Why Facebook?

Who does not have a Facebook account? I bet, majority of us will definitely claim to having one. Once used to be an alternative of Friendster and a respite for bored office employees playing Farmville to kill the boredom or redundancy of office work, now became one of the most interactive, the most viewed social networking site in the planet.

Digital buzz has conjured interesting numbers of Facebook which really defines how Facebook now plays a major role in the society. Philippines is number 8 as per Socialbaker's tally.

What does this tell us?

Facebook is in our midst not just to connect everyone or to serve as one's personal photo album, or to express ones emotion, etc. It is also there to cater to a lot of other fields, arts, science, technology, transportation, business, finance, environment, etc., name it, Facebook has it. It evolved from an ordinary social networking site to a platform where everyone can promote a cause, advertise a product, share a breaking news or exchange ideas of social significance.

Companies, non profit organizations, etc maintain an official Facebook page to allow consumers and clients to interact with the product. It provides a chance for these companies to advertise new releases, trends and even fads to their consumers at no cost at all. While consumers can comment on a product and in some cases, even get an immediate feedback. Undeniably, even corporate executives maintain a Facebook account to enable them to reach their constituents and yes, even valued clients.

Likewise, a lot of private groups or individuals utilize Facebook to champion for their causes such as animal cruelty, climate change, drug or substance abuse, violence against women and children, etc. It serves as a medium for these champion causes' voice to be heard, to serve as a forum for discussion and to eventually effect behavioral change.

This social networking site caters to a whole range of audiences. Although restricted by internet connectivity, yet, this is not even considered a luxury as one can easily pay Php 20.00 in an internet shop for an hour surf of the page.

Such popularity of Facebook has influenced the traditional forms of media that most of us have been exposed to. Even a television network, a radio station or a newspaper company has corresponding Facebook accounts. Its existence has eventually defined what new media is and perhaps will continue to linger for long.


Photo credit:
http://5.mshcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/facebook-bullying.jpg

What have I learned so far...

Objectives are not really my forte and this module when we are requested to segmentize our audience and generate the goals and objectives our social marketing project I suddenly became dazed by the tasks that I immediately scribble for more notes.

I am so good at thinking of plans and projects but I simply find it hard to set where I wish to be headed. I feel my plans and projects are worth it but they just cannot find the direction, where they should be heading at because I just lack these requisites. It is easy to dream yet it is so hard to direct such goal into reality perhaps.

This week is by far the most challenging of the other modules which I have dealt with. My social marketing project is all about reducing the production of household garbage and I thought it is just it. But I am completely wrong. Not only that I am compelled to read more about the amount of household garbage generated by most Filipino households but also I have to internalize my campaign itself - this is all about a cause, an advocacy and not just any school work that I have to fulfill. I am a DevCom practitioner and this should go beyond the want to do it but above all, it is a responsibility to wake everyone up and move everyone into action. But how to do it? That is the biggest hurdle.

Identifying the audience is easy. It is everyone's responsibility to look after the garbage that each one produces. It is likewise a collective effort of every household member to put a conscious effort in reducing household garbage, be able to minimize and recycle.

What proves as a challenge is setting the goal and identifying the objectives. I have long been exposed to ensure that objectives should be SMART but when it comes to actually doing it for your own project, the blank wall is imminent in my midst. Trying to come up with concrete objectives that can operationalize my goal required me to go over with the readings multiple times and research on some other objectives of other projects conducted by organizations such as the U.N. While my work was not really worth a second look (they still seem mediocre), but this module has really challenged me to do good in the group project (maybe I can still show of what I learned in this area).

I am grateful for the rest of my colleagues in my section who have posted their work too as they provided me with a good chance to look upon their own objectives and learn from it. It is still a long way to go but I sure am learning in every way that I can. So long as I keep everything in my heart and a steady mind, these are always essential to enable me to reach goals in the end.


Photo credit:


http://www.freshtracks.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/powerful-questions-every-leader-should-ask-their-team.jpg
http://wealthartisan.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Sign-Success-Failure-Direction-Business.jpg

A fleeting bliss...

