Franky Benítez

We get very excited when our dear friends have great news to share and in the case of Adrian Carrasquillo (@RealAdrianC on Twitter), today marks a time to celebrate a very cool accomplishment for him and @NBCLatino. They are going social, and we wish them all the best! We asked Adrian to share his thoughts about the essence of NBC Latino. Here they are:

“I’m happy to announce that we’ve launched the NBC Latino social media presence on Facebook and Twitter. Social is one of the pillars of our vision. We come nowhere near our mission unless we have the pulse of our community. But we wanted to do it right. Now that we’ve worked to hone our editorial voice we feel we are ready to launch social.

We want to appeal to Hispanics who feel that there has been something missing from Latino news. Our hope is that by immersing ourselves in the community and elevating what we all see as the Latino news conversation, we will better reflect the nuance, richness and depth of the U.S. Latino experience.

I subscribe to the theory that the most precious resource on the Internet is the time and attention of readers. You can’t survive in 2012 by expecting people to type in the URL to your website. Since 25 percent of all online trips in the U.S. end up on Facebook and Twitter and have become the online town square, I want us to tap into the vast Hispanic online community and present content that is fun, fresh, inspired and smart on the platforms where they already are.

I’ve come to know, respect and admire a lot of people in the Latino space in the last year and a half — from influencers and bloggers to amazing people furthering Hispanic initiatives through the social community. We want to continue to tell important stories and I want everyone who comes across our content to feel ownership of it. We want to represent them and we want them to keep us honest.

So I invite anyone to email me at adrian.carrasquillo@nbcuni.com or tweet to me @RealAdrianC if they have any questions, comments or concerns. Thanks to everyone who is joining us on this journey. I can speak for everyone at NBC Latino when I say that we’re honored to be in the position to make it with you.”