THE BRIDGE TO SUCCESS IN COLOMBIA

THE BRIDGE TO SUCCESS IN COLOMBIA

Sherlock Communications is a state of the art Colombian and Latin American PR and digital marketing agency. Insight, Service, Results.

Sherlock Communications is a state of the art Colombian and Latin American PR and digital marketing agency. Insight, Service, Results.

PR agency in Colombia – Our Story

Any company wishing to break into the Colombian market would benefit from working with a PR agency in Colombia, which can provide market intelligence and use their regional expertise to devise nuanced and localised brand messages that will reach the right people – something only a PR agency based in Latin America can do.

Why invest in Colombia? The country’s total GDP growth is expected to reach 3.5% by 2022. Its capital city of Bogotá generates about 30% of the country’s GDP, and is a regional hub for distinguished national and international companies, most of which are Latin American.

Whether you are a consumer brand, a business services provider or a disruptive tech start-up, Sherlock Communications’ award-winning team combines local insight and media contacts with decades of international experience.

Communications in Colombia: reaching a young population

Colombia has a very young population. According to Statista, the average age is 30. Around  42% of the current population is aged between 25 and 54, while only 7.44% of Colombians are over 65 years old.

Media dynamics in Colombia’s daily information cycle 

In Colombia, the daily news dynamic follows a 360-degree cycle across 4 stages, in which alternating information formats play a leading role.

This dynamic begins first thing in the morning with the edition of most main newspapers. According to the most recent survey by Cifras y Conceptos, the most-read newspaper is El Tiempo (14% readership) followed by El Espectador (13%) and La República (5%).

In the morning, the news filling the newspapers’  front pages dominate the opinion and information spaces of the country’s leading radio stations. Cifras y Conceptos reports that La W (28%) continues to lead this ranking, followed by Blu Radio and Caracol Radio at 6 am, both with 20%, RCN Básica (7%), La FM (6%) and Hora 20 (4%).

By noon, newscasts are highlighting not just the main events from the morning, but also news which breaks throughout the day. In this slot, online media such as Semana (7%) and television – including channels such as Caracol Noticias – lead the way.

The night slot summarizes the daily news and forecasts the front pages of the main newspapers the following day, on TV channels such as Caracol Noticias (31%), Noticias Uno (20%), Noticias RCN (13%), CM& (8%), and Red+ Noticias (6%).

No radio, no print news

What about TV? Yes, for now. According to Sherlock’s media consumption survey, about 97% of Colombians watched TV news at least once a week as of 2020, although by 2021 that figure had dropped to 91%. This is the biggest drop we observed in any of the Latin American countries we surveyed (Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Peru). 

Radio has experienced a similar decline in Colombia – from 18% in 2020 to 25% in 2021; as has print news – from 5% in 2020 to 19% in 2021.

Is social media the answer?

34% of Colombians maintain that television is the most trustworthy source of information, followed by the internet (25%), the radio (14%) and social networks (12%). In the latter category, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube were considered to be the most reliable sources. 

On the other hand, influencers are not considered to be reliable. Nearly 55% of Latin Americans say they trust influencers very little or not at all when it comes to factual news. The greatest rejection of influencers as bastions of truth came from Argentina, where 23% of respondents don’t trust them at all, and 41% trust them very little. Rejection was high in Colombia too – 24% don’t trust them at all, while 39% trust them very little. So, influencer marketing campaigns may not be your best option in  Colombia.

Be aware of fake news

Latin Americans don’t always believe what they read on social media, with 

93% of respondents saying they verify news from social platforms before sharing. 50% of Colombians query news from social media and Whatsapp before sharing it, and are especially reliant on official sources – 45% of Colombians completely trust scientists, while 35% trust their family – more than they trust journalists (28%). 

Likewise, following the change in government, Colombians’ trust in the media and social networks has risen by 6% and 2% respectively, according to the most recent Invamer perception survey, published in November 2022.

Colombia is a leader in embracing disabilities

Colombia has a progressive outlook when it comes to the disabled: society is increasingly aware of the importance of creating inclusive spaces, and inclusion policies are being introduced for previously ignored subsets of society. Local media accounts for a large proportion of media content, and individual communities are relatively well represented. 

People with disabilities regularly appear on major media platforms like Caracol Radio, Canal Capital, City TV and others. As well as foregrounding the voices of disabled people, Colombian media increasingly employs people with physical limitations in the production process. Viewers are exposed to a multi-faceted view of disability, including content featuring NGOs that work with disabilities, and voices from public services.

Journalists typically use appropriate terminology in their representation of disability, and national programming does not tend to victimise disabled people in society. Certain outlets specifically treat issues relating to Afro and indigenous groups. 

Digital Marketing and Public Relations in Colombia

We’ve already looked at some aspects of how PR in Colombia works. As a young and connected audience, Colombians also engage with strong digital marketing campaigns, bearing in mind where they are located and what type of media and content they consume. That’s why at least five digital marketing tools are indispensable for any local campaign:

Social media: as we have seen, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are considered as reliable sources by Colombians. Social media strategies help to target your audience, and leverage digital tools to analyse whether they are enjoying and engaging with your campaign. 

YouTube SEO: similar to Google SEO, YouTube SEO works on delivering the best results to its audience. The videos that appear at the top of YouTube search results are not there by coincidence, but as a result of hours of work spent turning it into a good experience for the user, allowing YouTube’s robots to crawl it and confirm its relevance. 

Link building: combined with PR strategies such as media relations, link building is a good tool for inserting your content on trusted local websites, which are sure to be visited by fact-checking Colombians. 

Content marketing: to get people interested in your content, it has to be relevant for them. Make sure to identify what kind of content they like to consume, where and when.

Message development: at the core of all the tools above is message development, which is all about connecting to your audience in a personalised way. This is especially true if you are communicating via Television, where Colombians are used to seeing ads which they can relate to.

Whether you’re looking for media relations, social and digital media, link building or content marketing campaigns, Sherlock’s agency in Colombia delivers great results for clients ranging from disruptive tech companies to blue-chip brands.

“Breaking down barriers of exclusion and discrimination is everyone’s job. We’re not talking about doing anyone a favour; it’s an ethical and professional imperative. We must improve visibility and, at the same time, engage in awareness-raising work with the rest of society”. 

                       — Mauricio Naranjo, News Editor, Noticias Caracol Digital

PR in Colombia

Market Overview

The Capital Bogotá

Media Landscape

Online Landscape

Cultural Nuances

If you would like to learn more abour PR in Colombia and find out how Sherlock Communications can help you meet your business objectives in Colombia or simply have an informal chat do call or drop us a line:

If you would like to learn more abour PR in Colombia and find out how Sherlock Communications can help you meet your business objectives in Colombia or simply have an informal chat do call or drop us a line:

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Carrera 7 #116-50, Bogotá office 03-103 - Colombia

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+55 11 3817 5852

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