Social media has completely changed the nature of how content for online consumption is produced. Companies must now speak to consumers through content that’s less formal, more timely, shorter and ultimately more engaging.

The social Internet has opened the door for anybody to produce and distribute content, particularly in the Hispanic online space, where there is a relative lack of quality online content.

This represents a powerful opportunity for advertisers, and marketing agencies alike.

New roles for marketing agencies

This explosion in content production is changing the way some agencies operate and how advertisers reach consumers online.

“It’s huge,” said Joe Kutchera of dotGlobal, a digital Hispanic/Latin American marketing consultancy agency. He is writing a book about launching websites that cater to Hispanics.

“It’s taking [marketing agencies] from banner production to content production,” he said.
At Captura Group we’ve always produced content for online Hispanics, but more recently we’ve reinvented our content development process to better engage with online Hispanics while providing value for our clients.

We have gone from a long content development process designed to produce relatively static content for websites, to a much more agile process that almost resembles a newsroom.

Today, we are producing and publishing timely and relevant content on a daily basis. This includes writing Facebook and Twitter updates that are similar to news headlines, responding to consumer questions and feedback, and also producing and syndicating articles to many Hispanic online publishers.

Original content has benefits, pitfalls

Kutchera says there are good reasons to embrace the concept of producing your own content. Companies have better control over their message, and benefit from increased engagement and SEO. But he also offers a word of caution for those who try to sell first and engage later.

“No matter what language you use, consumers can figure out in the second whether the content is real or not, and if it sounds cheesy they will drop it,” he said.

The ability to produce and distribute quality content is really the key to online marketing today. After all, content is and always will be king.

Here are ten tips for using content to effectively reach online Hispanics:

1. Don’t be afraid of the social Internet, embrace it
2. Develop clear goals and objectives upfront
3. Establish a voice and develop guidelines to ensure it is always consistent
4. Ensure that all content provides value to your target audience
5. Don’t be afraid to test out different things
6. Make sure content is engaging, stimulate a conversation
7. Create an agile process, including legal approvals
8. Make sure your content is social media optimized to maximize sharing
9. Avoid using regional Spanish when engaging to national Hispanic audiences
10. Be consistent when using the formal “usted” and “tu” communication forms in Spanish

What does that mean for us marketers?

We need to proactively address the demographic shift that’s occurring right now.

Jennifer was born in North Tonawanda, N.Y., a community of 32,000 people, out of which 97.9% are Anglo, and where Kimmelweck rolls are hugely popular. Jennifer remembers her father asking her if her friend Adrian from high school was Puerto Rican. Jennifer did not know what he meant. She asked Adrian if he was Puerto Rican and that was the beginning of a journey that has transformed her into being what America is becoming, more and more multicultural.

North Tonawanda meets Mexicali

Jennifer ended up moving to San Diego, where she met Arnulfo Manriquez, or “Nufi,” an immigrant from Mexicali, Mexico, and got married. She then became Jennifer Manriquez, and the country became a little bit more diverse.

Jennifer distinctly remembers her first experiences trying to fit in to the Manriquez family. At a family wedding, Jennifer was with Nufi’s multiple sisters and aunts who didn’t realize she spoke Spanish.

“Ella esta muy flaquita, no es Latina para nada” (”She is too skinny, she is not a Latina”), they said in front of Jennifer, who played it cool. When her future cuñadas and tías realized she spoke Spanish, they were slightly embarrassed, but, more importantly, a bit more accepting of the skinny white girl from North Tonawanda.

It took a while for Nufi’s mom to come around as well. At an early family dinner, la suegra cooked spicy chile rellenos for the family and a bland chicken dish just for Jennifer. Jennifer, who loves spicy food, immediately downed the chile rellenos, and her future mother-in-law said with a smile, “You really are a bit Mexican.”

Tamales meet Kimmelweck Rolls

Today Jennifer and Nufi are happily married and have three kids. Although they mainly consume English media, they speak to their children only in Spanish at home. They celebrate Christmas on both Dec. 24 with tamales and salsa and the 25th with ham, scallop potatoes and Kimmelweck rolls.

When Judge Sonia Sotomayor was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court, Jennifer’s oldest daughter asked her, “What is a Latina, Mom?” Without hesitation, Jennifer answered, “You are.” Her inquisitive daughter then asked, “What are you mom?” and Jennifer said, “I am white.”

