Right out of college, I worked as the corporate communications director for a national health care contract therapy provider based in the Midwest. During the first few months on the job, they sent me to Hollister, California, to help untangle a perplexing puzzle one of the clinics was having with the cooperative marketing program. It was failing miserably to reach the seasonal population boom of Hispanic immigrants who came for temporary harvest work in the fields and canning factories. When I asked the regional manager – a Midwest transplant – about advertising, he dismissed the idea, complaining, “All the radio stations and newspapers are in Spanish!”
That was in 1983. Today, the nation is much more savvy about the influence multi-cultural – and increasingly Hispanic – voices have on business, advocacy campaigns, and causes. As content creators and curators, we know that audience is the most important guiding tenet to communications aimed at supporting business goals. If your audience doesn’t find it relevant, if it doesn’t answer their questions, lead them to solutions – especially your solutions, then nothing else matters. Know your audience. Then create content that speaks to it.
Two news items this week to keep in mind when considering the significant and increasing influence of Hispanic voices in your business or cause community.
How do you make your content relevant to this and any audience influential to your social advocacy network? Listen to their voices. Go where they go to become informed. Learn their interests. Know their cultural and socio-political experiences. Ask to be invited to community meetings; better yet, offer to volunteer. Be a more conscious joiner in their community. Finally, watch for The 2012 Hispanic Voice Town Hall Tour, an open forum for all Hispanics to express their voices, concerns and solutions for the community and contributions to the future of America. Find out when it will be coming to a community near you.
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