Every so often it would be good to reflect on your roots as a blogger and what got you started with writing in the first place. Doing this can help put some perspective in your overall goal of blogging whether it be for fun, for profit or for sharing things with others.
Remembering your roots can also help you avoid unnecessary conflict in the future as it puts a lot of things in perspective. I’d like to share you my roots:
A wise man once said, If you can’t bring the subject to the location, bring the location to the subject.
Err, sometime early last year I participated in a campaign to model for a certain line of apparel. The photographer for the “SM Urbanista” campaign was Xander Angeles and he had a unique way of bringing a surreal urban look into the studio. As we could not do outdoor shoots, Xander brought the background into the studio. What he did was take photos of urban backgrounds and project them to the studio wall using an LCD projector.
I’m not quite sure how the exact settings for the camera were set but this was obviously done using a slow shutter speed (I remember not breathing for about 2 seconds per take) and I do not remember a flash being fired (I could be wrong). Can anyone explain the anatomy behind these kinds of shots?
In the communications industry, advertising in magazines is one effective means of getting your message across. Placing a one page advertisment on the right newspaper or magazine can most probably get the message to your target demographic. However, there is always a back door to getting published without having to pay a cent. Welcome to the strategy known as the press release – a means to get your message through without having to pay P100,000.00 for an ad space.
I was part of a panel last week at the “PR Rocks” PRSP Summit together with Ms. Pennie Azarcon-dela Cruz of Sunday Inquirer Magazine and Jones Campos of Globe Corporate PR. We discussed the Malu Fernandez controversy from an editorial perspective, corporate transparency to consumers, and tips on how to pitch to the media. Ms. Pennie, an award winning editor, gave some tips on how to make the editor’s job easier in choosing which press release to place.
Are you a PR or marketing practitioner? Here are some effective ways to get your press released published. You have to bear in mind that dozens of press releases make it to the inbox of newspaper and magazine editors every day. How does the editor pick the really good ones to publish? How do you make your piece of paper stand out from the rest of the stack? Here is a compiled list from Ms. Penny with some of my notes:
Last month, Winston Damarillo launched yet another company called Morph (their website is a neat www.mor.ph domain hack), which is described to be a “SaaS accelerator” for entrepreneurs.
Morph is a Software as a Service (SaaS) marketplace company. We are engaged in every aspect of the SaaS industry. Our business portfolio includes subscriber-supported web services, hosted web applications, web infrastructure, delivery platform, and market engine for web-enabled applications. Founded by a team of entrepreneurs, Morph is a “technoprise” entity that builds Web 2.0 companies. We provide the operational infrastructure, technical platform, and business stimulus necessary to bring web start-ups to market. [Mor.ph]
From what I understood during the presentation, Morph helps tech entrepreneurs by providing the legal, marketing, investment and back end support for software as service ideas which they pitch and discuss together with Morph. This is why Winston describes the company as some sort of “accelerator” or “incubator” for new projects because it provides an ideal environment to jump start a SaaS-oriented project from zilch. I must stress the fact that Morph does help even with the legal and marketing concerns for the product. Very 360 degrees.
If you are interested in finding out more about Morph and maybe even pitch an idea, you can contact Macel Legaspi and she will help you get in touch with the right people.
Contact Information
Macel M. Legaspi
[email protected]
+63917.627.7681
Other coverage:
The Manila Bulletin Online
INQUIRER.net
The following events take place within the last six months.
A public relations agency called me up after I posted a review of their client’s product x. The account executive was a little careful with the words coming out of her mouth and she was asking if I could “improve on what I wrote.” I stopped dead on my tracks (actually I didn’t really stop because I remember clearly that I was on an escalator at Rockwell) and asked her,
“What do you mean by … improve?”
It may be true that bloggers are now being tapped by PR agencies to test consumer products and services. Because of the nature of our content management system, we can edit our entries anytime. But I highly doubt that bloggers are becoming tools of PR. I think it is quite the opposite. Yesterday, I gave a short presentation to marketing and communications students at the PR Rocks Conference sponsored by the Public Relations Society of the Philippines. I told them that bloggers, though they may not be journalists are passionate individuals who hang on to their credibility. They, I would like to believe, do not sell out.
Out of politeness and still bearing the shock of not knowing what to say, I told this person, “Let me see what I can do…”
I texted her immediately after putting the phone down and told her that I was greatly disturbed by that request. She understood deeply as I have been in touch with this person since my editor / writer days at Hinge-Inquirer – as the request was truly odd. I read my review once more and it was no different in style to the dozens of reviews I have written since 2003. I am always fair and want to give products a fighting chance in the market. I didn’t see why I had to “improve” on it. What I have written, I have written.
Take everything away from me, but please don’t take away my credibility. I understand that the PR fellow was just doing her job but it is also our duty to educate remind PR practitioners that we need to set criteria. Sometimes they get too engrossed in their work. 🙂
On bad products
I have a personal opinion about REALLY bad products – I never review products that don’t make sense to consumers (VERY iffy market / VERY sub par features / VERY horrendous pricing scheme) because I know that such types of products will die a natural death. Giving a bad product a bad review is like kicking someone when he’s already down. In the case of this scenario I just outlined, the product was not bad. I gave a fair perspective on the strengths and weaknesses.
So what is the purpose of this post? Because of this incident, I would like to reveal the 8th characteristic of Blog and Soul (only 7 are posted), something which I never really wanted to talk about because I felt that it was unnecessary. The 8th pointer of the Blog and Soul Movement is to protect bloggers from sacrificing their credibility to PR. This does not happen intentionally, but I tell you that it does happen. I have dealt with several PR and ad agencies in the past – Ogilvy, GMCI, Strategic Edge, Bridges, Dominguez, Stratworks, etc and know that they are all composed of very good and upright people whom I respect and love. But we, as bloggers, must always be on guard just in case. Just in case.
The last thing you want to happen is to realize that you’ve sold out without knowing it.