Jennifer’s advice to marketers is to inject multiculturalism into advertising and messaging. “Advertising that reflects my family’s multicultural reality is what resonates with me.”

Astronaut José Hernández, aka @Astro_Jose, tweets in both English and Spanish to 100,000 people who have been following his remarkable life from picking the fields as a child in northern California to outer space.

It’s not hard for him to find followers these days.

The majority of online Americans now visit social networking sites, and Hispanics and other minorities continue to visit them more than Non-Hispanic whites, according to the 2009 Multicultural Marketing Study by the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication at Florida State University, DMS Research, and Captura Group.

The study also reveals that social media usage among Hispanics and other minorities continues to grow by double digits with Facebook and MySpace leading the way. What’s more, smaller social networking sites such as Hi5, Black Planet, Twitter and LinkedIn have strong appeal with certain ethnic groups.

Most online Americans visit social networking sites at least twice a month

In the past year, we found that usage of social networks across ethnic segments has grown exponentially. Marketers take note: most Americans now use social networking sites and use them as increasingly important means for communication and information.

Although ethnic minorities are still more likely to visit social networking sites when compared to Non-Hispanic Whites, the gap has closed considerably as social networking has become more popular.

Most ethnic segments now prefer Facebook over MySpace

In 2008 we found that MySpace held a firm lead over Facebook. Today, the tables have turned and Facebook has become more popular among all of the ethnic groups that we analyzed with the exception of Spanish-Preferring Hispanics.

Social media preferences are beginning to fragment among minorities

When considering a social media strategy, marketers should take note that ethnic groups have preferences between social networking sites. Consider the case of Hi5, a social media site with a strong presence in Latin America. Its success in the southern hemisphere has made it extremely popular with Spanish-Preferring Hispanics in the U.S. who want to connect with family members back home.

Today, Hi5 competes with both Facebook and MySpace among Spanish-Preferring Hispanics (29.1 percent usage versus 36 percent and 41 percent, respectively).

These findings are important because as social networking has become ubiquitous, specialized sites have become viable options for advertisers looking to target ethnic audiences.

Asian Americans are twice as likely to use LinkedIn and Twitter

The 2009 study also included the usage of LinkedIn and Twitter. We found that both sites are still emerging and most popular among Asian Americans. We attribute the popularity of LinkedIn and Twitter among Asian Americans to higher income levels and technology adoption.

More social media growth expected for 2010

In the past year, usage of social networking websites has exploded among all ethnic groups and we expect this trend to continue. While preferences of certain social networking sites might change over time, social media promises to remain relevant for all ethnic groups.

People such as José Hernández can expect many more followers.

For marketers, the sky should also be the limit.

We recently hired Tony, an intern to help us with a couple of projects here at Captura Group. As I have gotten to know him, I realized that he personifies the online Hispanic consumers that we marketers are trying so hard to reach.

Below, I introduce you to Tony and to the millions of Hispanics like him online today.

Tony is bilingual and bicultural

Jose Antonio Uribe, aka “Tony,” was born in San Diego to first-generation Mexican immigrants. He is 26, and lives with his parents and sister in National City, a suburb of San Diego that’s about 60 percent Hispanic. Tony’s family is very much Mexican American. Spend a few minutes in his home and you’ll notice something that’s happening in millions of Hispanic households across the United States: communication is a flawless mix of both English and Spanish.

He speaks only in Spanish to his mom, exclusively in English with a sister, and mixes both with his father. He watches television mostly in English, but he also catches “Sábado Gigante” with his parents and telenovelas with his girlfriend.

Tony is a proud “American Latino”

He celebrates Christmas on December 25, but also Reyes Magos on January 6, one of the most important Catholic holidays in Mexico. He celebrates Thanksgiving, but with a Chipotle turkey, and drinks tequila instead of eggnog.

Like many Latinos, he entered the workforce at a young age to help his parents. He was considered an “at risk” student by his high school counselor, and as a result enrolled in a program that helped him keep up his grades while earning extra money.

He would later graduate from the University of Phoenix with a BS in marketing.

Tony is tech savvy

Tony has been online as long as he can remember. He vividly recalls an old PC that his dad bought for the family and connecting to the Internet with NetZero and chatting on AOL. A music trendsetter among his friends, Tony was a big fan of music sharing sites Napster and LimeWire. Although Tony mainly visits English-language websites’, he communicates online with friends and family in both English and Spanish. He prefers Facebook to MySpace, although he still visits the latter once a week to keep in touch with a 350 friends.

