A few days ago, the TV show “Korina Today” made a feature segment entitled “Beware of the Blog” wherein, the host and a number of guests talked about their views about the different issues relating to blogs primarily brought about by the Brian Gorell controversy.

The discussion raised a number of intriguing views about blogging. From notions like a blog can only be a reliable source of information if the blogger behind it is “respectable”, to the definition of illegitimate blogger as bloggers who hides behind anonymity, and a couple more which can be read on Noemi’s blog.

The purpose of this post is not to react to the points talked about on the show, for I believe that Noemi, Juned and Renzie had already said what I wanted to say. I am actually more concerned on why the people behind Korina Today titled their episode “Beware of the Blog”.

Why Should People Be Afraid?

The initial reaction that I had when I first heard the title was, “Huh? Why the heck should people be wary of blogs?” As a person who has been blogging for four years, and a blogger who covers and talks about the Pinoy blogging community, I have come to know a lot of things about the blogs and how it works. Nowhere along the path did I encounter anything that is enough of a reason for people to be afraid of it.

Is it because of the Brian Gorell Controversy? Are they telling people that, since Gorell has a blog, he could write about anyone who has crossed him and ruin their reputations? Or could the Malu Fernandez-OFW mobbing be the reason, where Malu was attacked verbally by people with blogs because of her not-so-well-placed “acerbic wit”? Or is it about the Desperate Housewives’ racial slur issue, where blogs has proven to be a forced not to be reckoned with?

Beware of the Bloggers?

It is true that blogs has shown its great power in the past causing a lot of commotion and harming a number of people. But I don’t think that it is “the blog” that people should be afraid of but the blogger behind it.

Telling people to be afraid of blogs is like telling people to stay away from knives. Blogs are only a medium, just like TV and Newspapers. It is how it is used that determines if it could be dangerous or not. So based from this, it is the bloggers who are potentially dangerous. However’ I’m not saying that the title should be “Beware of the Bloggers“, either, for not all bloggers are misguided enough to be feared.

Beware of People Who Don’t Understand Blogging

I don’t think that it is fair for bloggers and blogging to be subjected to such a prejudice similar to the one conveyed by whomever thought up of the title “Beware of the Blog”. It’s been like this for a very long time. Blogs are usually described as unstable, informal, and even dangerous. If bloggers are not portrayed as hungry money makers, they are portrayed as people who does nothing but whine and bitch about everything.

Before anyone tries to talk about (or against) blogging, I suggest that they try it out, or at least try to understand it more, before speaking. Blogs are not something that can be easily conceived. For behind everything that can be seen on the surface, there are other things that are at work.

Just another one of my thoughts. Happy Blogging!

What do you do when you’re not posting on your blog? Do you just sit back and relax while you wait for people to drop by and read your blog? Or do you continue to stay glued in front of your computer taking time to market your blog?

I find it really amusing that a lot of bloggers don’t bother promoting their blogs at all. They just create a blog, put in a couple of posts, and that’s it. And then they wonder why there aren’t a lot of people visiting their blogs.

Uhhh… Blog Marketing?

If you really are serious in getting more visitors on your blog, then just making posts alone is not enough to reel them in. Bloggers often forget that blogging also has the marketing side of it.

Think of your blog as a product that you want to sell. Even if you have a very good product that you know people would like, it still wouldn’t sell very well if you don’t know how to market it properly. In other words, if you don’t market your product, nobody will know that it even exists.

Corporations usually hire groups of people to do the marketing tasks for them. Even small businesses do this every once in a while. In blogging, you have to do it by yourself. You’d have to spend money on advertisements, look for endorsers, build up hype to your blog, interact with other bloggers on your niche, participate on conversations on other blogs and a lot of other things.

So if you were wondering why some bloggers spend 8-10 hours in blogging, now you know.

Is blog-marketing worth all the time and effort?

I know what you’re thinking right now. You’re thinking that blog-marketing may be a little too complicated for the average blogger to tackle. Although this may be true, it all depends on how serious you are in making your blog successful.

A lot of famous blogs in the blogosphere owe their success to proper blog marketing. Sure it is a lot of hard work, but the benefits of this would really help boost your blog’s growth.

Look at where blog-marketing has taken PinoyBlogero.com. One reason why I don’t post often is that I spend my free time marketing my blog both online and offline. By far it has proven to be very effective.

