I won’t reveal anything new if I tell you that blogs have swept the world. According to worldmeters.info, almost 3 million blog posts are written in just a single day! However, you likely haven’t heard much about the Hispanic blogosphere.
Latinos blog about every possible subject. They write in Spanish, English, and Spanglish and they are literally everywhere. The growth in the number of Latinos who are blogging depicts the rise of a new group of Hispanic influencers.
These are individuals who go on the web and share their insights with the world. They talk politics, fashion, and business, among other topics. A Burson-Marsteller study revealed that while Hispanic consumers use the Internet to connect with friends and family to share their views about products and brands, as well as. Specifically, use blogs to tell others about product experiences.
Oscar Castillo leads the Hispanic flock at Watermark Community Church in Dallas, Texas. He’s an influencer among the U.S. Latino Christian population with more than 15,000 followers on Facebook and Twitter. Through his blog, oscarcastillo.net, Castillo offers inspiration, training and practical tips on leadership, with Christian principles and values included both in English and Spanish.
Castillo says that it’s important to remember the diversity of content that people consume:
“Not everyone watches TV, not all tune into an audio podcast or radio, so the blog allows me to reach a certain sector of my audience. In addition, the blog allows me to have a presence on the web so that in the future when others look for information on a certain topic they can locate it in my blog and make reference to it”.
The Hispanic leader also talked about the benefits of a bilingual blog:
“My friends and my family, are bilingual. I live in two worlds, I live in this nation that primarily speaks English, here I have my house and I am making a family, but I also have family and friends in Latin America. So having a bilingual blog gives me a scope and opens up the opportunity for me to connect with the two audiences, albeit diverse in themselves. Even here, this nation is multilingual so I also have the opportunity to connect locally.”
Think about the implications for your ministry or business. Simply by having a blog, you can increase your engagement and leads with Hispanics by several percentage points. According to “The State of Blogging 2016”, marketers who have prioritized blogging (related to content) are 13 times more likely to enjoy a positive Return on Investment (ROI).
As a marketer, you could have new opportunities to embed your brands, products or issues into discussions in the Hispanic blogosphere. It is another type of advertising that has the potential to reach millions of Hispanics without spending a fortune on a conventional 30-second TV or radio spot on Spanish media.
A little caution is always wise, but as long as you’re persistent, willing to engage in conversation that is relevant to Hispanics, and able to provide value, then success is sure to follow.