"Que Pasa USA?": Hispanics, Social Media and Corporate USA

The Hispanic consumer market is something that interests me because of obvious reasons: I was born in Puerto Rico and although raised between Boston and Miami, I still consider myself a Hispanic. I am a prime example of what millions of young adults are in the mainland United States: born of Hispanic parents, raised in the United States, and “aficionados” (fans) of our Hispanic traditions. Although for many, English is their native tongue, they understand the Spanish “mother-tongue.” We also constitute, with our parents, a marketing group that some U.S. corporations do not seem to understand or know how to market to. Like my grandmother and mother would say, “Ay Bendito!”

On March 5^th Erin Byrne wrote a blog, “A Missed Opportunity," in the B-M’s Proof Digital Media site (http://www.digitalperspectiveblog.com) that pointed to a research which showed that only 22% of corporations are using social media tools to attract the Hispanic market. This research (http://www.clickz.com/3639701) states that Hispanics constitute a possible $1 trillion buying power and that 78% of Fortune 1000 corporations are either not tapping into, ignoring, or do not have the social media “know-how” on how to relate to Hispanics through these channels. The agency who did the research stated that “the survey data showed that the biggest advertisers were among those targeting Latinos the least. ‘About 50 of the Fortune 500 firms are not marketing to Latinos at all, via cyberspace, TV, or radio."

Those 78% of corporations “not marketing to Latinos” could and should- hire Public Relations agencies that have the necessary tools to engage the Hispanic market. As a company in these difficult economic times wouldn’t you want to tap at least bit into that $1 trillion pool of money? Like Erin Byrne said “What a missed opportunity! Latino’s are a very social community, both online and off.”

In an analysis done last year by Hispanic Online Marketing entitled “The Multicultural World of Social Media Marketing,” (http://www.hispaniconlinemarketing.com/2009/02/the-multicultural-world-of-social-media-marketing/) it was found that ethnic minorities visited social media sites more often that non-Hispanic whites and that English-preferred Hispanics were at the top of the list of these minorities who used the social media channels. Actually, and almost surprisingly, 24% of the Hispanic community OVER the age of thirty-five visited social media channels at least three times a month (as opposed to only 13% of the non-Hispanic Whites).

I say “Que Pasa USA?” and “Wake up and Smell the Café con Leche” to those corporations who are 1) lagging in their social media efforts and 2) lagging in their efforts to attract the Latino community. Kudos to B-M’s Erin Byrne for bringing this research to our attention!