This year, I celebrate my 15th year as a blogger. That is almost as long as the amount of time I spent on my first job with a leading accounting firm, much longer than my stint with a bank, and about half the number of years I’ve been married.
I started my blogging journey back in 2005/2006 on the Multiply platform before it transformed into an e-commerce platform then shut down in 2013. I learned to improve my craft through the years by attending annual iBlog summits, organized by internet marketing specialist Janette Toral. In the last years of iBlog, I had several opportunities to become a speaker or panelist and share my own insights with new batches of bloggers.
Veteran bloggers of iBlog summits at the last iBlog in 2019. (L-R): Me, Mike Abundo, JJ Disini, Tonyo Cruz, Ruben Licera
A dear friend, a pioneer travel blogger, Eric Dormido (known in the blogosphere as Byahilo) passed away yesterday, October 5, 2018. He suffered a cardiac arrest while undergoing routine dialysis for his Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). He was 39.
Eric, all smiles always (taken from his Facebook page)
Eric was one of the first bloggers I got to know when I began blogging in 2006. At that time, he was already starting to make a name for himself as a travel blogger. There were very few travel bloggers like him back then.
As a long-time advocate of, and resource speaker on, digital citizenship, I welcomed the recent collaboration of Globe Telecom, Facebook, and the Department of Education (DepEd) to continue bringing awareness of responsible digital citizenship to public and private schools nationwide, for both teachers and students.
(L-R) Globe Senior Vice President Nikko Acosta, DQ representative Galvin Ngo, Globe President & CEO Ernest Cu, Facebook Head of Community Affairs in Asia Pacific Clair Deevy and DepEd Undersecretary Tonisito Umali
Why is digital citizenship even more important now
As of end-2017, there are now over 60 million internet users. That is 60% of the populace! 52.2 million of the 60 million, roughly half of the entire Philippine population, is mobile, spending over 3 hours on it daily. A Philippine National Police (PNP) report also showed that half of internet users are 17 years old and below.
An international think-tank formed in association with the World Economic Forum, the DQ Institute, revealed in its inaugural 2018 DQ Global Impact Report that 56% of kids aged 8-12 years old worldwide who are online, are exposed to cyber risks. A study of the Philippine internet situation in that report shows that 73% of Filipino children are exposed to cyber risks, the second highest in a study among 29 countries.
For three days last October 11-13, 2017, the largest gathering of marketing practitioners came together for the Internet Mobile and Marketing Association of the Philippines’ (IMMAP) second digital congress named DigiCon DX. This year, the congress focused on the culture envisioned to aid marketers in adapting to digitalization as reflected by its theme “DX: The Culture of Digital Transformation”.
Eduardo Mapa, Chairman of #DigiCon2017
So what was I doing here? Well, thanks to friends from the industry, I was invited as part of the media pool — which meant that I could attend sessions as a delegate and get some media access to boot.
This was a change I would not miss. As a blogger usually at the other end of the marketing campaign, I only experienced campaigns from the receiving end. At #DigiCon2017, it was actually a great chance to observe and listen to talks designed from the perspective of brands, advertisers, marketers and PR guys.
Brands and advertising agencies are big on metrics. Page views, number of followers, number of clicks, etc. In the absence of other analytical tools, this has some value in analyzing the success of a campaign and for estimating how wide a reach it has achieved.
BUT (and this is a big BUT)…
Page views can be gamed. The number of clicks can be gamed. And followers can be bought. Pathetic, but it does happen. To be fair, there are also bots that automatically follow you if you are perceived to have some influence in cyberspace. I know that on Twitter, I wonder about eggheads (I refer to Twitter accounts with a default egg instead of a photo) that follow me and yet either don’t have tweets or tweet nonsensical stuff. Fortunately, I don’t have too many of those.
Why, you may ask, are these statistics gamed and why are followers bought? Well, there are those who would benefit from ramped-up page views and followers. Some celebrities and netizens who participate in brand campaigns use these stats to negotiate their price or to show they are that popular. Not all do this, mind you. I have many celebrity and netizen friends who would rather stay authentic rather than fake their popularity and influence. But there are those who would resort to this for some form of personal gain.
We may be a Third World country lacking in so many things that First World nations have in abundance. But let it not be said that we lack gratitude.
My own Mom always drilled this into me. Say “Thank you”. As a kid, I heard her tell me this so many times. It almost sounded like nagging when she’d remind, “Say thank you, say thank you…” But I’m glad she did.
