This feels more like marketing then a genuine cause. =_=

So… Bench will donate 1 million pesos to a charity if their endorser, Dingdong Dantes, gets 1 million followers on Twitter. In all honesty I don’t think Dingdong needs a promo to reach 1M given his popularity. All he has to do is to ask help from his other celebrity friends to tweet to their followers to follow him and he’ll breach that mark in no time.

Maybe that’s why this feels more like a marketing gimmick than a genuine cause.

Social Media Fundamentals at KBP Event in Clark

Fundamentals of Social Media Talk at KBP

I was invited by the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP) to give a quick talk and a forum about the basics of social media marketing. Since I’m currently with TV5 (a KBP member), I immediately said yes! It was also a first for me to talk to this group so I was pretty psyched! The only problem though was that the event was all the way in Clark but the organizers were kind enough to have a van pick me up and bring me back to Manila after.

The talk was pretty straightforward and simple. I shared the latest statistics that I have from various public study highlights for the Philippines. Here are some of the studies that I quoted from:

Yahoo Nielsen Net Index 2011
Nielsen Incite 2011
ComScore: Twitter Users in the PH
Social PR on Filipino Foursquare Users
Universal McCann Social Media Wave 5
Gartner Study on Social Media Adoption

After the statistics I gave an overview about basic social media strategy using Facebook and Twitter and the closed it by sharing some examples and recommendations. As soon as I finished the forum I immediately went on board the van and zipped back to Manila for the IMMAP Open Mic Night (Pecha Kucha). More on that in a separate post!

Thank you to everyone at KBP! You guys were a great audience!

With Toff De Venecia, Shawn Yao, Tricia G., and Tessa Valdes

I was invited to give a short 10-minute talk about social media at the PANA Foundation Youth Congress held at the Erwin Lee Theater in Ateneo. The audience was composed of students from different universities all over the country. It was definitely a fulfilling experience and I’m always thankful and honored each time I get invited to give talks like these for the next generation.

Since I had only 10 minutes I didn’t bother working on a detailed presentation with several points. I decided to focus on one message and use stories to support and reinforce it. The main theme of my talk was that social media and the internet gives us an opportunity to show the children of our great grandchildren who we were, what we stood for, and what we valued in life. I wanted to impress on the audience that we should be responsible for what we post on Facebook because our accounts will eventually be the windows to our life that then next generations will peek into so that they can get to know us. Hopefully PANA F was able to record it on video so I can share with you guys the entire talk. I honestly felt it was one of the best ones I’ve ever given.

After the talk there was a panel discussion with the rest of the speakers: Toff De Venecia, Shawn Yao, Tricia Gosingtian, and myself. It was moderated by Tessa Valdes, who in my humble opinon is one of the best moderators I’ve seen on the stage. There was a good exchange of ideas between everyone and I really hope that the students learned something from the entire session.

Our moderator!

Took a photo during the panel. Sorry magulo!

Really nice stage set-up. Reminds me of Apple Keynotes. Good job organizers!

Thanks to PANA for the invite, the students for attentively listening, and my co-panelists for sharing their time and expertise as well for the benefit of the next generation.

Cheers!

Assumptions

• Target market is mostly from A, B, and C1 — people who usually take flights both domestic and international.
• Another target would be different media organizations who can air the stories to build more public sympathy for PALEA and their cause.
• Majority of this group uses or has access to the Internet.

Build a Website that tells stories

When PALEA declared a strike the most common reaction you get from people is either “nanaman?” (again?) or “bakit?” (why?). There is no emotional connection with the strike and the audience. Instead of harping on how PAL is allegedly mistreating them they should focus on telling stories of human interest. This can be in the form of stories of the impact of the lay-off on several employees. Take all of these stories and put them on one central platform — a website. Tell the story in different ways: photos, videos, and text. Integrate the website with social media to pump up the chances of the issue spreading to raise awareness. Most importantly put a way for readers to signify their support. A good idea would be making an online petition via Facebook so that it’s as easy as one click.

Charm Offensive

Another possible idea is to go on a charm offensive. Delight the usual people who take flights in an extraordinary way for a day and generate buzz online and via traditional media (get press to cover). One good example of a campaign is KLM Surprise. Watch the video below:

The New Friendster

Amazing. Congratulations MOL.

Disclosure: Used to work for Friendster. Had no idea how much the company was actually sold for. Left shortly after MOL bought it.