What are you waiting for? Stand up and go promote your blog!

Blog-marketing is an equally important task that aspiring pro-bloggers should look into. It is just one out of the many activities of blogging. Take some time to learn about internet-marketing and apply it to your blog. No need to enroll to any Internet-marketing courses, the internet is full of free tips on this topic.

Always remember that the amount of time and energy that you put on to the marketing of your blog will spell the difference in terms of success between you and your competitors.

Happy blogging!

Do you spend time in marketing your blog? If yes, how did your efforts affect the status of your blog? Share your thoughts on the topic by leaving a comment below!

Update: As requested by Kanupriya and WeirDo, I’ll be making a post on some of the basic Marketing techniques that I use on PinoyBlogero.com soon. Stay updated!

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Do something for me: Go out and ask the people around you if they have already heard, or have any idea, of the word “Blog”. I bet after a series of questionings you’ll found out that most, if not all, of them actually have no clue about the meaning of the word.

“Blog? Oo, alam ko yon! Diba iyon yung show sa Studio23? Yung Barkada Log?”

Pinoy Bloggers should know by now that not all Filipinos are aware of the existence of our world. When it comes to awareness on blogging, the term ‘blog’ often registers to non-bloggers as something that can be described as “new” and “unheard of” thing.

Of course, as bloggers, we know that the world of blogging is not really new (It first came to invade the Philippine internet back in 1996, at that time it was called a Journal), however, there is no question that our beloved hobby is relatively unheard of here inside the Philippine shores.

Why is this so? Why is it that only a few Pinoy bloggers are aware of blogging?

Karlo: Oh, so you are new to blogging? Welcome!
Blogger: Thanks. Still trying things out. Hope I could get the hang of this.
Karlo: Hahaha. So, where did you hear of blogging?
Blogger: Aaa… sa Mel and Joey. I saw that I could easily earn money from blogging which is why I quickly signed up for one. Hehe. Sana kumita ako dito.
Karlo: Oh…. Really?….

[A conversation with a newbie blogger over at YM]

Blog? Diba pwede akong maging milyonaryo dyan?

If we would look at the present state of the blogosphere, we would notice that the population of Pinoy bloggers is only a small fraction when compared to the overall number of Pinoy users who use the internet today. Like what I said on my article, “Pinoy Awareness on Blogging“, I have observed that the blogosphere still has great potential to grow, the only thing that we need is to promote ourselves not just to the online world, but also to the outside world.

A lot of bloggers today, including yours truly, are striving to introduce blogging to those who are still unaware of it. We’ve managed to get a few people to jump in on the bandwagon, but the numbers still wasn’t enough to push blogging into a growth spurt. We needed a medium that could reach out to a great audience. We needed the power of television.

Then the opportunity came…

A couple of weeks ago, the show “Mel and Joey” under the GMA7 TV network featured a short segment about earning money through blogging. Finally! A chance for blogging to be discovered by other Pinoys. Such an instance is a rarity in local media which is why everyone looked forward to watching the said show. [Watch the clip here]

Let me see. What should I write here?

I am a person who strongly believes that everything in this world is perfectly balanced. In spite of the constant changes that the world undergoes everyday, balance is maintained through the Principle of Equivalent Trade.

The principle states that when an entity loses/gains something, it must also gain/lose something of equivalent value to achieve equilibrium. For example, in order for you to get your hands on a McBurger, you must give up 50 pesos to the cashier which is the exact equivalent of a McBurger Meal.

Shifting out of balance
Everyday, I wake up to see lots of messages on my comment inbox and tagboard waiting for me to be read and replied to. There are those comments who express their thanks and delight, there are also those who disagree and share their own thoughts.

But every once in a while, among those piles of messages, we receive messages that are similar to these:

“Hi! Blog hop! ^_^”

“Wow nice site! Visit mine!”

“Hi po! Please visit my blog at [Blog URL]. Please read my posts and don’t forget to comment. Thanks!”

I have been on the blogging business long enough for me to know that these kinds of messages are just baits for you to visit their blogs (Let’s call them blog-baits for the sake of discussion).

Such a method is already a common practice in the blogosphere nowadays. Bloggers hop from one blog to another leaving a message which points to their own blogs. Then they just sit back and wait to see if anybody would drop by to read the stuffs they have prepared.

Such a method is an easy way to get a few visitors on your blog, but it is also the cheapest way to do so.