Although Tony considers himself value conscious, he’ll save up hundreds of dollars for a product he considers worthwhile. Today, Tony sports an Apple Mac Mini and orders Chipotle burritos from his iPhone, a product he purchased “the day it came out.”

His iPhone boasts about two dozen applications, which he switches constantly. He uses the Facebook application the most to communicate with his 185 “friends.”

Tony says “Don’t try too hard”

What advice does Tony give to marketers looking to reach him and his peers? “Don’t try too hard”.

Tony feels that stereotypical Hispanic advertising misses the mark with him.

He rarely clicks on an online ad, but rather goes directly to the product website when he sees something that catches his eye. He goes online to buy clothing, books, music and event tickets. He is always looking for websites that offer a Spanish component so that he can share his interests with his monolingual friends or family members.

“My world is very multi-cultural; America is very multi-cultural, campaigns that reflect who I am appeal to me.”

Hispanics are in the online driver’s seat

Kevin, a long term executive of AOL joined Univision early this year and was “blown away by the opportunity” to join the company. “I see the Univision brand more like a consumer products brand than a media brand” explains Kevin, “we have a unique opportunity to leverage our relationship with Hispanics to endorse other brands.” Kevin has implemented many changes at Univision.com but the addition of direct links on the Univision.com page to Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, Facebook and other third party providers represents a radical shift for the company. Kevin points out that “there is a culture of family and sharing” among online Hispanics and that Univision “is striving to redefine the circle of online activity”. Kevin elaborates that Univision “embraces today’s online behavior and gives its users easy access to the things they want”.

Mark echoes Kevin’s enthusiasm about the Hispanic online market and pins Terra’s success on culturally relevant, high quality content wrapped within a social context. Mark sees “Terra as a premium content platform that puts the user in the driver’s seat.” He goes on to explain that Terra’s goal “is to strike a balance between quality and user engagement”. Terra has made several recent moves to achieve this balance including freshening up the Terra.com home page with video, dynamic content and links to their social network, Espacio Terra. In addition, Terra has dabbled on Twitter with a couple accounts that “Tweet” US news and Sports in Spanish and has a Facebook Page. Terra has also partnered with social networking site, MiGente.com giving Terra access to over one million English preferring Hispanics. On the content side, Terra powers the online presence for Reggaeton super star Daddy Yankee and has a partnership with Telemundo, called “Futbol Estelar” that produces and distributes online soccer content.

Creating innovative social advertising opportunities to reach Hispanics

At the end of the day, striking a balance between providing user value and driving advertising revenue is the top priority for Mark and Kevin. With online Hispanics increasingly taking control of their online experiences, creating valuable advertising opportunities within the social context has become a top priority. According to Mark, “about 50% of the requests for proposal we get from advertisers specifically exclude social networking”. To address this challenge, Terra is striving to “socially enable content” and create “controlled user experiences for advertisers”. For advertisers, Kevin points out that it is critical to “connect engagement to highly valued inventory” and that web publishers must “embrace the openness of the web and innovate advertising vehicles accordingly”. He elaborates by indicating that Univision will create opportunities for brands to “rub up against the social media experience”.

As Hispanics continue to turn to the Internet to express their cultural identity, advertisers will be sure to follow. This combination bodes well for Mark and Kevin and I have no doubt that they will continue to innovate to create online experiences that provide value to online Hispanics and advertisers alike.

The US Hispanic Search Market Before the Yahoo! Microsoft Partnership

Just as Google dominates the global search market, Google currently controls the lion’s share of the US Hispanic search market. According to my not-so-scientific estimates (see below), Google controls close to 47% of the US Hispanic search market. Not only is Google.com the most popular site among US Hispanics, Google has also been very savvy in establishing partnerships with leading Hispanic publishers to power their search functions. These partnerships include, but are not limited, to AOL.com and AOL Latino, Fox Interactive Media (most notably MySpace), Univision.com, Terra.com, Batanga.com, Starmedia.com and Impremedia.

I calculate that Yahoo! currently holds about 27% of the US Hispanic search market. The majority of their US Hispanic search volume comes from Yahoo.com (the second most popular site among Hispanics) in addition to Yahoo en Español. From a partnership perspective, some deals of note include Yahoo’s integration with Mexican media giant Televisa’s web portal EsMas.com which is very popular among Mexican Americans, and also with Hispanic Digital Network’s array of niche Hispanic websites.

