Teaching Latin Companies to Use Social Media

Ariel Brailovsky beat thousands of consumers to win a dream vacation package in Spain by doing nothing more than tweeting and completing a few tasks on Facebook. The contest was launched on behalf of the Spanish government by SrBurns, a firm specialized in helping companies and countries in the Spanish-speaking world use social media to increase business. SrBurns was one of dozens of innovative young companies from Spain and Latin America that participated at La Red Innova conference in Madrid on June 14 and 15.

Social networking is dramatically affecting the way people interact, play games, and conduct business around the globe. But companies and governments in Spain and Latin America have been slower to integrate it, dismissing it as a service for teenagers. Many wonder how they can make money using social networking tools, says Gaby Castellanos, chief executive of SrBurns, which specializes in new media advertising.

Castellanos, an award-winning Venezuelan advertising executive who has been living in Spain since 1996, was a leading speaker at La Red Innova, where investors, opinion leaders, entrepreneurs, and bloggers from Latin America and Spain mixed with counterparts from elsewhere in Europe and the U.S. Headed by Jose Maria Figueres, ex-president of Costa Rica and former chief executive of the World Economic Forum, the event was supported by the city of Madrid, which is trying to position itself as a center of development for the Internet and other new technologies.

Castellanos, who is listed in the Spanish language press as of one of the 10 most influential people on the Internet in Spain, says Spain is about six months behind the U.S. in integrating social networking into business, while Latin America is as much as three years behind. She is on a mission to change that, telling Spanish-speaking companies that “social media represents the opportunity to change everything about marketing and advertising.” SrBurns (named after the miserly businessman Mr. Burns in the animated television show The Simpsons), already has a number of case studies to supports its claims. Clients have included Lexus, Turespaña, Vodafone, Telefonica, Diageo, Endemol, and Save the Children.

The Spanish government also is a client. A social media campaign for the Spanish tourism office called “Spain. A Country to Share,” was launched in December 2009 by SrBurns. The campaign included a competition called “The Best Feeling Ever” that attempted to lure more travelers to the country, which was hit particularly hard by the global downturn. Consumers such as Brailovsky, a 38-year-old systems engineer who works for Apple, were encouraged to answer a daily question on Facebook and complete certain tasks, such as posting photos and telling their life stories. The winner also had to get the greatest number of votes from friends on Facebook. Brailovsky, an Argentinean living in Miami, gathered 8,500, beating some 3,000 competitors.