We will be @ Hispanicize 2011!

March 30, 2011 by Raul Colon

This year we were presented with the opportunity to join prominent Latino professionals at the Hispanicize 2011 Conference. If you don’t know what Hispanicize is, here are a few lines from their website to let you know what they are about:

“Hispanicize 2011, the 2nd Annual Hispanic PR & Social Media Conference, (April 6-8, 2011) is the premier marketing event devoted to provide in-depth professional development and networking opportunities for brand marketers, bloggers, non profits and marketing agencies focused on Hispanic public relations and social media.

We are thankful for the opportunity given to us by the founder of Hispanic PR Wire and CEO of Hispanicize, Manny Ruiz (@papiblogger) .

Below are the sessions that Co-Founder and President Raul Colon, will be moderating and presenting along with Louis Pagan (@LouisPagan), managing partner and co-founder of Hispanicize.

COMMUNISPACE’S HISPANIC IDENTITY PROJECT: UNDERSTANDING AND TAPPING INTO THE U.S. HISPANIC MARKET VIA PRIVATE ONLINE COMMUNITIES

SESSION OVERVIEW: The session will focus on Communispace’s Hispanic Identity Project, a research project conducted to better understand the growing U.S. Hispanic population, and its findings.

The Hispanic Identity Project’s research findings will help companies better understand and engage with the Hispanic market via online communities in the U.S., and tap into the business opportunity this growing market represents.

The new partnership between Communispace and Starcom MediaVest to create on a new online Hispanic community will also be covered.

MODERATOR:
Raúl J. Colón, Co-founder, President of CIMA IT Solutions Corp
PRESENTER:
Manila Austin, Ph.D., Director of Research at Communispace
Maria Vasallo, Community Manager, Communispace

THE DO’S AND DON’TS OF DEVELOPING CORPORATE HISPANIC WEB SITES IN THE AGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
(SPONSORED BY: STONE CROSSING SOLUTIONS)

SESSION OVERVIEW: Developing Hispanic corporate web sites has radically changed in an era where Latino Internet and mobile usage trends show that Hispanics are highly engaged, heavy users of social media.

In this panel session led by Joe Kutchera, author of “Latino Link: Building Brands Online with Hispanic Communities and Content” , you’ll learn how some leading corporations are transforming their Hispanic web sites and other digital properties to make them more engaging and culturally customized. Attendees will discover why the Digital Divide is practically over and they’ll hear why and how online content initiatives can drive measurable results among Hispanics.

MODERATOR: Raúl J. Colón, Co-founder, President of CIMA IT Solutions Corp
Panelists include:
· Dave Rodriguez, Marketing Manager, Ford
· Joe Kutchera, Director of Digital Marketing, Acento agency
· John Vojtush, President/COO, Stone Crossing Solutions

POWERFUL INSIGHTS ON HOW TO USE TWITTER TO BUILD FOLLOWERS AND ENGAGE WITH LEGIONS OF LATINOS

SESSION OVERVIEW: Next to Facebook, Twitter is the social media of choice for most U.S. Hispanics but brands and agencies are still struggling with how to effectively use Twitter to build communities and engage with Latinos. If this describes your predicament, this is the session you’ve been waiting for!

Join Twitter Latino thought leader Louis Pagan, managing partner of Hispanicize and co-founder of LATISM, as he takes you on a detailed guided tour through everything you need to know to become a confident, community building brand on Twitter Latino.

Join Hispanicize managing partner and LATISM co-founder Louis Pagan, one of the nation’s best known Twitter Latino masters, show you the tricks of the trade as he gets granular on every best practice you need to use to become a Twitter Latino champion.

PRESENTERS:

Louis Pagan, managing partner of Hispanicize and co-founder of LATISM
Raúl J. Colón, Co-founder, President of CIMA IT Solutions Corp

Do you have permission to Play Music On Your Site?

March 28, 2011 by Raul Colon

Beware of the Music you use on your site you just may be breaking the law and copyright infringements. There are laws that you need to learn about if you are posting music on your website, an on-line slideshow, or even YouTube video. These laws protect the rights of music artists ,their work, and how the consumer uses or shares their product.

A question arose from one of our clients trying to find music that was protected under creative commons. A slideshow of one of their events made by a third party contained music that was violating copyright laws.

How could we help the client understand that the music they are using is violating a law and still help them create a slideshow for the website?

I asked for help from Jose “Pepe” Pesante (@joeprog) radio host of http://frecuenciasalternas.com and editor-in-chief of http://vorticeonline.com for assistance with finding a site under creative commons related to the music industry. Thanks to his expertise, he was able to provided me two sites; one called SoundCloud and the other Bandcamp. Both offer CC licensing and options for purchase, free download or streaming only.

I would recommend SoundCloud over Bandcamp because it is very obvious that it is for sharing. SoundCloud 101 is a simple guide that has a section for music artists and those looking for music, regarding the terms of their site. It also provides details of how one shares music under the creative commons license. There are samples you can listen to on the main page.

You can sign up for both sites as an artist or group promoting your music as long as you are complying with U.S. copyright laws and the websites’ Terms of Use.

Here are the links to some of the sites that I found useful that talk about copyright law for music along with links to SoundCloud and BandCamp.

http://mpa.org/copyright_resource_center/copying

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_copyright_law

http://soundcloud.com/

http://bandcamp.com/

photo credit by bwhistler

5 Small Business Benefits of Being at #SXSW

March 25, 2011 by Raul Colon

Austin Convention Center — Photo Credit by Jose Padilla ( @jpadilla_)

We where present at #SXSW and had the opportunity to experience it from a Small Business point of view. Different to other smaller conferences focused on many of the same subjects, I can clearly say that if you are a Small Business Owner the environment of #SXSW makes you feel right at home.

There were sessions focused the small business owners in mind. There were also great people attending the event, who wanted to get to know you as a person first.

Benefits of Being at #SXSW

Some of the clear Benefits we received as a small business were the following.

1. Access to a Large Network

Tapping into a Large Network of Quality People with common interests without measuring how big your organization is or who you are. Giving you the opportunity to meet people from various professional levels from different types of organizations.

2. Pool of Ideas

Many people together exchanging ideas from various perspectives. You had developers, marketers, bloggers, and people from various walks of life sharing their experience from their point of view.

3. Refresh

Refreshing your current efforts. It might be frustrating to get things done when you have individuals or a group of people that don’t get what you do. Based on conversations and interactions, new ideas will arise helping you take a new approach at something that you have probably been frustrated about.

4. Experience Latest Tech Tools

It can also help you find new tools and gadgets. I usually end up learning about the most practical and cost effective gadgets and applications when I am surrounded around peers who have been using them. I end up getting tools that are better and faster at getting things done than what I might be currently using. A good example of interesting apps I was recommended during #SXSW were Beluga and Liveshare which I learned at a party sponsored by their creator Cooliris.

5. New Relationships

Extending your network with stronger relationships. It is not the same to meet someone online than meeting them in person and continuing the conversation online. Every time I have met someone in person and later on reached out to them online I created great relationships.

Did we miss any other benefits of going to a conference like SXSW?

If you want to read about our Raul Colon’s (Co-Founder & President) experience at SXSW feel free to visit his blog.

Photo Credit by Jose Padilla @jpadilla_

Healthy Logo Creation Process

March 4, 2011 by Raul Colon

A lovely price waited for us at the project completion.

This is a guest post written by my friend Rick Lipsett on how he created the logo’s of CIMA IT Solutions and Raul Colon’s Blog. This post was originally published on @ricklipsett’s blog.

In the past, we’ve brought you our creative process on logo creations, but since that post was done a long time after the project was over, it lacked information on how we go about creating Brand Identities for our clients. We knew we needed another shot at it and were thrilled, when it came knocking at our door.

Back in december, right after he established a connection with me through Twitter, Raúl Colon (@rj_c) approached me to create his corporate identity and personal blog identity as well. If you’ve read this blog before, you know how much we LOVE creating Brand Identities. Designing a logo is like creating a magic trick. We get to define visually someone and at the same time outperform whatever we’ve done in the past.

Since Raúl needed two logos, we didn’t want one to outshine the other. And since we try to out do ourselves on every project, we decided to create both identities at the same time. Some call us overachievers, that’s the best compliment we’ve ever had.

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