Microsoft is in third place with 13% of the Hispanic search market thanks to the third most popular site among Hispanics, MSN.com and MSN Latino. Microsoft also picks up Hispanic searches from it’s partnership with Facebook which reaches close to 8 million US Hispanics each month.

Ask.com rounds out the top four with 13% of the Hispanic search market.

The US Hispanic Search Market After the Yahoo! Microsoft Partnership

By teaming up, Yahoo! and Microsoft will represent about 40% of the US Hispanic search market, becoming a formidable competitor to Google. Today, Hispanic online marketers typically allocate search budgets first to Google, then to Yahoo! and finally to Microsoft if budgets permit. Tomorrow, I would not be surprised to see more money going to Bing to reach Hispanics online. That of course, assumes Yahoo! and Microsoft can provide a good user experience for advertisers, value to consumers, and simply get along.

Not-So-Scientific Methodology Used in This Post

To compute the Hispanic search market estimates used in this post, I used Hispanic unique visitors data from May 2009 from comScore Media Metrix recently published in the 2009 Hispanic Fact Pack for Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Fox, AOL, Ask and Facebook. For all others, I computed Hispanic unique visitors from data provided by Quantcast, if available.

Here are some key highlights from an Hispanic Online perspective.

Hispanic Internet Advertising Spending Remains Strong

2008 saw advertisers invest $225.5 million on online advertisements directed towards Hispanic consumers. This represents a healthy growth rate of 25% over 2007. Compare this to total US Hispanic ad spending growth of 1.9% and total US ad spending that declined 4.1% in 2008. Although the Hispanic Internet market seems to have weathered the economic storm, it still only represents 5.6% of all measured media ad spending against Hispanics. To me these figures indicate that we have plenty of room to grow and will see advertisers continue to allocate incremental dollars to reach Hispanics online.

Hispanics Like Facebook as Much as MySpace

Some of our previous Hispanic social media research has pointed to a strong affinity among Hispanics for social media and this has been confirmed in a spring 2009 survey conduced by Captura Group, Dr. Felipe Korzenny, the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communications at Florida State University and DMS research. Data from this recent study, published in the 2009 Ad Age Hispanic Fact Pack, indicates that 41% of online Hispanics visit both Facebook and MySpace regularly. When you look at the data by language preference, Facebook has the edge among English preferring Hispanics with 44% of them visiting the site regularly vs. 41% for MySpace. That being said, as of today, there are about 1.4 million Spanish preferring Hispanics in the US who have Facebook accounts, significantly more than the 1 million I reported back in May. Furthermore, Spanish preferring Hispanics have a strong affinity for Hi5 and Tagged.com with 29% and 11% visiting each site respectively compared to only 6% and 5% for online Hispanics who prefer English.

The Future for Hispanic Online Marketing Looks Bright

I remain bullish on the Hispanic Online Market and feel that the data from the 2009 Ad Age Hispanic Fact Pack support this point of view. In addition, as I wrote back in January, we have the 2010 census around the corner, the Obama factor and increasing research are proving that Hispanics are one of the most social groups online.

Facebook usage is exploding in Spanish speaking countries

Back in February 2008, Facebook tapped its own user base to translate the social network’s interface into Spanish. That project is a great case study on how leverage the power of social media to enhance a brand and build a user base. At the time, Facebook had about 2.3 million active users in Spanish speaking countries. Less than six months later, Facebook reached 2.5 million active users in Chile alone! In fact, the launch of a Spanish interface was so successful that between February and July of 2008, new Facebook accounts in Spanish speaking countries grew 325% from 2.3 million to 9.9 million. That means that in six months, more than 7.5 million Facebook accounts were created in countries where Spanish is spoken. A true network effect had taken hold in Spanish-speaking countries and the phenomenon also took hold among Spanish preferring US Hispanics as they received invitations from family and friends to join Facebook and vice-versa.

There are more than 1 million Spanish preferring US Hispanics on Facebook

In May 2009, Facebook announced that marketers now have the ability to target users by language preference, giving rise to a powerful and cost effective way to reach Spanish preferring Hispanics on this popular social network. Adding language targeting to the pre-existing ability to target users by geography, sex, age, education level, workplace, relationship status and interests gave marketers a new way to reach this growing market segment, all on a cost per click basis. This represents not only a new medium for large national advertisers to execute hyper targeted campaigns with highly relevant advertising creative, but also a cost effective vehicle for local advertisers looking to tap into this loyal audience.

