Read below for an exclusive Q&A.

What is your book about?

First of all, thank you for hosting me on your blog for this Q&A.

Latino Link: Building brands online with Hispanic communities and content discusses the growth of the Hispanic audience in the U.S. and the growth of digital, social and mobile media. It looks at how will these two growth trends converge and what marketers are doing about it. Readers will find case studies from Ford, Best Buy, H&R Block, Monster, and other leading marketers, documenting the process through which they identified online as a key CRM (customer relationship management) platform for reaching Hispanics, how they translated their websites into Spanish and adapted their marketing communications for this audience.  More specifically, as the subtitle indicates, the book documents how marketers can attract Hispanic audiences online by developing content for their own websites, distributing that content on social media platforms and integrate digital into their overall marketing strategy.

Your readers can download a sample chapter from my book about social media here: http://joekutchera.com/latinolink

Why is it important?

This book is the first of its kind. Many companies today want to figure out how to effectively reach Hispanics and/or tap into niche audiences via social media. This book outlines how marketers can do that. Some of the pioneers in marketing to Hispanics online share their viewpoints and expertise about what they set out to do and how they accomplished their goals.

What can professionals in the industry gain from it?

While writing the book, I interviewed a select group of Hispanic marketing professionals. While getting insights for the book, I asked them what they would want in my book or what would they want to show their colleagues and clients. They told me that they wanted three things: case studies, specific advice about reaching Hispanics online, and recommendations about how to localize content for U.S. Hispanics. So, that is exactly what I did.

Digital media and Hispanic/multicultural marketing will only become more important in the years ahead as American becomes a majority minority. This book will help marketers look around corners to plan for the intersection of those two trends.

What prompted you to write a book?

That’s actually a funny story. In 2008, I started writing a column for MediaPost Engage:Hispanics, while I was working at ContextWeb starting their Spanish-language ad network in the U.S. Hispanic and Mexican marketplaces. I loved writing and at the end of that year, I included “write a book” on my list of 5-year goals. In March of 2009, I attended a session at SXSW Interactive called, “So, you want to write a book?” which included a roundtable of authors, book publishes and agents.

After the session, I approached one of the book publishers about the initial idea of Latino Link. He said, “That’s a great idea! Let me send you my book proposal template.” I wrote the proposal in the evenings and over the weekends. In late May 2009, I sent the publisher my proposal. He liked it and agreed to send it to his editorial team. I thought to myself, “It would be great to have some time off to write the book.” Two weeks after that, ContextWeb laid off 10% of its workforce, including me, because of the bad economy. I thought to myself, “well, I guess I’m going to write that book.”

As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for! So, that’s how I found the time to write this book. I ended up not working with the publisher I first spoke to. Instead, Paramount Books signed me to write Latino Link. They specialize in publishing books about Hispanic and multicultural marketing as well as market research. Thanks to their support, we brought the book to marketplace nine months after we agreed to work together.

How do Hispanic marketing professionals differ in other parts of the world, to those in US?

Great question. Each country across the Spanish-language world has its unique qualities: culture, food, traditions, ways of doing business, and variations of the Spanish language. The same can be said of different cities even. But even with all of the differences, it all boils down to basics. Good marketing is good marketing no matter where you go and no matter what language you do it in: understanding your audience and what motivates them, developing a strategy that engages an audience based upon audience research, and executing that strategy. And of course, the marketing needs to lead customers to the appropriate sales channels.

Media companies from Spain and Mexico have entered the U.S. market thinking that just because they speak Spanish that they will understand the U.S. Hispanic market. The same is true of U.S. companies that have entered Mexico and retreated later. No way José!  It takes knowing the right business people, understanding your market, and having patience to execute the right strategy over time. Once you have the basics covered, I’ve learned that you need to adapt ideas to your local market, hire local people, and dedicate yourself to that market even though many digital platforms can scale around the world.

My original blog – LatinoPundit – served a purpose to fill a void of the lack of Latino bloggers.  I wanted to bring Latinos into mainstream discussions about politics and society, and also raise awareness of Latino subject matter.  That was done for over a period of 5 years.  Nowadays, you can find Latino blogs on a plethora of topics.  With that purpose now filled, there was no reason to continue with the Latino Pundit blog.

With the knowledge that the Latino population is growing, I knew that Latinos would be more closely examined.  And who else, but big businesses would have an interest?  So with social media growing as well as the Latino population, it only made perfect sense that marketers would begin to enter this area.

I’ve had 5 years of experience online interacting and community building before social media became trendy…and from this advantage , I knew that I’d be ahead of any marketer without this type of experience.  Thus I entered the Hispanic marketing world and rebranded my self as such.

One significant contribution to the Latino community was the national community feature for Latinos In Social Media (now called LATISM), building off the idea AnaRC had from her tweet “Where are all the Latinos on Twitter,” and the directory of Latino professionals.  Call it being at the right place at the right time, because if I didn’t see Ana’s tweet, LATISM probably would of not happened.  Thanks to all those involved with LATISM, the very first Latino based social media seminars took place in NY, then FL and DC followed…a fourth and what looks to be the largest yet is taking place this September. (If you can, catch LATISM in action via tonight’s Twitter party.)

My continued purpose in social media is to contribute to Latinos and social media as a whole from this blog to continuing projects that serve the greater community.

Social media and a national road tour are part of the plan to drum up interest. The campaign will stress the importance and secrecy of the count.

This shows the further use and maturity of social media.

(Not that I thought they would succeed, but this further strengthens my belief that those groups who wanted to ban the census will not win.)

This has resulted in the 3rd social media conference presented by LATISM, a national group promoting social media and the Latinos behind it.  From their own state website:

LatISM DC, part of the LatISM Heritage Tour, is a conference that brings together a select group of Latinos in Social Media and business leaders in the region to discuss current topics related to Social Media. This two-day session focuses on Web 2.0, Gov 2.0, leveraging social media for non-profits, businesses and government.

This folks, is a full conference:

On the national LATISM site you will find a dynamic list of speakers speaking at this event (sorry, registration is closed). They will even have YOGA!!! How innovative is that?!?

A special thanks goes out to NCLR for graciously donating the conference space.

And a special thanks to Kety (@KetyE), and her team: Sylvia Aguilera (@httponline), Alma Suarez (@AmericanLatina),  Julie Diaz-Asper (@JulieDiazAsper), Elianne Ramos (@ergeekgoddess), Jennifer Lubrani (@meningioma)…aka, The Five Latinas. Six Latinas.

LATISM has reached a tipping point with DC, as they are at full capacity and have had to add a networking event to fill the demand.  Congratulations Ladies!