A new report from eMarketer gives more evidence of what we’ve been telling you for a while: Marketers are missing a HUGE opportunity to tap into the Latino market.

They reported that 78%–more than 3 in 4–of US companies said they had not used any social media to attract Hispanics. Here’s the REALLY good news, for those of us who are paying attention: Only 18% said they planned to increase their spending on Hispanic marketing in the next year.

Why is that good news? Because we’re going to show you why you should get into this market, while the competition is low.

Here are some facts you might not realize about the Latino market:

• Hispanic men are about 20% more likely than white men to start businesses.
• Hispanics have the highest labor force participation rates of any racial or ethnic group in the US.
• By 2016, 16% of the labor force is expected to be Hispanic; we’ll have nearly 27 million Hispanics in the US labor force.

So you’re probably thinking,”OK, but can we reach them through social media?  Will blasting out a video or Tweeting to them work?”

The answer is “yes.”

We just put a new report in the MySurveyExpert membership site on the Internet connectivity of Latinos.  That shows that their Internet use is rising faster than that of any other race or ethnic group, reaching 64% by 2008.  Their broadband use has also risen sharply.

Hector Orci, chair of the agency that ran the survey showing the lack of attention to Latinos among US companies, summed it up pretty well:  ”Hispanics are tech-savvy, young trendsetters with incredible spending power.”

Bottom line, we should all be tapping into this market, before the competition really becomes fierce.