What do we get when what we have in our midst is nothing but the raw passion of the hour? We break each others souls in such intensity that the clock on your wall seems to have stopped. Such a slow but hurried passion that we get...that we share...and yes, we devour. Nothing but the most sinful of the deed which defies the norms of passion. Our eyes speak nothing as they struck each others gaze. I get what I want and you get what you want. Behind that are our two souls ripped apart by want but brought together by need.

And, after this, when we are torn and we are lifeless. Nothing but numbness starts to engulf what was left. That numbness that will linger until the clock will strike back again chiming for another earthly passion. We will keep everything in our heart where the blood streaming in its veins will be the only living cell to relish the macabre of our deed.

By the time I stepped out of your door, I have nothing but my sanity licking the wounds of my soul. We torn each other apart and until then, we will always be empty. Until then, we will still bear that hole in the pit of our stomach, agonizingly remembering every time the clock stopped ticking. Our bodies were in heaven but not our soul.

Maybe, someday...

Maybe in 10 years time? Or sometime in our lifetime we will meet again. Just like that day when I knocked on your door and we are both beaming with smiles on our faces. Perhaps 10 years from now you have some white hair and lines on your forehead but I guess, I will never lose sight of that smile...never.

Maybe in 10 years time? We will run into each other again, somewhere, here or in the most uncanny of places. I will be older then too. I may be smarter then or wiser or still, that same immature person you frown upon whenever I have my smirk on my face. Maybe I am stronger by then or you are stronger too.

"Someday, we'll run into each other again, I know it…Maybe I'll be older, smarter, and just plain better... If that happens, that's when we deserve each other… "

Maybe in 10 years time? I still have your number and you finally call me...to rekindle those 10 years that we have missed. A smile, that hug, or those innumerable morning rendezvous that we have shared. Maybe, it is more than the flight of stairs or that rush in the mattress.

Maybe in 10 years time? We will deserve each other more than what we were 10 years ago. I finally get to hold you arms and never let go of it again. You finally keep me in your midst and never to be part again. Life may change 10 years from now but yes, maybe.

Maybe in 10 years time? This pain will fade away. They same time heals. Love grows. I just keep them now until that 10th year that we will meet again. I have the memories to medicate the pain and sustain me for the next 10 years of life.

Maybe in 10 years? We will be older, smarter, wiser, stronger...just plain better and in love with each other...maybe...in 10 years...

Let's SWOT

SWOT Analysis is one of the many methods utilised for strategic planning. Apart from SWOT, there is also the Ishikawa Diagram (Fishbone Analysis), PESTEL, EPISTEL, or STEER Analysis. What do they have all in common? They all consider the environment for planning. It shows to us how an effective planning should be done – it is not one way, nor a work of one, nor to consider only one factor. That is not the case. It involves every conceivable and inconceivable force within and outside the environment, it goes beyond the current perspective and explore situations that may arise or may have arisen.  They all provide every strategic planner the window to look in the past and foresee the future to be able to generate a workable decision for the present.

 

Inasmuch as social marketing is different from commercial marketing, social marketing has to position itself strategically to the right audience with the right purpose and focus. Of course, it will be useless if the goal is simply to inform or to raise awareness. Social marketing aims to influence behaviours.

In generating SWOTs, it is important that the social issue is clear and imminent. It is not just because some issue arose, a SWOT has to be immediately generated. We get to ask, is there a need in the first place? How appropriate is the method? How important is it in the first place?

Of course, the campaign purpose is always given to identify the ultimate goal of the campaign which relates to the social issue identified. By asking, what is it in such issue that we want to address? What should be addressed? Should we identify multiple purposes? It can be possible, so long as there is sufficient resources t ensure that every corresponding focus is realised.

Focus of the campaign becomes the “need to do” part. What needs to be done in order to address such campaign purpose? It is important that the focuses are workable and achievable. It becomes a waste of effort if we focus on changing the President of a country just to address the campaign purpose of low production of rice. Focuses should be realistic enough enabling the social marketing professional to generate a rather “tangible” yield from the campaign.

