ComCorp, Inc. Articles

Hispanic Social Networks Boost Online Advertising Efforts

Crossing over all ethnic and geographic boundaries, social networking sites is increasingly transforming the world into one global community. A recent study made by the Pew Internet and American Life Project shows that 67% of US based-Hispanics within the 18 to 27 years old age range social networking sites such as MySpace, Friendster and Facebook and most online advertisers are taking full advantage of this demographic fact. Social networking websites are now very popular with Internet users of varying ages and background. Mostly motivated by an innate human tendency to make interactions and establish social connections, these social networking websites continue to grow considerably daily by thousands and thousands of users. With the increase of online social networks, a lot of people, including online businesses and advertisers have started to take advantage of these online communities in promoting their goods and services.

But Joseph Anthony, CEO of Vital Marketing believes that the growth of the Hispanic online community indicates a need to create more entertainment and networking sites that would cater to the significant Spanish-speaking minority. Hispanic influences should cease to be considered as “exotic” or “minority” but should be taken advantaged of in order to build up a growing and culturally diverse market for products of a wide variety from clothing apparel to food products to electronic gadgets and appliances. “As a booming group, minorities now set the pace at which trends are developed.” Mr Anthony explains further, “With this social influence and undeniable buying power, this market must be addressed directly.”

Vital Marketing has been instrumental in expanding the brand buildup of the U.S. Army, NASCAR, Motorola and Tommy Hilfiger among minority markets like the Hispanic population. The next step to reach out to the Hispanics according to Mr Anthony is the creation of El Hood, a bilingual social networking site that would specifically promote the latest Latin music. A bilingual social network will build the dynamic web-based dialogue that will create more avenues for online marketing campaigns.

Another study made by Forrester Research, Inc showed that 51% of today’s US Hispanic Internet users opt to use Spanish-language websites while another 23% tend to use Spanish often. In fact Vital Marketing’s El Hood will just share the Hispanic online community with exisiting Spanish networking sites like Quepasa.com, MiGente.com, MyGrito.com, Vostu.com and the Spanish-language version Latino.MySpace.com.

However Mr Anthony believes that building Hispanic online networking sites is one of the best ways for products and services to find themselves to the Hispanic market and increase in-store purchases. Any company that wants to make significant sales increases should take account of these Hispanic-focused social networking sites. With the right offline and interactive branding and marketing strategies, social networking sites can significantly reinforce conventional online. More importantly, Mr Anthony believes that relying on television broadcasts to reach the Hispanic community is no longer practical. In online advertising, social networks can provide the personalization and feeling of authenticity that would help business to get close and personal with their target Hispanic consumers.