Latino Entrepreneur Taps Growing Trend: Livestreaming in Spanish

The number of Latino American entrepreneurs has risen substantially. According to the Kauffman Foundation, the number tripled in just two decades. According to the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative, this will lead to a 1.4 trillion dollar boost to America's economy.

Cathy Hackl is a Costa Rican-American Emmy-nominated broadcaster turned PR pro, tech innovator, social media and live video consultant and public speaker. TODAY Show co-anchor Al Roker called Cathy “a force of nature”. She's the organizer of Latin@s in VR, a “virtual community that seeks to empower and connect Latinos in the virtual reality, augmented/mixed reality, 360-degree video, and live video spaces.” She is also a pioneer in the immersive public relations field. Her experience working in the U.S., Latin America and Spain created opportunities with media and brands like Teradata, TNT Latin America, Applebee's, Telemundo, Mashable, The Huffington Post, FOX News, CNN en Español, Silicon Beat, NTN24, CNN, ABC, FOX5, Discovery Channel, and Social Media Week.  Fluent in English and Spanish and proficient in Portuguese, Cathy works with brands to craft 360 degree video and VR content strategies for connecting with Hispanic and mainstream audiences.

Small Business Trends first met Hackl at the September 2015 Periscope Community Summit, and a few weeks ago again via phone to discuss her new partnership with Kim Garst's Boom! Social marketing agency.

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Livestreaming Social Media in Spanish

Small Business Trends: Congratulations on working with Kim Garst. She's great at live streaming engagement. Tell us about your role at her agency.

Cathy Hackl: Kim recently added me to her team to expand live streaming training to the Latino community. We'll be launching her first digital products in Spanish. She's rated one of Forbes' Top 10 Social Media Influencers and I was already very familiar with Boom! Social. It's exciting and an honor to work with her.

Small Business Trends: What are some of the new trainings people should know about? How do those tie in to your brand?

Cathy Hackl: Product offerings include Periscope 101 en Español, Periscope Growth Domination en Español, Periscope Profit Machine en Español and Periscope Profit Machine en Español VIP. Each of these can be enhanced with strategic guidance. As Boom! Social's first Hispanic Marketing Evangelist, I have a passion to help other Latino entrepreneurs succeed.

I help Spanish-speaking entrepreneurs and I also work with brands who are trying to reach the Latino community, especially Gen Z and Millennials. I'm on a mission to serve the ever-growing U.S. Latino and Latin American entrepreneurial community by providing them with education, insight and advice on how to use social media tools and technology to grow and get more sales. I also help brands craft an engaging and targeted strategy for reaching the Latino market.

Small Business Trends: Tell us something about yourself that you don't talk about often.

Cathy Hackl: I worked as communications director for Ellas 2.0, which used to be Women 2.0's Spanish-language counterpart. Ellas 2.0 is a brand that focuses on providing content, community and conferences for entrepreneurial women innovators in technology.

Small Business Trends: How can cultural knowledge help a small business?

Cathy Hackl: For many small businesses, the value of adding cultural knowledge is huge when planning their marketing strategies. Simply having materials translated into Spanish isn't enough, especially if you're posting digital content to social media. And we feel the new trainings will fill a huge gap for Spanish-speaking entrepreneurs, not only in the U.S., but globally. Spanish is the world's second most utilized language!

Small Business Trends: What are the Spanish and English websites for the new offerings?

Cathy Hackl: Everything's at espanol.ScopingForBiz.com and Kim Garst's site is BoomSocial.net. My site is CathyHackl.com

Images: Cathy Hackl and Kim Garst

This article, "Latino Entrepreneur Taps Growing Trend: Livestreaming in Spanish" was first published on Small Business Trends