A Simple Way to Grow your Online Audience (Una Manera Simple para Hacer Crecer su Audiencia En Línea)

A recent study by the research outfit Ipsos indicates that U.S. Hispanics are reading the news and consuming media in both English and Spanish, switching back and forth between the languages “with ease.”

According to the report, “U.S. Hispanics take advantage of their bilingual abilities by using, accessing and ultimately enjoying media in both languages. Regardless of their language preference at home, whether it is English (43 percent) or Spanish (52 percent), U.S. Hispanics are turning to either language to meet their needs.”

This large and growing segment of the U.S. population has long been overlooked by major U.S. media companies, but what I find puzzling is why they continue to do so online. After all, it’s as easy to publish bilingual articles, as uno, dos, Google!

Please allow me to my illustrate my point:

Un reciente estudio realizado por el equipo de investigación Ipsos indica que los hispanos de EE.UU. están leyendo las noticias y el consumo de medios de comunicación en Inglés y Español, el cambio de ida y vuelta entre los idiomas “con facilidad.”

Según el informe, “los hispanos de EE.UU. aprovechar sus habilidades bilingües leerando, y, en definitiva, para disfrutar de acceso a los medios de comunicación en ambos idiomas. Independientemente de su preferencia de idioma en el hogar, si es Inglés (43%) o en español (52%), EE.UU. los hispanos se utilizar a cualquiera de los dos idiomas para satisfacer sus necesidades. “

Este importante y creciente segmento de la población de los EE.UU. ha sido durante mucho tiempo ignorado por las principales empresas de medios de comunicación, pero lo que me parece sorprendente es la razón por la que ellos continuará haciéndolo en línea. Después de todo, es tan fácil de publicar artículos bilingües, como uno, dos, Google!

Now, this is not being rendered in perfect Spanish, mind you, but with a few more iterations back and forth, Google Language Tools and I could achieve a pretty good imitation of a literate version. The value of this kind of bilingual journalism is not only that it helps build a larger audience, but it attracts new advertisers to our publications — advertisers interested in buying access into the Spanish-speaking market.

Publishing simultaneously in English and Spanish is just the beginning. Remember that this is the world wide web we are talking about, i.e., a global community, where the old divisions of time, space, language and nationality simply no longer apply.

Anyway, call me a crackpot, but remember this — people ask me every day why newspapers and other media channels are failing, and I answer that this is one of the prime reasons why. Our media companies are stuck in a mono-lingual past that simply is no longer necessary, nor applicable, in today’s global media market.

(Note: I used Google Language Tools for this demonstration. On first try, it did not render as good a translation as I required, probably because I tend to write blog posts in an informal lingo that does not translate as easily as would a more formal English. To compensate, I swapped back and forth between the languages, adding my own knowledge of both to supplant the automated translation feature, until I got a suitable verson for display. Although I notice Google has started adding a Trademark to its translations, I believe a credit, as I have supplied here, suffices for this kind of use.)