their own terms, respectfully and in the full knowledge that this engagement will be controlled as much by the audience as by the sender.

Most importantly, perhaps, it will mean knowing when to be part of the discussion, and when to shut the hell up.