How the MiTú Network On YouTube Is Impacting The Latino Community

The Hispanic community is the largest minority group in the country, accounting for 17.1 percent of the nation's population. In 2013, the Latino population grew 2.1 percent to 54 million but the Pew Research Center notes that 78 percent of that growth is accountable by natural increase (births minus deaths).

In this context, a multi-channel network was launched in 2012 on YouTube called MiTú, which caters to the Latino audience. The endeavor was successful, as MiTú got over one billion views by 2013 and currently, in 2014, have over 6 billion views.

“When we started, YouTube really wasn’t that old, and we saw a sustainable content system that we could build something on. For online video, we looked around and asked ourselves: What’s out there for Latinos? There was nothing in the space, so we decided to go after it,” said Roy Burstin, CEO and co-founder of MiTú to Forbes.

Their decision was a great one, as a new study from PricewaterhouseCoopers has found that Hispanics, which make up 16.7 percent of the U.S. population according to the U.S. Census Bureau, are more open to mobile technology than non-Hispanics. The new report -- titled “Mi Móvil: Hispanic Consumers Embrace Mobile Technology” -- had many interesting findings regarding the practices of America's largest growing minority group.

“For those that are trying to do more geo-targeting and those that are using more contextual [tactics] to reach consumers, this demographic is more open to that occurring,” said Matt Lieberman, director of PwC’s entertainment, media and communications practice, to AdWeek. “However, the amount of information that they are willing to give is still a great concern for Hispanics, as well as the general U.S. population."

For Burstin and co-founders Doug Greiff and Beatriz Acevedo, the goal is to target the global audience between the ages of 13 and 34.

“We want to identify the next generation of Latino content creators," said Burstin in his Forbes interview. "We want to build out MiTu into a new media company, and our start has been on YouTube because that’s where we’re finding new talent.”