Using Social Media to Reach the Hispanic/Latino Population

Background: The Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF) uses social media as a mechanism to increase awareness around our programs and advocacy efforts both domestically and internationally.  The LAF has a strong presence on Facebook with over 222,000 members and over 65,000 followers on Twitter.  In addition to the LAF’s reach, over 1 million people follow Doug Ulman, LAF President and Lance Armstrong has over 2 million followers on Twitter. 

Program background: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Hispanic/Latino population is the largest and fastest growing minority population.  As this population continues to grow, cancer incidence and mortality rates will steadily increase.  Therefore, it is important for cancer-serving organizations to position themselves as a resource among the Spanish-speaking community.  In 2009, LAF launched an outreach campaign to increase awareness and utilization of our bilingual resources for Hispanic/Latino cancer survivors and their loved ones.  In previous years, the LAF had conducted outreach through radio only; however, with the rapid increase in internet and social media usage among the Hispanic/Latino audience, we created viral outreach strategies.  These online outreach strategies included use of our existing Facebook and Twitter accounts to connect with bilingual Hispanic/Latinos affected by cancer.  To begin our social media outreach, we created an advertisement on Facebook that targeted bilingual (Spanish and English) users and promoted LIVESTRONG.org/Espanol.  If a user clicked on the ad, they were redirected to LIVESTRONG.org/Espanol.  We also created Twitter messages that were posted on the LAF Twitter account and also sent out by Lance and Doug Ulman. 

Evaluation Methods and Results: The campaign launched on June 15, 2009, the Facebook ad became the second highest driver of traffic to our website with over 1,700 users clicking on the ad within six days.  We also received hundreds of visits from individuals who came to the site from Twitter. 

Conclusions: Contrary to public opinion, internet usage among the Hispanic/Latino population is increasing.  Social media provides connectivity for Latino users.   The need to communicate and facilitate relationships with family and friends is an inherent cultural norm among Latinos.  Through social media, Latinos are able to communicate in multiple formats through social networking sites and blogs. 

Implications for research and/or practice: Healthcare professionals and educators can use these easy and cost-effective methods to reach a broad audience of Hispanic/Latinos.