Margaret Fontana is on a mission. A first generation Italian-American, Fontana is the founder of ItalianAmericanGirl.com, and the founder and president of Italian-Americans in Social Media. She’s making good use of social technologies, using the tools to educate others about Italians by debunking myths and celebrating her culture. We caught up with Fontana and asked her about her new initiatives.
Technicultr: What is ItalianAmericanGirl.com?
Margaret Fontana: ItalianAmericanGirl.com is an Italian-American cultural site I created a few years ago to start expressing my experiences & point of view about growing up as a first generation Italian-American.
TCu: When did you launch the site and what kind of response have you received so far?
Lexus recently announced a social media campaign geared towards African-American consumers, featuring Universal Motown recording artist (and recent Harvard grad) Ryan Leslie. In keeping with its emphasis on social media, Lexus also used pitchengine along with traditional media sources to publicize the initiative:
LatISM, a group for social media professionals of Hispanic and Latino origin, hosted a conference in Washington, DC on December 11-12, 2009 as part of its LatiSM National Heritage Tour. The DC conference featured speakers on a variety of subjects, including Web 2.0, Gov 2.0, brand building, mobile technology, social media 101, and social good.
Our newest feature, entitled “On the Radar” highlights popular social media sites that aren’t (yet) household names. Today’s featured site: Soompi.com.
YouTube’s Hispanic audience has grown 80% this past year and the company has taken notice: on Monday, the influential social media site announced a deal to make programming from Univision’s networks available on YouTube:
The battle is on. And Honda’s a big part of it.
Honda is using social media as part of its ”Battle of the Bands” initiative, a showcase and competition for marching bands from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The prize? Each of the schools of the participating bands receives $1,000; the eight schools whose bands make the finals receive $20,000. Honda uses a social media site, Hondabattleofthebands.com, to provide information, updates, videos, photos and to allow fans to vote for their favorite bands. It’s a very relevant use of social media in the African-American community: