BILYONGPISO JOURNEY-Money and Travel Adventure Blog

As the calendar marked its unique date, 1-11-11, a lot of people are making history today.

One of the most remarkable event that will happen today is the Pre-launching of FLASH NEGOSYO - an online business magazine. This magazine will contain all necessary information and tools needed by Filipino entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs.


The Pre-launching and the signing of memorandum between Philippine Business and Entrepreneurs' Expo (PBEX) & Flash Negosyo as PBEX Official Online Magazine will be at 1:00 pm at SM Megamall Megatrade Hall.

Other links: First Philippine Online Business Magazine





    

Yes! I'm proud to say that I just stay at home. I'm not a "tambay". (I know you are thinking that I am sort of like that). I work at home!

I must admit that on my first months as a home-based freelance professional, I am not really confident in telling everyone that I just stay at home to work. Yes, I was afraid of  what other people will think about me. That I am tambay, tamad (lazy), weird, etc. Then I realized, I should be proud of it! I work at home and I love what I am doing!

So, what do I do at home? Well, I do a lot of things and I am excited in sharing these things to you.Let me share to you my journey in becoming a full-pledged Home-based Freelance Professional...

The Transition

Before I start working from home, I was an Online English Teacher for Koreans. I was working in Eastwood, Quezon City from 5am to 2pm. After a year and a half... I discovered something - I can do this kind of job at home! So, after pondering for couple of seconds, I decided not to go to work anymore (Yes, AWOL! bad, bad bad!). But working at home was not that easy. I got no students. I was broke for two months. I started to sell polvoron so I can earn and save money to build my very first PC -- a refurbished and custom built Pentium 3 computer! And from here, my journey began...

How to become a Homebased Online English Teacher
How to become a Homebased Call Center Agent
How to become a Homebased Visual Artist




   

  

MassSocial Media and Your Business


I can still remember my Professor's lecture about mass media - it refers collectively to all communication technologies—including television, newspapers, and radio—which are used for mass communications (delivering messages to a large audience).It plays a significant role in shaping public perceptions that is why businesses put large amount of their budget in creating advertisements that can be seen, heard and read by large numbers of people.


McDonalds, Jollibee, Coca-Cola, Tide, and Colgate are only some of the brands that were made famous because of mass media. If you want your business to be heard and on top of your competitors, you need to spend lots of money in advertisements through TV, radio and prints.




But that was long time ago. The world for advertising is now changing. From the traditional mass media concept which is like this


to this
and we call this.... SOCIAL MEDIA.


Businesses are now embracing social media as a cheap (yes, truly inexpensive, mostly, free) source of promoting their products and services. If you are starting your business or have an existing business, you should now be well-equipped for this new revolution. Be ready for a change.


So, what is Social Media?


According to Wikipedia…

• "Social media supports the human need for social  interaction with technology, transforming broadcast  media monologues (one to many) into social media  dialogues (many to many)...”
•  It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers.

Also, please take note that note, that companies shouldn’t see social media as just dialogues between customers, but as dialogues between the brand and persons.


So, Instead of old model where the brand is broadcasting to the consumers, social media shifts one dimensional passive consumers into multidimensional active persons.
 It also shifts broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues.Whick looks like this:
 

•  Social Networking site (Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning, Bebo...)
• Blogs (Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad, Livejournal, Vuodatus...)
• Microblogging (Twitter, Tumblr, Brightkite, Qaiku, Facebook
  statuses…) 
• Social bookmarking (Delicious, Digg…)
• Media sharing & streaming (Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo, Qik,
  Livestream…)  
• Wikis, Review sites, Virtual worlds, Online
  gaming, Podcasts, Event sites etc. etc. 
   + a endless amount of mashups & other stuff

 Why Social Media Matters, specially in your business?

This is a very good and timely question. Before we answer that, let's take a look first at these numbers:

• 24 hours of video material updated to YouTube every minute (June 2010) 
• 9 250 000 articles available on Wikipedia (May 2010)
• 4 000 000 000 photos archived on Flickr (Dec 2009) 
• 50 000 000 tweets per day on Twitter (Feb 2010) 
• 200 000 000 users each day visiting Facebook (June 2010) 
• 100 000 000 users access Facebook through mobile devices (June 2010)
• 25 000 000 000 pieces of content shared monthly on Facebook (June 2010)  

Wow! These are great numbers. But these numbers are irrelevant. So let's just forget them. Instead, let's think of the meaning of this all. 






Nowadays, as social media becomes customary way of communicating and participating, it will inevitably  reshape the way we see the world, people will consider themselves as part of communities, rather than part of audiences. People don’t want to be treated like audiences anymore. The rise of Social Media has ushered in an era where people are talking, ranting, complaining, praising, reviewing, and sharing everything online for the world to see. They are talking about products, services, companies, experiences (bad or good) and providing their feedback, on their terms. 


That is why more and more businesses are using social media to get in front of their target audience. If your business is "out there", more and more people will find you. You don't have to spend thousand or millions in reaching your target market. What are the benefits of Social Media to your business?

