Ana Roca-Castro: Latism Powerhouse

giving back • my world • moms making a difference • moms making a difference

by Mom It Forward on June 29th, 2011 | No Comments »

Social Media—If there is one word that would describe Ana Roca-Castro, it is "powerhouse." She helped build the United Nation's Oracle server system. She came into blogging, not as a spare-time hobbyist, but as a developer of a safe social networking site for diplomats and ambassadors. Her social media company, Premier Social Media, has grown in four short years to 27 employees. She is the the founder of Latinos in Social Media, or Latism, the largest organization of Latino professionals engaged in social media. And she is the mother of four children. She is a busy mom who is making a living and making a difference.

In 2007, Ana started Premier Social Media and its accompanying blog, first for ambassadors, then to help businesses and organizations achieve their objectives through social media development. Ana and her growing team develop internal social networks for companies, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations. They have developed 50 Facebook apps, 68 iPhone/Android apps, three massive-multiplayer-online social games, and more than a dozen Twitter applications. Ana has a particular passion for education and engagement through transmedia. The team has embarked in the development of social games for the Department of Education. Her clients also include brands like Toshiba, Walmart, FedEx, the World Bank and Nickelodeon.

Ana also founded Latinos in Social Media, or Latism, the largest organization of Latino professionals engaged in social media. #LatISM is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to advancing the social, civic and economic status of the Latino community. This organization helps to raise awareness among corporate brands, NGOs and government entities about using social media to reach Latinos, which represent a growing, potentially trillion-dollar market. "LatISM is a group is for all the Latinos who blog, tweet, connect, tag, bookmark, work in and enjoy Social Media!" says George Torres, a blogging partner connected with their upcoming conference. A pioneering social media organization, Latism has been hailed as the most influential online movement in the new multicultural web.

A May 2011 Fox News Latino article on Latism says: "It all began with a question-turned-tweet: 'Are there any Latinos out there?' Fast forward two years to Blogworld in New York, the premier conference for bloggers, where Latism unveiled the results of a survey of more than 12,000 Latino bloggers, providing a unique window into the Latino blogosphere and unearthing streams of valuable information on the demographic profile, trends and opinions of Latino online influencers." This unique, in-depth, and far-reaching survey revealed some surprising information about the issues Latinos are concerned about, and has been what Latism has continued to build upon as a tool for empowering Latinos.

Having accomplished this much in her career, and being the powerhouse that she is, Ana is a person to watch and perhaps to emulate. When we know our passions and act on them, we accomplish great things. As a man named Benjamin Disraeli once said, "Man [or woman] is only truly great when he acts from passions." Ana Roca-Castro is a good example of this.

You can find Ana at PremierSocialMedia.com, at Latism.org, on Twitter at @anarc, and on Facebook at Anarc.