Online Hispanic Trends

Share Your Ideas on How Federal Websites Can Better Serve Limited English Proficient Latinos Online

If you have ideas regarding how the government can improve federal websites, please join the discussion and share them in the National Dialogue on Improving Federal Websites that started today!

It's a two week online dialogue, from Sept. 19-30th, and the government would like to hear your ideas and suggestion on what it should do to improve federal websites in the following areas: 

1. Creating better user experience, navigation, and design
2. Improving content to make it more readable, engaging, and useful
3. Improving how services and transactions are delivered
4. Providing universal access to government content online, regardless of device or technology
5. Optimizing the way the public is able to search for federal content, via federal websites and commercial search engines
6. Ensuring content on federal websites is integrated with social media and other third-party websites
7. Improve how federal websites protect privacy and security
8. Reaching global audiences and people with limited English proficiency 

You can access the general discussion here, and if you'd like to comment specifically on how the government can improve its communications with limited English proficient Latinos and other multilingual audiences (Point #8), share them here. 

There will also be a mini-dialogue specifically dedicated to the last point - better serving multilingual audiences and limited English proficient audiences - on September 26th at 1:00 pm EST, so save the date and join us in a real-time, interactive discussion on the topic.

 

 

Creative Hispanic Mobile Marketing from Nestle

Recognizing that the Hispanic is more mobile that the general market - if there is such a thing these days, Nestle has launched an innovative IPhone application to promote sales of Carnation Evaporated Milk. The mobile site and app draw recipes from Nestle's http://MiCocinaLatina.com website and puts information in the hands of consumers where they are most likely to use it...at the point of sale.

The article points to research done by the Pew Internet & American Life Project indicating that "in 2009 more than 47 percent of Hispanics used a handheld device to go online, compared to 28 percent of Caucasians."

The bilingual IPhone app offers a very creative and innovative feature that allows users to shake their phone, like they would the evaporated milk before cooking with it, to generate a random recipe.

Read the full article at: Mobile Marketer

How Telemundo is Creating a "Hispanic Digital Water Cooler"

In an interview conducted by Laura Martinez, Peter Blacker, executive vice president of digital media and emerging business, explains how Telemundo is using social media to leverage the power of social media to engage, as the article states "the throngs of Hispanics who are active on Twitter, Facebook and other platforms.  

Peter explains that this effort is part of Telemundo's five-year digital plan centered around "super serving" their audiences. Telemundo currently has over 180,000 followers across 17 different platforms, including Facebook and Twitter.

One component of its five year plan is to help its clients, who tend to be a bit uncertain about how to get involved in social media, begin to experiment. To do this, Telemundo is using actors and writers from its studios to develop additional storylines that Telemundo clients can sponsor to promote their brands in the social media space.

Importantly, Blacker and Telemundo recognize that it is important to provide interesting and engaging content with the goal of creating a "digital water cooler," and not just spam their social media audience with sales pitches.

Read the full interview at:  Multichannel News

Citibank Launches Citi Mobile en Español for Smartphone Users

Seeking to gain and advantage on their competitors in the mobile online banking space and make further inroads into the growing Hispanic market, Citibank recently launched Citi Mobile en Español. In addition to to growing their client base, Citi hopes that this strategy will help with client retention as approximately 25 percent of their clients are Hispanic.

According to Pew Research, 50 percent of all Hispanics who speak English use a mobile device to access the Internet. Pew found that many of these users are bi-lingual and prefer doing business in Spanish, depending on the specific task or situation is, and that 30 percent go online daily through their mobile phones.

Source: American Banking News

NASA Astronaut Starts Agency's First Bilingual Twitter

NASA, one of the government agencies that has been doing some interesting work in the use of social media for the general market, has figured out a way to promote its mission with the Hispanic community. 

Jose Hernandez, who is set to fly aboard space shuttle Discovery in August, will be twittering about his training experience in English and Spanish.

Read the Nasa press release to learn more about this initiative and Jose's interesting background and sign up to follow Jose at http://www.twitter.com/astro_jose.

American Heart Association's Mobile Campaign for Heart Health

In response to the fact that more than 36,000 Hispanics in the U.S. die of diseases of the heart, the American Heart Association, with national sponsorship from Mazola, is launching a mobile campaign called “Pase la Voz,” which is part of the Association's Conozca Su Corozon campaign to promote awareness around heart health.

Participants can sign up to receive lighthearted audio health messages voiced by popular Latino comedians in English or Spanish over a 45 week period and visit ConozcaSuCorazon.org to access audio, ring tones and wallpapers.

Read more at prnewswire.com

and visit the American Heart Association's website

Discovery en Español Making a Difference on Earth Day

In celebration of Earth Day, Discover en Español, in collaboration with La Onda Verde of the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), is launching a multifaceted campaign to increase awareness of the state of our environment and get people to take action to make a difference.  Their campaign, called 3 Pasos, 3 Personas, will drive viewers to an innovative Web 2.0 site with the goal of getting each person to take commit to taking three actions and then inspire three friends to do the same.  Using a variety of social media platforms and email, participants will be able to see the number of total commitments in each area – water, energy and recycling.

It will be very interesting to see the results of this very innovative campaign!

Check it out and spread the word by clicking here: 3 Pasos

Smithsonian Latino Launches Latino Virtual Museum in Second Life

The Smithsonian Latino Center launched the Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum, an avatar-based 3-D virtual world featuring immersive learning activities, this week in Second Life.

According to Artdaily.org, "The program includes a welcome video using the latest in virtual-world filmmaking technologies known as “Machinima” that guides users through key areas of the museum."

"Tour sites include the “placita”; the Sin Fronteras Café; the Afro-Cuban instrument room; the “Son Clave” music lounge, featuring award-winning digital collections from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings; the amphitheater and the Smithsonian Expedition Wing, where users can learn about key archeological expeditions in Mexico through the work of Matthew Sterling; and the Olmec Legacy Collection at the National Museum of Natural History."

Read complete article at www.Artdaily.org