Franky Benítez

Once in a while, it all clicks. And this week was a great one for JRV.com. We wanted to take this moment to thank everyone for all their support and loyalty. We know that the Internet is full of so many choices, and we are blessed that you take the time to read the content on this blog.

This post will try to summarize some of the good news (and views) we received this week. Yes, sometimes you just need to share it and celebrate.

Whole Foods Controversy

©Boston Herald (Nancy Lane)

We saw the story about a new Whole Foods opening in the same place where a Latino supermarket (and cultural institution) used to stand. We reacted. We reached out to Whole Foods via social media. They responded and got us a name to interview. We reached out to a Boston City Councillor and he commented. We now have access to comments and will be adding more stories about this. Here is the original story: Whole Foods vs Hi-Lo.

Guest Post on @MarketingProfs

It is one of the world’s top social media marketing sites. We love MarketingProfs and love what @marketingprofs does on Twitter and beyond. This week, we appeared on their blog as a guest blogger and wrote the following post: How Niche Communities Build Brand Awareness. We were thrilled to be featured, especially since we got a chance to talk about #LatinoLit.

Short Story Makes Long List

This week, one of the stories from FRANKY BENÍTEZ, made the long list as part of the anthology, 100 STORIES FOR QUEENSLAND. The story, “Power’s Sunday Slam,” is being considered for the publication, which will benefit the victims of the Australia floods. Out of 300 submissions, “Power’s Sunday Slam” made the first cut.

The New #Latism Web Page

We celebrated the new #Latism (Latinos in Social Media) web page as well. This is such a great organization, the best community in social media. #LATISM has done great things, and it will continue to do even greater things.

And finally, we think this blog is heading in the right direction and posting content that our readers want to see. We just checked our recent blog and fan page rankings (in the end, being online is all about reach) and we are happy to report the following:

• The Facebook Fan Page of Fernando Varela is now over 18,500 fans as of January 30, 2011. We think we will get to 20,000 by the end of March, if not sooner.
• The Sónico Fan Page of Fernando Varela is over 55,000 fans. We project that this will reach 100,000 by the end of 2011.
• The current Alexa rating for juliorvarela.com puts us in some select company. We are amazed at how a personal, part-time blog is gaining new views each day. We are growing by 100% every month we are online.
• The little novel that could, @fbnovel, which just started tweeting this January 3, is expected to hit 500 followers by January 31. At that rate, when the novel is published in September, the account will have 4,000 followers with the right level of growth and engagement.
• We are currently at close to 37,000 views on this blog site and expect to be at 40,000 by the middle to February.

Yes, sometimes you need to celebrate. And we are doing just that this week. Hit it, Mr. Astaire.