• Awareness - The first major benefit of social media is that it brings awareness. It is a low-cost way to get your name or the name of your organization on the web and into the minds of customers, patrons, and prospects. Anyone can set up an account on Facebook, Twitter and dozens of other sites free of charge. The only cost involved is the cost of your time.
•  Identify Customer and Prospect Wants and Needs - Once you have established a presence in social media your business can connect with and stay in touch with customers to identify wants, needs, and problems- and communicate your solutions. Using social media, you can also monitor what your customers and others are saying about your brand. No need for expensive market research survey.
•  Make Announcements - Social media networks are a good place to toot (or tweet) your own horn. You can announce new products, services, enhancements, awards/recognition, etc. on social sites to spread the word more quickly. Just be sure to mix in helpful advice and conversation and not to toot your own horn too frequently.
• Partner Up - Find new business partners, vendors, suppliers and business opportunities and stay in touch with current business partners, vendors, and suppliers. I’ve met a few business associates through both LinkedIn and Twitter and did so within only a few months of using each service. I was not looking for this, it just happened naturally. If that is your goal, however, there are strategies to follow to make your search more productive and efficient.
• Build Trust and Credibility - I think this is the most crucial to businesses- especially if you sell a product with a long sales cycle that takes multiple touches with your customers, is that social media helps you build trust and credibility. Customers want to buy from people they know, like, and trust. Social media is a wonderful tool to get to know customers as people, become personable to them and get them to like you. Using social media is a convenient, and even fun, way to develop and cultivate relationships with your customers and prove your credibility and trustworthiness.

 A little quote before we end... 

“Although methods such as paid search, Web display ads and TV commercials still reach a larger audience, the "influence" tapped in social media is a heck of a lot stronger than it is with traditional advertising.”
– Seth Greenberg, Intuit Inc.

So, what's stopping you from entering into the Social Media realm?

Are you ready for SWITCHFOOT?


That's right, the multiaward-winning American band is coming to Manila this April, 2011! For those who missed their 2007 concert, this is your chance to watch Switchfoot live for their second visit to the Philippines.


Details to be announced. 

Source: http://www.beccamusic.com/media.php?page=249

Philippine Business and Entrepreneurs' Expo (PBEX) will have its official online magazine - FLASH NEGOSYO.

The signing of Memorandum Of Understanding Between PBEX & Flash Negosyo Online Business Magazine as PBEX Official Online Magazine is on January 11, 2011 (1/11/11), at exactly 1:00 pm.

 I'm really lucky and blessed to meet the mastermind of this magazine, El Buelva, an anchor of DZEC's Super Entrepinoy and Call Center Cafe. He informed me about this while we are walking along EDSA going to McDonalds Quezon Ave, and now, it's really going to happen. This humble person has a BIG dream for all Filipino entrepreneurs.

Surely, I will witness this event. Sa Flash Negosyo, Tiyak at Mabilis na Asenso!

I'm really excited to see Bangko Central's New Year's gift to Filipinos -- New Philippine Peso Bills. Philippine Money New Design for 2011 was introduced last December 15,2010 in a news network.

According to Amando Tetangco, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor, the new currencies took three years to complete, from conceptualization and printing. He also added that the new bills will make it difficult for counterfeiters to copy while easier for people to determine counterfeits. Wow! This is a really nice gift from our government.

Here are our new bills:




















Aside from new design,  the abaca-cotton paper used is "hygienically treated" or has anti-bacterial properties. Cool! I just wish it has also an anti-corrupt government official feature. :)

Well, how do I start?

This is the same question that every would-be blogger have in their mind. I am one of them.

I commit to myself to start my year right and part of it is to blog.

OK, so how do we do this? Since we are just starting, we might need to ask first, what are the requirements to start a successful blog? (Yes, SUCCESSFUL, because everyone of use wants success, let's include our blogs to our achievements.) 


Passion for Your Subject
As a blogger, we have to write about your blog's subject a lot. The writing is nonstop. If we don't love our blog's topic, it will show. Readers can detect when a blogger is just going through the motions rather than speaking from the heart.

Commitment
Successful blogging requires a massive amount of sweat equity and dedication. Building a successful blog requires more than just publishing a new post a few times a week. The most successful blogs are updated frequently (often several times each day), and the bloggers behind those blogs work relentlessly to promote their blogs and drive traffic to them.

Time
Building a successful blog requires a massive time investment. Growing a blog doesn't stop with publishing posts. We need to spend a lot of time everyday promoting their blogs, researching and reading to drive traffic to it.

A Desire to Network
Socializing is a critical component of developing a successful blog. Blogging by nature is a social medium, and successful blogs become so primarily because of the strong sense of community surrounding them. We need to time to respond to comments and interact with our blogs' readers as well as network on social sites, forums and more all in an effort to further promote our blogs.

A Desire to Keep Learning
The blogosphere is ever-changing, which means we always need to look for new ways to enhance our blogs by persistently researching anything and everything related to blogging.

A Love of Research and Reading
We need to  read a lot in order to stay updated on our blogs' topics and the blogosphere as a whole.

Creativity
A successful blog is typically updated very frequently. That means successful blogs always provide fresh, unique content to their readers. Writing that new content requires a great deal of creativity to keep readers from feeling bored or from feeling like the blog does not bring them any value.

Patience
Blogging success does not happen overnight. Be prepared to stay dedicated to promoting your blog for the long haul. Eventually, your hard work should pay off with increased traffic and a significant growth in popularity of your blog. The key is to not give up.


Thanks to weblog for these valuable information. Thanks also to Jomar Hilario for his enlightenment about Homebased Online Jobs and blogging. You can also get free tips from him by joining his Internet Marketing Support System. I hope I'll meet Jomar Hilario this  2011. Good luck to us, Newbies!!!