Networking and Latino Business Owners

A few weeks ago I wrote about "Hispanics Mean Business - Professional Group." HMB was featured in today's E-News of the Latino Journal Magazine.

July 27, 2009 Issue No. 49

Latinos and the Economy

Networking helps Latino business owners stay afloat, grow
By Adrian Peréz

"With double-digit unemployment and businesses closing their doors throughout the nation, Hispanic business owners are learning the power of "teaming" and "networking" to create opportunities for one another and establish strong referral services to ensure continued prosperity. This isn't new for numerous Hispanic chambers of commerce that conduct business mixers and business matching services to their members. But, not all Hispanic business owners are members of chambers of commerce, allowing an opportunity for other groups to create networking opportunities. Such is the case for a small, but growing group out of San Francisco, California called "Hispanics Mean Business" (HMB).

Launched by Sofia Keck, a principal of Sell It In Spanish.com, HMB has grown legs among the many professionals and business owners seeking ways of staying in business. The organization meets, informally, on a regular basis and each member is encouraged to conduct a 20 minute discussion about their business or expertise and sharing what has and has not worked for them with those in attendance. The discussion leads to additional ideas and options that the presenter may not had thought of, including teaming with like businesses where mutual growth is promoted.

"The economy is pushing us to look for ways to remain successful," says Sofia. "Through referrals, teaming and self-promotion, we will find an effective way so you can implement your product or service continuously, and that is our goal."

HMB has become an exclusive resource for Hispanic professionals around Northern California to build connections and receive event invitations, receive presentations from experts in different industries and create opportunities to generate more business.

HMB members are leaders, business owners, entrepreneurs and influencers who are proactive in achieving personal growth, community improvement and business success.

The informal sessions allow the members to:

Promote themselves or products as needed, discussing "Why people should afford to work with you right now?"
Promote themselves or products as a solution, focusing on "Right now people need to survive and want to see fast results so they might not be thinking about long term investments."
Promote themselves or products as a support, understanding that having new ideas is great but right now people may not have the time and budget to "explore" those ideas, making it necessary to maximize time and effort invested.

"When you network you get a chance to shake hands with potential clients, potential partners and potential friends. To me, this sounds like a good investment," adds Sofia.

For more information, contact Sofia Keck by visiting www.sellitinspanish.com."

Spanish Translations: Good enough?

Last Thursday at the “Business After Hours Grand Expo” I collected a few brochures from various booths. I was glad to see that many businesses provide information in English and in Spanish; unfortunately a few of these brochures were literal Spanish translations from their English information.

I say unfortunately for two main reasons: one, a couple of translations did not make sense. The message generated from these translations was not consistent in both languages. The majority of the translations were of good quality – meaning that if they would be translated back into English after being translated into Spanish we would find the same use of English words from the original document - but some failed to communicate the actual value of the business itself. Even the jargon was translated, which made it even worse.

Many people asked me that evening: “how can I communicate with Hispanics if I don’t speak Spanish?” Based on these brochures I can confidently say that communicating to Hispanics in Spanish may not be the key to success per se. A translator is not necessarily a marketer, and in order for translations to be successful the translator has to have a keen sense of the intended audience.

Businesses should think of “conversion” instead of “translation” when marketing to Hispanics. Even though conversion and translation might be used as synonyms, the subtle difference between them is worth knowing. Conversion focuses on the message while translation focuses on the actual words. Obviously, the message is much more important. The best thing would be to create the messages in Spanish from scratch to be sure that the totality of the message is being delivered not only correctly but also in a meaningful way.

This brings me to my second reason why literal translations from English to Spanish often come up short. No matter how good a translation is, the majority of the time it is evident that Spanish was not the original language of the message. From a psychological standpoint, the message sent is that Spanish-speakers were not the intended recipients for the products or services offered by a particular business. If it is evident that the content is a mere literal translation, the Hispanic consumer might not feel as valued and conclude that the message does not apply directly to them. It is important to understand that the Spanish language –as any other language- carries cultural values and experiences making it extremely important not to think of words just as “words.” To grasp this concept, ask yourself how you feel when someone reads you a sonnet from Shakespeare, versus how you feel when someone writes you a poem inspired specifically by you.

Social Media Marketing: The Time Is NOW, notes Guest Blogger

Social media is now ubiquitous. Usage of blogs, social networks, and video sharing sites is increasing rapidly and millions of people now look to social media websites as their primary source of news, opinion, and entertainment. As we witness this dramatic shift from traditional to social media, we believe it’s important to examine its cultural dimensions—that is, who is driving this shift, what are the cultural factors behind it, and what are the implications for marketers seeking to reach specific ethnic/cultural groups via social media?

We recently conducted an analysis of newly collected data to examine the patterns of social media behaviors of different ethnic/cultural groups in the US. The data comes from the Florida State University Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication with the support of DMS Research from a national online sample of nearly 2,500 people with approximately 500 cases in each of the following cultural groups: Hispanics who prefer English, Hispanics who prefer Spanish, Non-Hispanic Whites, African Americans, and Asians in the United States.
Ethnic minorities visit social networking sites more frequently than non-Hispanic Whites

We aggregated information to find out what ethnic/cultural groups are more likely to visit social networking sites. We found broad diversity in social media behaviors among different ethnic/cultural groups and that emerging minorities visit social networking sites more frequently than non-Hispanic whites.

Dedicate resources to proactively engage your audience with timely and relevant content

Ethnic minorities are turning to social networks to express themselves, connect with their culture and communicate with each other. To be successful, marketers must be open to engaging audiences with timely and relevant content that stimulates feedback and sharing. Engaging in meaningful conversations is the goal of social media marketing and doing so requires a deep understanding of needs, openness to negative commentary and dedicated resources. A social media presence is worthless if it lies dormant.

The time is now

Few marketers are proactively targeting ethnic minorities online and even fewer are leveraging social media to do so. A first mover advantage is available for those that devote the time and resources to engage these critical audiences in ways that they find meaningful. The fact is that we now have an unprecedented ability to reach and interact with ethnic minorities; and companies that deliver value to this segment today will be rewarded with the long term loyalty of this market.

Read the complete post The Multicultural World of Social Media Marketing

GUEST BLOGGER Felipe Korzenny, Ph.D., Director, Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication at Florida State University, and Senior Strategy Consultant, Captura Group Dr. Korzenny is interested in the new Multicultural Society of the United States and how technology and marketing are changing in parallel. The questions he asks include: How do we market more effectively and with respect to emerging minorities? and How are emerging minorities behaving in a new technological landscape? Visit his blog Marketing Trends in a New Multicultural Society