Archive for January, 2010
Friday, January 29th, 2010
By Kerri Allen, REVOLUCION
(as posted on cisionnavigator, 1/28/10)
Lean in close to your screen. I have something to tell you. Latinos use computers. It’s true. Know what else? There are more Latino bloggers than general market bloggers. I didn’t believe it either, but this week has seen a spate of industry reports saying exactly that and more.
Depending on the source, there is anywhere from 5.4 percent to 7.5 percent more Hispanic bloggers than whites in the U.S. The gap is due to the “liberating” effects of new technology, the skill set that online adroitness offers working-class Latinos and stay-at-home moms, and the longstanding cultural value on collectivism over individualism.
Not only are the numbers higher, but blogueros’ communities and commenters are more active and vocal than their general market counterparts. Latinos’ drive to blog is less about grandstanding and more about conversation. (Perez Hilton notwithstanding.)
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Tags: Blog, Blogeando, blogging, Blogueros, Census, Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, Social media
Posted in Blog, Blogeando, Blogueros, Census, Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, Social media, blogging | 20 Comments »
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
When your company is trying to get the Hispanic media’s attention, having a celebrity spokesperson can be helpful. However, picking one isn’t as easy as looking at who’s on the cover of Latina magazine. When selecting a Hispanic spokesperson, there are several things you’ll want to consider.
1. Your spokesperson should speak Spanish fluently. The audience’s patience will wear thin if your spokesperson doesn’t speak their language, even if he or she is a major star. Broadcasters won’t like it if you bring along a translator either, as it will cause delays during the interview.
2. Your spokesperson should not currently be on one of the Spanish networks’ programs. The Spanish networks are fiercely competitive and they are not interested in interviewing talent from one of their rivals. They also don’t want to interview talent who are currently on their own network, as it’s seen as self-promotion.
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Tags: celebrity, Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, public relations, spokesperson
Posted in Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, celebrity, public relations, spokesperson | 26 Comments »
Thursday, January 21st, 2010
Most young Americans look to leave their parents’ house as soon as they graduate from college or get their first full-time job. The traditional logic is that it’s time they set out on their “own path”.
However, in Latin America, it’s both common and perfectly respectable for young adults to live with their family until marriage. This tradition of living at home has followed Latinos to the States. It is not uncommon to find Hispanic children living at home until they get married.
The family plays a bigger role among Latinos than it does for many Americans. In America, a family’s influence is often seen at being odds with one’s individualism, but for Latinos, family ties are often an important part of shaping one’s own identity. Family is a resource, not a crutch. Hispanics tend to have stronger family connections, especially to extended family. These connections influence their consumer behavior, and companies that recognize that can find greater success in the Hispanic market.
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Tags: culture, Family, Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, shopping
Posted in Buying power, Family, Hispanic, HispanicPR, culture | 7 Comments »
Friday, January 15th, 2010
Hispanics have traditionally trailed behind other groups when it comes to Internet use, but according to a recent Pew Hispanic report, they are closing the gap.
From 2006-2008, Internet use among Latino adults rose 10 percent, compared to four percent for whites and only two percent for Afro-Americans. Much of this growth in use is by Latino adults not traditionally known for Internet use, such as the foreign-born, those without high-school diplomas or with household incomes under $30,000. Along with the increase in use, broadband access has also risen, and mobile Web browsing remains stronger among Hispanics than for other ethnicities.
Internet use grew from 54 to 64 percent among Hispanics from 2006-2008. They are now as likely as African-Americans to be online, though both groups still lag behind non-Hispanic whites.
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Tags: culture, Hispanic, HispanicPR, Internet, Latino, mobile, Mobile Web, Spanish
Posted in Hispanic, HispanicPR, Internet, Mobile Web, Pew Hispanic, culture, immigrant, mobile | No Comments »
Thursday, January 14th, 2010
By Melissa Smith, Executive Vice President at RL Public Relations
When I began working in PR in 1993, the terms “multicultural” and “diversity” were rarely used. I was aware of their meanings of course, but the words themselves did not come up in conversation often, if ever. It wasn’t until I left the smaller PR firm scene and entered the big agency world in the late 90’s that I was exposed to these terms more frequently, specifically in the business realm.
Growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970s, I clearly knew what multicultural meant, but it was my everyday life – something you lived without thinking… it wasn’t an “initiative” or a target market, or even a word in your vocabulary. In fact it was not until I went to college in the Midwest that I realized how culturally diverse my life was. I can still recall missing the energy, restlessness and variety that I took for granted in New York, after I landed in St. Louis (at Washington University) where all three of those characteristics were alarmingly absent…
Once I began working at GCI Group (now Cohn & Wolfe), I learned simultaneously about the practice of multicultural marketing, and the lack of diversity in the PR industry. Those two concepts were etched into my mind as distinct and not interchangeable: multicultural marketing was reaching out to different ethnic groups, and diversity was what was (or wasn’t) going on internally – in our industry and in our company. I believe it was back then – pre 9/11 – that HR departments began their official diversity initiatives, and big agencies began putting out their “diversity reports” – all aimed at raising awareness of the obvious lack of diversity in our industry in an effort to show that they were doing something about it.
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Tags: Diversity, Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, Multicultural, public relations
Posted in Diversity, Hispanic, HispanicPR, Latino, Multicultural | 4 Comments »
Friday, January 8th, 2010
In addition to being the largest minority group in the U.S., Hispanics are the youngest as well. The median age for Hispanics in the U.S. is 27, and Hispanic children are one of the fastest-growing demographics in the country.
A recent study from the Pew Hispanic Center shows that today’s Hispanic youth maintain strong links to their family’s roots and language, yet also place a high priority on success in America.
The Pew Center looked at Hispanic youth ages 16-25 and found a significant change had occurred over the last decade. In 1995, half of Latino youth were immigrants. Now, second-generation Americans, U.S.-born children of immigrant parents, are the largest percentage of Latino youth. They now make up 37 percent, while foreign-born immigrants make up 34 percent. Third-generation and higher youth, the children of American parents, make up the smaller group, 29 percent.
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Tags: Acculturation, Assimilation, Census, culture, HispanicPR, immigrant, language, Latino, Pew Hispanic, Population, Tradition, Youth
Posted in Acculturation, Assimilation, Census, Hispanic, Hispanic 101, HispanicPR, Latino, Pew Hispanic, Population, Tradition, Youth, culture, immigrant, language | No Comments »