Photo credit:

http://timsstuff.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/EverySWOTdifferent.jpg

When you love no one but your shadow...

It is that feeling of boredom, of uncertainty when you see no one in your heart but the blood that surges that life through your veins. Sure, we get to be restless of waiting, of waiting and of that endless waiting every day. Even the air seems to stop with time as you hold yourself against that stolid wall and you stand with one foot, aimlessly staring above the dark night clouds.

You feel how remote you are...not even your soul you can get a grasp on. Not even your sanity who seems to be lurking but not at your threshold of consciousness. No sense of urgency, no sense of immediacy, but only that sense of want to be spending some smoky nights and wake the next day wanting to have another smoky night again. But it is just nowhere out of sight...out of reach...


As everything goes deeper and darker, you sense that single figure behind you. You tried to get a grasp on but it is immensely intangible that even your wits cannot decipher what it holds. Such future when you see nothing but bleakness and gone...You would rather wish to be ubiquitous and come shattering in space than be whole and feel that painful rip of your tears. The dust may spell destiny, and perhaps this is where solace is all about, this is where solitude and tranquility resides.


And what does that dark, abstract figure gives you? A company? A smile? Or a scornful reminder of how meaningless it is to dwell on such dreams that will never come even in your sleep. Maybe a slap to wake you up and vent on the fact that you love no one but your own shadow.

Why Should I Quit Smoking?

"If adults will say to children that smoking is bad, then why are they smoking?"

The Thai Health Promotion Foundation has come up with a very effective advert about quitting smoking - "the Smoking Kid". The same advert answers my question on why I should quit smoking. 

Just the same, this advert answers the 9 questions posed by Lee and Kotler (2011) towards social marketing.

So why should I then quit smoking?

Because this advert focuses towards influencing the smoking behaviour amongst teens and adults alike. That in fact, this advert targets the acceptance of a new behaviour (smoking is not good), rejects a potentially undesirable behaviour (smoking for kids is not good so much so that smoking is not good for everyone), modify a current behaviour (not to smoke), and abandon an old undsirable behaviour (abandon smoking).

Because Philip Kotler & Gerald Zaltman 40 years ago have introduced the idea of utilising marketing principles towards various social causes. Which t now, has evolved already and has been greatly recognised in various causes to include health and wellness.

Because despite the fact that cigarette adverts contain notices on how smoking is bad to ones health, the primordial aim of these adverts is still to sell the idea that smoking is tolerable. While the Smoking Kid advert aims to influence a long prevalent social issue of smoking and on how it greatly diminishes ones health.

Because the Smoking Kid advert has been espoused by both the public government and non-government organisations alike pushing the aim for a healthier community.

Because the Smoking Kid advert carries with it the unique value proposition that taps into every one's subconscious. We get to ask, if adults smoke why can't children smoke then? If adults will say to children that smoking is bad, then why are they smoking? That value exchange which shows that words are not enough but it takes real action to realise and accept and eventually succeed in the influencing of one's behaviour.

Because people behind this advert goes beyond professionals whose aim is not just to make money, but to convey to people the real value of quitting smoking, thank you the the Thai health authorities and the Thai Health Promotion Foundation.

Because smoking is increasingly becoming popular not just to adults but to children as young as 10 years old. This is an alarm to everyone on how smoking becomes indiscriminate as the years go by.

Because not only that this advert was contained in Thailand, but with the advent of social media, it has become more widespread all over the world.

Because this advert covers the entire strata of the community. A call for every policy maker all over the world, a call for every tobacco manufacturer, a call for every seller, for every buyer and for every user - that smoking is bad to ones health.

So why should I then quit smoking? Because Lee and Kotler asked me 9 questions and I gave 9 answers and I have 9 reasons why I should quit smoking.

Video credit:

Thai Health Promotion Foundation- Smoking Kid
Created by Ogilvy Thailand (2012)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u-rhnV4l08