As with all initiatives, success requires research, strategy and execution of best practices

The intersection of the Hispanic online market and social media is an exciting and powerful opportunity for marketers to reach this growing and lucrative segment. However, now more than ever, succeeding in this new social context requires a research-based, strategic approach that balances business objectives with user needs. Before dedicating efforts to target Spanish-preferring Hispanics on Facebook or any other social network, make sure to take the following best practices into account:

We recently conducted an analysis of newly collected data to examine the patterns of social media behaviors of different ethnic/cultural groups in the US. The data comes from the Florida State University Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication with the support of DMS Research from a national online sample of nearly 2,500 people with approximately 500 cases in each of the following cultural groups: Hispanics who prefer English, Hispanics who prefer Spanish, Non-Hispanic Whites, African Americans, and Asians in the United States.

Ethnic minorities visit social networking sites more frequently than non-Hispanic Whites

We aggregated information to find out what ethnic/cultural groups are more likely to visit social networking sites. We found broad diversity in social media behaviors among different ethnic/cultural groups and that emerging minorities visit social networking sites more frequently than non-Hispanic whites.

We then broke out the data for leading social networks, MySpace and Facebook, to see if there are any groups leading usage of the most popular social networking sites—again, minorities lead the way, with English Preferring Hispanics being twice as likely to visit MySpace regularly than Non-Hispanic Whites. The relative importance of emerging minorities as compared with the traditional majority points to a major shift in social influence.

Demographics, culture and market factors drive ethnic minorities to social networks

This data is interesting, but in order for these findings to be useful and actionable for us as marketers, we need to determine the reason for the strong representation of ethnic minorities on social networking sites and how to best engage with this audience. We believe that there is a mix of cultural, demographic and market factors that make social media particularly appealing to emerging minorities.

Demographically, ethnic minorities are younger than non-Hispanic Whites. It’s no secret that younger people in general are more likely to adopt new technologies, particularly technologies that enable communication and provide social connectivity. This age gap between minorities and non-Hispanics only partially explains the gap in social media involvement.

Age is only a partial explanation for the use of social media among ethnic minorities

In order to analyze the influence of age on social media behavior, we divided respondents into two segments, those 35 years of age and younger and those 36 years of age and older. The following chart shows that people 35 and younger of all cultural backgrounds are more likely to use social media, with Hispanics who prefer to communicate in Spanish and African Americans lagging behind. Young Spanish preferring Hispanics may lag because they are likely to be newer to the Internet, and also because their friends and relatives are less likely to be online due to economic and access factors. While Hispanics in general are aggressively getting online, those less acculturated are still somewhat less represented in the digital realm today.

When examining the usage of social networking sites among those 36 and older, we find that that older Hispanics, regardless of language preference are more active especially when compared non-Hispanic Whites within the same age group.

This substantiates the notion that age is only a partial explanation for the higher usage of social media among Hispanics and other ethnic minorities. Culture and market factors also play an important role in promoting online social connectivity among these groups.

Collectivistic values, communication and lack of relevant content are key drivers of social behavior online

Culturally, ethnic minorities tend to be drawn to collectivistic values and often look to one another to help guide decisions and opinions. In addition, ethnic minorities are more likely to leverage social networks to communicate with groups of family and friends who are geographically dispersed. Social media facilitates such collective sharing of information and communication.

In addition, market forces are driving ethnic minorities to use social media. There is a dearth of culturally relevant and in-language content available online. As a result, ethnic minorities tend to be proactive and create and share their own content and social networks are ideal platforms for publishing and distributing such original content.

Social networking services allow people to organize and enhance their relationships online, but regardless of technology, culture is still the glue that bonds people together. Marketers seeking to reach ethnic minorities through social media must reinforce and connect with the culture of their target audience if they seek to strengthen their clients’ brands on social networks—doing so requires a strategic long term approach that should include the following elements:

Define your social media marketing objectives

Using social media can accomplish a number of business objectives. Do you want to advertise a new product? Gather research? Provide customer service and build goodwill? Knowing what you’re looking for will make it much easier to find it.

