Sunday, February 22, 2015

I Finally Attended the Blogopolis (Part 2 of 2)

The Blogopolis 2015 is composed of 4 segments:

  1. Movement: Social Relevance
  2. Machinery: Content Shift
  3. Accessory: Social Marketing
  4. Armory: News Online

The last speaker for Segment 2 was Jackie Go and her topic was “Steadfast Blogging Through The Years: Growing With Your Blog”. She mentioned about the 3 Cs of steadfast blogging:

1. Content -- commit to posting regularly, at least 3 times a week, product finds
2. Connectivity -- mingle online, be visible in different social media channel, engage
3. Core -- blog because you want to, not for anything else, be consistent online & offline, learn as you go along

IMG_8048

After Segment 2, there’s even a Guest Speaker – and he’s one of the writers of Berto in Brogues. Their blog is all about the modern Filipino gentlemen. The most important thing I got from this Berto is that “True creative content promotes, inspires and influence. The content lies in your intent”.

Lawrence Munsayac of Asus presented their latest products, mostly the Zenfone and tablets. The name Asus was actually derived from Pegasus, the winged-horse of Greek mythology. They even gave away a Zenfone after their product talk.

For Segment 3, the Googly Gooeys gave a talk on “Venture Global, Deliver Local: Maximizing Opportunities Beyond Borders”. Their story is truly amazing and it made us realized that there is a bigger market outside of the Philippines that our blogs could reach.

The Googly Gooeys mostly blog about universal topics using colorful images and comic strips. Their blog is all about colorful, happy life, locally-celebrated global events and local attractions. They advised us to tap the international audience on social networking sites. They also mentioned about The Big Blog Exchange – a program that swaps bloggers from around the world similar to exchange students, to make them experience blogging from another country.

Globe has 2 representatives that spoke about the latest plans of Globe, particularly the #MyLifestyleBlog. They even presented us with their latest TV commercial and challenged us to create a story about our daily lifestyle experience for a day, for a chance to win an iPhone 6 with 64 gig of storage capacity.

For the last segment, it was Stacy de Jesus and Tony Velasquez who spoke about using social media to report about current events, help with weather updates, and promote tourism in the Philippines through social media.

Stacy de Jesus works for Rappler and she showed us some of the hashtags and projects that they initiated on social media to promote awareness: #ShowThePope #SharePH and Project Agos.

Tony Velasquez talked about political participation through social media. He was the most humorous and lively among the speakers, joking about the upcoming 2016 presidential elections, wherein we could probably have our first black president. He calls for calmer and more rationale debate on social media (through comments).

For the panel discussion, the question “kelan po ba nagiging credible and opinion ng netizens” was raised. They responded by saying “when it’s viral” and that (as a media organization) they “look for representative comment” (out of random, similar comments). They also encourage people to speak up and get involved (with current events).

The Blogopolis 2015 ended up around 7:30 PM and it was indeed a very informative seminar/gathering of bloggers. All these were made possible by the numerous sponsors present during the event – Globe, Asus, Dusit Thani Manila, Acer, Airbnb, Great Taste, KitKat, Nissin Yakisoba, Pop’n Chips, Security Bank, X.O., Western Digital, SM Supermalls, Zipniture, Zomato, Adobo Magazine, ETC, Print Social, among others.

See you again next year fellow bloggers for Blogopolis 2016.

IMG_8042

Jackie Go

IMG_8050IMG_8055

JPV of Berto in Brogues

IMG_8058IMG_8065IMG_8068

That gorgeous guy from Asus Philippines

IMG_8087

Globe representative who showed us their latest TV commercial

IMG_8092

Googly Gooeys

IMG_8107

Revo Naval talked about “Craftsmanship in Today’s Communication: The Shift of Communication Platforms”.

IMG_8136

Blogopolis 2015: Shifting Gears

IMG_8138

Jim Paredes of APO Hiking Society was present at Blogopolis 2015. He announce that a Jim Paredes App will be released very soon.

IMG_8146

That guy from Zomato

IMG_8157

Stacy de Jesus of Rappler

IMG_8176

Tony Velasquez of ANC

IMG_8183IMG_8185

 

Saturday, February 21, 2015

I Finally Attended the Blogopolis (Part 1 of 2)

Blogopolis is an annual gathering of bloggers organize by Nuffnang Philippines, the country’s premiere blog advertising company. For the longest time, I'm not attending the event because of its pricey entrance fee of P1,000. Yesterday, I was able to attend it for free and realized that you’ll just have to join their contests to avail of a free ticket.

