THE so-called tri-media which is basically composed of publications that uses print, radio and television has been the standard form of information, education and communication for ages and the growing and widespread use of social media today has taken a whirlwind effect that even traditional publicists included it in their systems.
Few years back in the Philippines, the Presidential Communication Operations Office (PCOO) has included social media practitioners in its pool of media invitees for its regular press conferences at the Office of the President inside the Malacañan Palace where stalwart bloggers and social media influencers such as Mocha Uson were included.
Lately, the Philippine Information Agency tapped and invited the so-called “bloggers” as resource persons in its continuing advocacies of government programs and networking with the members of the Association of Government Information Officers-Cordillera (ASGIOCO). Blogging to my recollection means “web-log” which was accordingly termed by covering journalists and news correspondents during the period of the Gulf War in the early nineties. These media persons wrote their online journals using their account and network website for posting. At the click of share in their laptop tabs, their weblogs becomes public.
Nowadays, a lot of us maintain a personal web-log or blog which often include diary-like notes and photographs. We also observe that complaints, grievances, food discoveries, fashion statements and personal and artistic creations by individuals and groups can be read, seen and heard through various social media portals such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube among others. A child even became a millionaire just by testing, reviewing and playing around with kiddy toys with the help of his parents who posted his video in a popular video sharing portal.
For the promotion of Cordillera’s regional trade fair Impakabsat, my office actually tapped the expertise of a service provider that can boost online promotions at the National Capital Region and its neighboring industrial zones along the Cavite and Laguna area.
With this development, we were kept abreast of the daily social media reach through Data Analytics. An early stage of our promo for example gave us a report stating that “as of yesterday, our Facebook page has reached a total of 68,600 audiences 7,080 post engagements”. Hoping that these social media promotion will have a high clicks-to-sales conversion in our trade fair, we even had a paid boosting which improved our social media insights for the days covered.
As the media specialist of my office, my travel to the big city last week to help promote our regional trade fair was truly a tough one. Our first leg was at TV-5 for a 10-11am show with Ms. Cheryl Cosim. The interviewees were our clients who are also trade exhibitors for IMPAKABSAT. This was followed by a 3-4pm schedule with Mr. Ariel Ureta and Ms. Winnie Cordero at ABS-CBN’s radio network DZMM with another set of exhibitors. All went smoothly with selfies together with the news anchors and the last leg that I was scheduled to beat was at DZRH at Star City with Mr. Angelo Palmones.
Since our driver who was depending on Waize got us going in circles somewhere in Santa Mesa with the pandemonium of re-blocking, counter-flows, I decided to follow my instinct and walked towards the direction of Star City after we have crossed the Pasig River in order to beat the next media call-time of 5:30pm at DZRH. This is also to allow my companions to proceed to their next destination in Makati.
I boarded a jeep bound for Padre Faura and alighted moments after somewhere in Santa Ana because of slow mobility due to vehicular traffic. Knowing my direction with the aid of my Google Map, I inched my way towards Star City, attempting to ride a tricycle but I was told by the driver that they are not allowed and with my brisk walk, I finally arrived at DZRH at 6:45pm. At the station, I found Atty. Sam Gallardo of DTI-Abra still waiting for their turn to be ushered in the studio. I calmed down a bit wiping my forehead sweat with my already damp hanky and by 8pm, we were called for that overtime airing at one of the PH’s most heard and rating broadcast networks.
Unlike over a decade ago, there were no such thing as Tele-Radyo with programs that you can actually monitor and share using you mobile phones. All our tele-radyo promotional media hopping from TV-5, DZMM and DZRH were shared by my office-mates who were not able to join us for our trade fair. It further means that entrepreneurs can also promote their products using all forms of media platforms and can save high costs of the once popular media by going online and by linking up with the right channels.