CADM Multicultural Marketing SIG July 2011 Lunch & Learn Recap - Creating Culturally Relevant Social Media Content

The hot and humid (100 degree) weather did not thwart the Multicultural SIG’s July Lunch & Learn. We hosted Sergio Fernandez, President of the Hispanic Alliance for Career Enhancement at AIU’s Success Center downtown Chicago on July 20, 2011. Sergio presented how HACE created and implemented social media strategies that have resulted in a 25% increase in event participation from social media channels by creating content that was culturally relevant to its constituency of more than 40,000 members nationwide. Additionally, since July of 2010 HACE has grown their Facebook “likes” by more than 550% and LinkedIn group

membership by more than 600%.

Sergio first briefed us about HACE’s mission and history so that we would have a better understanding and background knowledge and then walked us through HACE’s social media strategy and shared the success that they have had.

HACE is committed to Latino diversity through professional development as well as building relationships with employers. HACE is a not-for-profit agency with limited resources, and traditional marketing had become expensive, required specialized skills was difficult to track. HACE understood the increased importance of using social media, they felt that it had a broader reach, was easy to implement and more affordable.

The objective was to position themselves as industry leaders by creating a forum for Latino professionals to network and share relevant ideas The strategy included increasing online awareness by publishing content on multiple online sources that linked back to the HACE website, improving overall keyword rankings, increasing web site traffic and building an online community. The execution of the plan included Latino recruitment, personal branding, educational resources, networking tips, career and college prep, professional coaching, work-life-balance, generational differences and goal setting.

Their initial step was to use data insights to gain a quantitative view of their constituents. Some of the findings were very interesting and were used to help implement tactics. For example, 96% of their members have at least a BA; however, 86% of them are first-generation college graduates. Having this insight enabled them to understand that they needed to build an emotional connection and bond that otherwise might not exist for these members in terms of professional and career development. The content they created was designed to build communication through trust but also to be engaging. One of the lessons learned was to stay on message in order to build equity for the brand.

Measurements were built into the plan for each tactic and channel that evaluated target, frequency and key stats. For example, they targeted different demographics on LinkedIn vs. Facebook, the former geared towards established professionals and the latter towards the younger “Millennials.”

Thanks again to our generous sponsor, The Envelope Connection, a direct mail firm specializing in personalized mailings and fulfillment. A special thank you to American Intercontinental University (AIU) for hosting us at their Success Center, located at the corner of Adams and Franklin.

Written by Maria Dennis, Multicultural Marketing SIG Co-Chair

Photographer: Michael Machado, Mas Marketing Group, Multicultural Marketing SIG Co-Chair