IMG_7927

So Blogopolis has a lot of guest speakers associated with the blogosphere and they’re given 10 minutes to talk about their topic, which greatly varies from speaker to speaker. I was surprised at the number of speakers to the event and I only got bits and pieces of their advice on how to improve my blog. They’re constantly looking at how many minutes are left on their allotted time.

I’ll probably create a more detailed blog post on some of the speakers but here are the topics that the speakers talked about.

Ivan Henares talked about heritage, conservation and adaptive reuse. He emphasized that we don’t need to destroy old buildings – we just have to conserve it and re-use. He also talked about social media as a powerful tool to disseminate information. One example is how netizens reacted on social media about that building behind the Rizal Park that totally destroys its vista.

Sen Bam Aquino talked about WASAK (anti-kotong hotline), Sangguniang Kabataan Reform Bill, Go Negosyo Law and the status of Internet speed in the Philippines. He was a bit disappointed that netizens tend to notice Tweets related to his personal life that his work as a senator. He also cited a famous meme on Facebook (on how slow the Internet speed in the Philippines compared to other countries in Asia) and how it lead to senate inquiry with the telcos to improve this situation.

Pamela Cortez (and her co-author) of Pepper.ph talked about creating viral contents. They gave emphasis on providing quality contents on blogs and how they managed to achieve it. They gave tips like planning the content of the blog, to focus on quality and readability, to give different features, create magnetic headlines. They also achieved their position as one of the leading food blogs in the Philippines by giving unbiased ratings on the food and restaurants that they feature and by giving leverage on honesty and integrity.

Gang Badoy of Rocked Philippines shared the importance of having a good blog name and how important it is to be at the right place at the right time when an important event happens or simply being the journalist that you have to be. She also wanted Filipinos ask better questions, to complain intelligently, to look for a cause or advocacy and to choose the best language to one’s blog.

Representative from Acer Philippines showed the latest gadgets that will greatly improve our blogging experience. He mentioned that they called their product Liquid because it takes the form of its container, which means, it can fit the personality of its user.

Abe Olandres talked about increasing traffic and expanding contents to our blogs. He and his team from Yugatech achieved a whopping 3 million pageviews a month by content planning, having editorial calendars, studying social media and web analytics, having content diversification and YouTube-first content, doing re-purpose contents (looking at archives articles), offline engagement, horizontal & vertical content, and having thematic topics (based on season or occasion).

Michael Josh Villanueva of Gadget Match talked about the reason why he quit his job to become a YouTuber and shifted gears towards a new direction. He mentioned that the Internet is a great equalizer – and that you can achieve success online, regardless of the school you came from. He gave very practical tips on how to improve traffic on your YouTube channel and even gave some of his inspirations like Tyler Oakley, Sam Tsui, among others. According to him, to succeed on YouTube, you need a great concept, space, fast upload Internet speed and lots of practice. His tips are:

Produce great content
Be consistent
Make what you love
Be shareable
Be conversational
Find your niche

Jeff Lo of Pinoy Fitness told us his success story and how to took the risk of quitting his regular job and focus on his career, both online and offline, as the man behind Pinoy Fitness. He also talked about influencing other people, in a good way. The lessons he learned are:

1. Passion - love what u r doing
2. Find a need
3. Take a risk
4. Commit
5. Evolve -- let your passion transform you

They are just some of the numerous speakers at Blogopolis 2015: Shifting Gears. I’ll probably post the lessons I've learned from the other speakers, some other time. Thank you Nuffnang Philippines for the free ticket and hope to see you again next year for Blogopolis 2016.

IMG_7931

Ivan Henares talked about “Social History Online: Importance of Heritage, Culture & Tourism in Today’s Social Society”

 

IMG_7948

Senator Bam Aquino talked about “Putting The Message Across: Social Media as a Tool to Disseminate Relevant News & Information”

 

IMG_7958

Pepper.ph authors talked about “Audience Reaction Towards Viral Content”

 

IMG_7977

The hosts with Pepper.ph authors as well as Gang Badoy – who discussed “Empowerment of Advocacies Through Social Media”

 

IMG_8007

Acer Philippines representative showing the reasons why to choose Acer Smartphones.

 

IMG_8012

Abe Olandes of Yugatech talked about “Revisiting Possibilities: A Blogger’s Options for Expansion and Content”

 

IMG_8022

Michael Josh Villanueva talked about “Why I Quit My Job to Become a YouTuber”

 

IMG_8034

Jeff Lo of Pinoy Fitness talked about “Expanding Audience Beyond Social Media” Going Offline and Still Expanding”