The other thing that is clear is that this crisis affects some groups more harshly than others. People of color are among those who have been hit hard every way possible. Now imagine that you have a small business that you had to shutter because of COVID-19 state and local restrictions, are fearful of contracting the virus and have no idea how to pay your bills – and English isn’t your preferred language, Spanish is. The sense of isolation and helplessness you feel is devastating. And if you visit many sites that offer help to small businesses, you would be hard pressed to find a comprehensive source for COVID-19 assistance in Spanish – until now.

Nuestros Negocios

In April, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises launched Nuestros Negocios (Our Businesses), a nationwide campaign under the umbrella of Telemundo’s corporate social responsibility platform El Poder En Ti (The Power in You). The concept for the campaign is simple: launched in partnership with the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC), the multiplatform campaign taps into Telemundo’s network, local stations, and digital and social platforms to spotlight small and medium-sized Hispanic-owned businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and promote their services to help them sustain their businesses through these challenging times. They recognize that Hispanic-owned businesses are arguably the backbone of the U.S. economy, growing twice as fast as any other businesses in the country and contributing thousands of new jobs to their local communities.

“One in every four small businesses in the U.S. is Hispanic-owned and 75% of new businesses in the U.S are created by Hispanics. These fast-growing enterprises are fueling the economic engine of our country and leading small business growth across all groups. During these challenging times, it is critical that we help them overcome this unprecedented crisis,” said Cesar Conde, chairman, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises and NBCUniversal International Group. “More than ever, it is our responsibility to stand with the nearly 4.4 million Hispanic businesses that provide essential products, services and jobs to our community every day. They are the economic future of America.”

The U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce is an enthusiastic partner with Telemundo in this effort. “We are pleased to be working hand-in-hand with Telemundo, such an important voice for our community, to make sure that our Hispanic-owned small businesses have access to the emergency resources they need to respond to the economic effects of the coronavirus epidemic,” said Ramiro A. Cavazos, USHCC president & CEO. “We will work diligently with Telemundo to fight for these businesses and help advance the prosperity of U.S. Hispanics during these times.”

What went into the thinking that created this new campaign?  That’s a question we posed to Christina Kolbjornsen, senior vice president, corporate and external affairs, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises in an exclusive Hispanic Outlook (HO) interview to learn more about Nuestros Negocios.

“No doubt that the coronavirus has impacted us all. However, as a leading Spanish-language network we felt it was critically important for us to help provide our viewers and our community at large with consistent and relevant information in a timely manner on all things COVID-19 related – specifically through our initiative Nuestros Negocios. When the restrictions swept across the country with businesses having to temporarily close and people having to stay home, we saw an opportunity to help our Hispanic-owned, small- and medium-size businesses survive. So, that’s why we connected with the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and partnered with them to launch this multi-platform campaign to do many things to spotlight our small- and medium-sized, Hispanic-owned businesses impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and to help promote their services to help sustain them through these challenging times. We also took the opportunity to offer them the tools and resources they need in a language they know to understand what was going on and help them navigate through these very, very challenging times.”

Among the services Nuestros Negocios offers are:

• Weekly #NuestrosNegocios Segments – the network, local stations, digital and social platforms will spotlight small- and medium-sized, Hispanic-owned businesses impacted by the COVID-19 crisis and help them promote their services in order for them to remain in business.

• Dedicated Online Resources – in partnership with USHCC, the network will provide resources and guidelines to businesses in the language of their choice, as well as tips on how to navigate the Small Business Debt Relief Program – the CARES Act, the program that provides immediate relief to small businesses with non-disaster SBA loans. This information, as well as other resources to guide business owners and the overall Hispanic community through the latest government assistance loans, will live on telemundo.com/nuestrosnegocios. For additional information follow @Telemundo and #NuestrosNegocios on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

• Bi-weekly Online/Social “Charlas” – online social media forums with business experts such as businessman and television personality Marcus Lemonis from CNBC’s “The Profit,” where local business owners and entrepreneurs can join and ask questions live. Playbacks of the forums will be made available across Telemundo’s platforms for continued access in both English and Spanish.

Kolbjornsen walked HO through the basic elements and mechanics of how user-friendly this platform is designed to be. “We created a destination where we aggregate information, as well as provide tools and resources that any small- or medium-sized business – as well as large ones too – can access,” she explains. “The vast amount of information on that landing page is in Spanish because we know that viewers, as well as those who visit us at Telemundo online, are primarily Spanish speakers. So, we quickly realized as this unfortunate pandemic was unfolding that the information out there was predominantly in English. It was difficult and challenging to find info in Spanish, the language of their choice. As a result, we became an aggregator of information. We pulled in all of our news coverage that was specific to help small business. We partnered with the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to pull in all their resources onto our page. So, once a small business lands on our page, they receive a variety of information whether it be news, tools, additional resources, government resources – all with one click they can find the information in the language of their choice.”

After only three months, the platform is having a real-life impact on the Spanish-language community. Kolbjornsen related to HO one particular Hispanic-owned small business that has made a complete turnaround in no small measure due to the impact of Nuestros Negocios. “There is one particular story that really warms my heart and really validates the work we do that I wanted to share with you from a company called Doris’ Peruvian Pastry company. We featured them on Telemundo [which reaches 94% of U.S. Hispanic TV households in 210 markets through 30 local stations, 50 affiliates and its national feed] and subsequently on CNBC [a business network in the NBCUniversal media family]. By leveraging our sister network, we were able to expand the narrative not only on Spanish-language media but in main stream media. The company came back and shared with us that after our features, they more than doubled their sales volume as soon as the day after our coverage. Not only did it double their sales, but it allowed them to build their inventory to meet their increased demand. What’s more, our experts helped them understand how to shift their business model from being not just a brick and mortar but the importance of also having an online presence.”

A welcoming and user-friendly platform is not the whole answer for Spanish preference Hispanic small business owners. Trust and confidence in the platform are other important factors is the success of Nuestros Negocios. It all begins with finding a variety of information and resources in Spanish and curating it for the site’s visitor. According to Kolbjornsen, “We address this in a variety of ways. One of the challenges is that it is so difficult to find that Spanish information...We have had to scour the internet or government sites that house links or find that information. What we’ve done is to serve it up front with the combination of our news coverage with the combination of experts that can speak specifically to the challenges to the small businesses and pooling these resources in the language of their preference on that landing page.”  Kolbjornsen goes on to explain that this approach offers businesses “a variety of sources and resources that they can choose to go to” while also “having available the combination of government resources, news and information, the expert chats and Q&As [which] allow them to navigate through a myriad of resources that allows them to validate the information.” In the end, Kolbjornsen says this method hopefully helps “break down some of the hesitation about what to trust and not trust. It’s multiple sources not only to share the information, but to break down the complexities of it so it is better understood.”

And the effort by Telemundo and U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce seems to be paying off. Since it launched, Nuestros Negocios has reached 1,880,000 video views across Telemundo’s social and digital platforms and generated 31,000 cross-platform actions on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Across Telemundo’s on-domain platforms, since launch, the Nuestros Negocios section in Noticias along with content across Telemundo.com has reached 17,000 users who generated 26,000 page views and generated 17,800 video views. •