Fun Facebook Facts, Philippines

Social Media Etiquette and the New Social Rules

With the advent of Social Media our connection to the internet has become an essential daily routine for a lot of us — especially marketing professionals and “full-time internet junkies”. If I can’t access my laptop, you can be pretty sure that my iPhone has its 3G surfing function switched on.

Why?… you may ask. Because I want to be connected. Or, scratch that. I need to be connected.

So I asked myself, does everyone else feel this way? Or at least a majority of the people that may read this blog (all seven or eight of you)? And I don’t mean connected in a way that you can call someone, but rather, connected that you can share, post, rant or rave anything at any given moment — whether it be 1. a snapshot of a delectable dish you are in the process of consuming or 2. a nugget of wisdom from the extremely insightful speaker at the conference you are attending or 3. a frustration / FTW situation you want to share with the rest of the world (or your network, at the very least).

If you could relate [to any of the situations], you may find the rest of the article worth reading.

Social Media capital?

Although our distinguished title of  “texting capital of the world” has been challenged in recent years, it has long been accepted that Filipinos have a penchant for utilizing our mobile phones for sending off SMS (Short Messaging Service). Every Juan and Maria in our overpopulated streets can be seen holding the ubiquitous cell phone, typing while walking or talking with a friend or constantly checking whether the beep they just heard came from that tiny tech device so easily stored in our pockets.

In more recent times, we have also seen another global phenomenon making its way to our shores — Social Media. And being such easy adopters, we have seen the rise of users — from the tech savvy bloggers to the ordinary housewife to even our household help. Everyone has a Facebook account, a Multiply account, perhaps a Flickr or Youtube, a Twitter or a Plurk… and yes, even Friendster is alive and well (though some would disagree). It’s not an uncommon phenomenon nowadays to hear the phrase “add me up in Facebook” or “i-Friendster mo ako.” Some would even go as far as to say that the social networks have now replaced the most commonly used form of communication (as opposed to text messaging).

Would I go as far as saying that the Philippines has become the social media capital of the world? Probably not. But, we could be heading in that direction. In the recent Wave 4 study done by Universal McCann, these are some internet usage stats that were discovered:

Not another litany on blogger etiquette

Over the past few years, we’ve seen the rise of the Blogger. What was traditionally reserved for the folks over at our favorite publishing companies has now transcended these boundaries, allowing the common person to pick up a laptop and mash away at their keyboards and produce their own unique blend of news. Sure, it was kind of geeky at first — kind of sissy, in fact; keeping an electronic diary of sorts. But others saw this as an opportunity to share their thought on other subjects, and not just their daily lives. Food blogs, Tech blogs, Political blogs, Travel blogs sprouted up by the thousands.

And this was good. Instead of reading a biased write-up or review or being spoon fed a brand marketers message, we could now get all kinds of information from people that included their personal opinions on whatever subject matter that was relevant. And therein lay the power of the blogger — the ability to give personal views without reservation, while remaining unbiased and without vested interest.

Of course, a lot of brands noticed this; the ability of a blogger to get his message across to potentially millions of customers. A few brave, early adopters experimented with this. And the localized blog event was born. Back in the day (read a few years ago), bloggers were lucky to get invited to one blog event a week, as they came few and far between. But as we have all seen, one event a day is the new norm. In fact, for others, one a day is a dry spell in their calendar.

Maiden post

Yay! I am finally typing some stuff down. I guess the hardest part is to get the ball rolling, or in this case, get the first post out of the way.

It’s funny, I created this blog a couple of months ago on an inspiration induced whim. I had something I wanted to write about. In fact, I had a few things that I really wanted to write about. But, as we all need to keep our day jobs to pay our bills, I got swamped with a whole lot of other stuff. Add the fact that I don’t have internet where I reside… and you now have a great formula for procrastination.

But all jokes aside, if you haven’t read the About page, I can pretty much fill you in on what this blog is going to be about.

Ideally, I’d really like to share any thought and ideas on our growing tech world — whether it be on hardware, software, social networking, digital marketing or any news we would deem worthy. Of course, I’d rather not just rehash some PR articles and do away with the bylines… I aim to put more insight and share personal views in the coming months… or however long this love affair lasts.

So until the next post, cheers!