After 22 months as a PR and Marketing Specialist in an award winning Hispanic agency, I have come into terms with the Hispanic market segment; the ins and outs of its collective beliefs and behaviors.
The Hispanic market continues to grow at a vast rate. And as a result, companies are finding themselves assigning greater budgets to market to the Hispanic consumer. Next year, Hispanics will spend over $1 Trillion. Which makes us wonder: what percentage of our customer base is Hispanic? How and where are Hispanics reached? What are their motivational factors for purchasing? Identifying these insights takes years of qualitative and quantitative research but it could save your revenues. A good way to find some information is on the world wide web. Take note of the following insights to drive your brand into the Hispanic market.
Connect via social media:
Quepasa
Terra (including MiGente)
Batanga
StarMedia
MyLatinoVoice (a relaunch of MiApogeo)
Twitteros
Blogadera
BeingLatino
LATISM
hi5 (very popular in Latin America)
MSN Latino
AOL Latino (including Bebo Latino)
Facebook
MySpace
Fact: eMarketer estimates there are 25 million Hispanics online, about 52% of the US Hispanic population.
Fact II: Research done by Comscore in 2008 shows that Hispanics, now days, spend more time on the Internet than on TV.
Connect with the local community:
Now this is TOP SECRET and takes a considerable amount of time to know what and where the community is and how to penatrate it.
Look inside the churches, the welcome homes for immigrants, the non-profits, the businesses with Hispanic owners, the barrios and areas of concentration and begin to eat their food, visiting their organizations, volunteering in their non-for-profit and intimately engaging with them. Most likely if you have a good heart you may just be welcomed in.
For those corporate businesses, I recommend something extra. Take brochures, booklets, magazine subscriptions…anything that is free and a valid resource of information. Most unacculturated are hungry for information in their native language on topics such as healthcare, beauty, safety, education, family, pregnancy, banking, insurance, etc. Become their resource, and they will become your ally.
Connect with the following organizations at a local and national level:
League of United Latin American Citizens
National Society of Hispanic MBA
National Council of La Raza
Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
Hispanic Scholarship Fund
Key words to search for are: Latina/o and Hispanic Organizations, Coalitions, Salsa, and Hispanic Events.
Two already established insights:
The majority of Hispanics are hard workers, family oriented and brand loyal.
The general market has transformed and is becoming increasingly multicultural itself; therefore Hispanic insights must also appeal to the general market and vice versa.
And…If your business is planning diversity initiatives I recommend you assign someone passionate in the Hispanic market to do the job.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Social Media Revolution
The following video reminds me of the shift in communication I researched back in '07 while working for Ketchum, Inc. The research generated methodologies to build brands, provide B2B and B2C solutions, and establish a competitive advantage against competitors. This interesting video is full of factoids and concludes why so many companies are using this new source of communication to create best in class processes. Is obvious we've gotten past the idea that Social Media is a Fad.
Credits to: Erick Qualman.
Statistics Show Social Media Is Bigger Than You Think
Is Social Media a Fad or the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution? Welcome to the Social Media Revolution:
Stats from Video (sources listed below by corresponding #)
1.By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network
2.Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
3.1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media.
4.Years to Reach 50 millions Users: Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.
5.If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indone(note that Facebook is now creeping up – recently announced 300 million users)
6.Yet, some sources say China’s QZone is larger with over 300 million using their services (Facebook’s ban in China plays into this)
7.comScore indicates that Russia has the most engage social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network
8.2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
9.1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum
10.% of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80%
11.The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
12.Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres (combined) have more Twitter followers than the population of Ireland, Norway, or Panama. Note I have adjusted the language here after someone pointed out the way it is phrased in the video was difficult to determine if it was combined.
13.80% of Twitter usage is outside of Twitter…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
14.Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen
15.What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
16.The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
17.Wikipedia has over 13 million articles…some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78% of these articles are non-English
18.There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
19.54% = Number of bloggers who post content or tweet daily
20.Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
21.If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 per hour
22.Facebook USERS translated the site from English to Spanish via a Wiki in less than 4 weeks and cost Facebook $0
23.25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
24.34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
25.People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services than how Google ranks them
26.78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
27.Only 14% trust advertisements
28.Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
29.90% of people that can TiVo ads do
30.Hulu has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009
31.25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video…on their phone
32.According to Jeff Bezos 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle when available
33.24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
34.In the near future we will no longer search for products and services they will find us via social media
35.More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.
36.Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy Listening first, selling second
37.Successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertiser
The above statistics and “Social Media Revolution” video tell the story, social media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate. Please feel free to share with any non-believers!
Credits to: Erick Qualman.
Statistics Show Social Media Is Bigger Than You Think
Is Social Media a Fad or the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution? Welcome to the Social Media Revolution:
Stats from Video (sources listed below by corresponding #)
1.By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network
2.Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
3.1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media.
4.Years to Reach 50 millions Users: Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.
5.If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indone(note that Facebook is now creeping up – recently announced 300 million users)
6.Yet, some sources say China’s QZone is larger with over 300 million using their services (Facebook’s ban in China plays into this)
7.comScore indicates that Russia has the most engage social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network
8.2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
9.1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum
10.% of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80%
11.The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
12.Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres (combined) have more Twitter followers than the population of Ireland, Norway, or Panama. Note I have adjusted the language here after someone pointed out the way it is phrased in the video was difficult to determine if it was combined.
13.80% of Twitter usage is outside of Twitter…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
14.Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen
15.What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
16.The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
17.Wikipedia has over 13 million articles…some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78% of these articles are non-English
18.There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
19.54% = Number of bloggers who post content or tweet daily
20.Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
21.If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 per hour
22.Facebook USERS translated the site from English to Spanish via a Wiki in less than 4 weeks and cost Facebook $0
23.25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
24.34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
25.People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services than how Google ranks them
26.78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
27.Only 14% trust advertisements
28.Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
29.90% of people that can TiVo ads do
30.Hulu has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009
31.25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video…on their phone
32.According to Jeff Bezos 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle when available
33.24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
34.In the near future we will no longer search for products and services they will find us via social media
35.More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.
36.Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy Listening first, selling second
37.Successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertiser
The above statistics and “Social Media Revolution” video tell the story, social media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate. Please feel free to share with any non-believers!
Monday, October 5, 2009
BIENVENIDOS
Hello everybody. My name is Marta Velasco, a Spanish native residing in the US since 1998. I am 25 years old and mostly focused on expanding my area of expertise. A young professional commited to marketing, branding, communication, and diversity initiatives. I currently manage and collaborate in multiple accounts, some of them being 500 Fortune companies. On my off time, I am pretty experiential. I enjoy biking, yoga, reading, dancing, checking out the city's latest exhibits, and idealize about being more green and growing as a better person.
The purpose of this blog is to expand my horizons by sharing new innovations and best practices.
I encourage you to build upon my passion and provide constructive feedback by contributing your expertise and experiences.
The purpose of this blog is to expand my horizons by sharing new innovations and best practices.
I encourage you to build upon my passion and provide constructive feedback by contributing your expertise and experiences.
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