SearchEngineWatch: Latino or Hispanic

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/070730-091728

SearchEngineWatch, a news site and blog focused on search engine optimization for sites, interviews iHispanic on-line marketing consultant Nacho Hernandez who ponders whether or not to use “hispanic” or Latino” in reference to the market.

Highlights

"Q: We also hear the term “Latino,” which is used for the name of this conference (Search Engine Strategies, SES). Does that refer to a combination of the U.S. Hispanic market and Latin America?
A: There’s a debate between using the terms Hispanic, Latino, and “Latina” (we like to use gender in words in Spanish). We really wanted to use the term SES Latino so that we could have one word to describe all that market, and I think that was the best word for it, and it has gotten a really good response from everyone. If we had used the word Hispanic, that would have referred to only the Spanish speaking people, which would have excluded Brazil. So that would not have been a good word to use. Brazil is actually a huge market; it is the number one market in Latin America in terms of search, and in terms of advertisers as well. It’s very important to include them in this conference. Brazil is a great market, and there are a lot of people in the industry trying to grow it as well. So that is why we chose “Latino” for our brand.
Q: Countries in Europe, such as Portugal and Spain… would they not be considered part of the Latino market, even though they have a share language and some shared cultural aspects as the Latin Americas?
A: It was interesting to see that we got a lot of attendees from Spain. I was really pleased to see them, they are all wonderful people, and I got to meet most of them. It is a great market; there is a lot of growth in Spain. When we say Latinos, the focus of this conference was thought to be the Americas. That doesn’t really include the European Market. I would advise that that Incisive Media (the conference hosts of Search Engine Strategies) would [for a future conference] take SES to Spain and Portugal. Spain is growing tremendously, and there is a lot of opportunity there."

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/070730-091728