Tweet This article originally appeared on Fox News Latino. eMarketer projects that between 2012 and 2016, Latin America will be one of the world’s fastest-growing regions for online advertising spending, growing from $3.62 billion in 2012 to $7.68 billion in 2016, a 112% increase in just four years. Yet, legacy monopolies like Televisa, creator of many of the world’s most popular telenovelas along with its competitor TV Azteca, still dominate media spending where 56% of advertising dollars go towards broadcast television while only 10% goes

Tweet This article originally appeared on FoxNews.com. “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning,” said Bill Gates. And the best place to find those unhappy customers today is on Twitter, Facebook and across your social media channels. I recently flew on the Mexican discount airline, Volaris, and had an experience that highlights how not to manage both customer service and social media among an international, multi-lingual audience. Allow me to explain the details of what happened, and conclude with six lessons on

Tweet This article originally appeared on FoxNews.com If you want your company’s brands to make 100,000 “friends” on Facebook, Tatiana Hansell can show you how. As Unilever’s Multicultural Marketing Manager of personal care products, Hansell developed its Vivemejor branded content initiative for Latina women online. First, she launched its Spanish-language website, ViveMejor.com, which provides helpful cooking and beauty tips for Latina moms. Today, with the explosion of social media, Vive Mejor, which means “Live Better” in English, distributes its content across the major social sites:

Tweet The following article first appeared on Fox News Latino. For years, Latinos have been held back by the “digital divide,” an information and technology gap relative to wealthier audiences that enjoy greater access to expensive computers and broadband connections. But two Internet trends will close that gap in 2011 and beyond: mobile and social media. In fact, experts predict that Hispanics could actually become leaders in adoption of new technology. Today, we still see a digital divide in home computer ownership. Six out of

Tweet This article originally appeared on MediaPost. Last week, the leading advertisers convened in Miami for the ANA’s annual Multicultural Marketing & Diversity Conference. Historically, Hispanic, African-American and Asian-American marketers have fought hard for budgets even though demographic trends point to the fact that today’s minorities will become the majority in the coming decades. Hence, the summit was subtitled, “Multicultural – The New Mainstream.” One marketer who clearly sees the growth of multicultural audiences converging with the growth of social media is McDonald’s. Rick Wion,

Tweet While doing research for my book – Latino Link – I ran into one of my old co-workers and friends by happenstance, Tamara de Anda, during a trip to Mexico. Here we are at Café de Carlo in the Roma neighborhood of Mexico City. She is one of my favorite bloggers/tweeters in Spanish who writes by the name “Plaqueta.” Her blogging style reminds me of Seinfeld in that she writes about “nothing,” or really everyday life in Mexico City – the places she goes,

Tweet Scott Monty gave an insightful keynote presentation at the OMMA conference last week about how Ford uses social media to listen and respond to its customers.  Check out his presentation below and their Fiesta Movement social media site where 100 “agents” document their 6-month trial of a Ford Fiesta via Flickr, Twitter, blogs, etc. Zero to 60: Social Media Strategy via Ford [Keynote - OMMA Global 2009] View more presentations from Scott Monty.

Tweet My friend David Berkowitz told me about a new white paper that his agency – 360i – recently launched: 2009 Social Marketing Playbook. It highlights four questions that all marketers should ask when putting together a social marketing campaign: 1) Does the opportunity meet your brand’s objectives? 2) Does the opportunity leverage your brand’s existing arsenal of assets? 3) Does the opportunity abide by the social media rules of the road? 4) Does it provide significant value exchange? In addition, the playbook features social

Tweet Well here is a Catch-22 of social media.  AdAge reported that Ted McConnell, general manager-interactive marketing and innovation at P&G, questioned Facebook‘s potential as a marketing platform saying “What in heaven’s name made you think you could monetize the real estate in which somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend?” And also this week, the Mommy mini-bloggers of Twitter criticized Motrin’s new marketing message so harshly that McNeil Consumer Healthcare pulled the entire media campaign because of the criticism on the mini-blogging site. So,

Tweet What’s the difference between blogs and regular websites nowadays? It seems not much anymore. As Richard Jalichandra, the CEO of Technorati, said here “It’s getting harder and harder to define. Many mainstream media sites are adding blogs and blogging styles into their mix, many of the larger blogs are taking on features of mainstream sites and some blogs have transformed into full-blown mainstream media sites themselves with editorial staffs and business functions.” And with so many blogs out there and the barrier to entry