Understand your audience and be strategic

A successful social media strategy requires a clear definition of objectives, understanding o your audience and a strategy for engaging them. Consider the cultural motivations that are driving your target audience to social media. Are they there to talk about music? Are they keeping in touch with relatives overseas? Are they there to connect and share their collective culture? What language are they using? They may be doing all of these things and more, but if you can determine what’s drawing your audience to social media in the first place, you’ll have a better chance of engaging them when you join their conversations. Building and maintaining conversations with a target audience requires research, careful planning and a strategic approach.

Dedicate resources to proactively engage your audience with timely and relevant content

Ethnic minorities are turning to social networks to express themselves, connect with their culture and communicate with each other. To be successful, marketers must be open to engaging audiences with timely and relevant content that stimulates feedback and sharing. Engaging in meaningful conversations is the goal of social media marketing and doing so requires a deep understanding of needs, openness to negative commentary and dedicated resources. A social media presence is worthless if it lies dormant.

The time is now

Few marketers are proactively targeting ethnic minorities online and even fewer are leveraging social media to do so. A first mover advantage is available for those that devote the time and resources to engage these critical audiences in ways that they find meaningful. The fact is that we now have an unprecedented ability to reach and interact with ethnic minorities; and companies that deliver value to this segment today will be rewarded with the long term loyalty of this market.

By:
Felipe Korzenny, Ph.D., Director, Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication at Florida State University, and Senior Strategy Consultant, Captura Group
Lee Vann, Founder and CEO, Captura Group

Originally published by Media Post on February 19, 2009.

Don’t look now but the 2010 census is coming

The buzz from the 2000 Census has worn off. We Hispanic marketing professionals grabbed hold of the fact that Hispanics had become the largest minority and preached this message to anyone who would listen. As a result, most marketing executives now understand that Hispanics matter to their business and their bottom line. The question among them today is not “Are there Hispanics in the US?” but “How do I sell them my products and services?” We’re going to have another party when the 2010 census comes out next year. Undoubtedly the data will show that the Hispanic market has continued to grow at incredible levels, Hispanics are even more geographically dispersed and as a group, are much younger than the average American. The Hispanic marketing industry won’t miss a beat in unleashing a flurry of new reports, white papers and articles demanding that marketers pay more attention to this vibrant and valuable audience.

The Obama factor

Multicultural marketers also have Barack Obama to thank for an increased focus on multicultural audiences and their increasing use of technology. Not only has his victory demonstrated that the country has come a long way in race relations, he also unequivocally showed that minorities are becoming the new majority and technology is a very effective way to reach and influence them. Marketers should pay particular attention to the following statistics from CNN’s exit polls. Barack Obama lost the “majority” white vote to John McCain, receiving only 43% of the white vote. Meanwhile, he won the “minority” vote, garnering 95% of the African American vote, 67% of the Latino vote and 62% of the Asian vote. Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election by marketing to minorities, and did so most effectively using technology and new media.

Hispanics are one of the most social groups online

Yes, Hispanics are online. In fact, there are over 20 million of them online today and they’re growing, fast. Hispanic online market growth will continue to outpace general market growth into the foreseeable future. What’s most compelling for Hispanic online marketing however is the fact that Hispanics are extremely active and social online. Research from Dr. Felipe Korzenny, Tamara Barber at Forrester Research and the Pew Research Center indicates that Hispanics are leading the charge on the social web. Hispanics are young, which explains part of the phenomenon. However, what’s fascinating is that culturally Hispanics are, well, more social. They have strong ties to friends and family and have a powerful drive to stay connected. In addition, Hispanics, regardless of their language preference are turning to the social web to consume and create their own content. There is a lack of high quality, culturally relevant content in English and Spanish, so, Hispanics are creating their own! This represents a great opportunity for savvy marketers who can figure out how and where to reach these online Hispanics.

Be fearful when others are greedy and optimistic when others are fearful

While this is an investment philosophy touted by the great Warren Buffet, this mantra should also be embraced by marketers who are deciding how to invest their marketing dollars. Don’t wait for the next gold rush in Hispanic marketing when the 2010 Census comes out. The time is NOW to invest in this growing and lucrative market. But, don’t just take my word for it. Check out Ad Week’s January 12, 2008 report about reaching Hispanics through the web. Companies who offer value to this market today will be rewarded with the long term loyalty of this growing market. I am personally very excited to be working with our clients in 2009 to deliver results in this promising marketplace that I am so passionate about.