October 4 to 6: Search Engine and Social Media Marketing Strategy Workshop

(Photos from earlier 2 workshop batches held at Ateneo de Manila University, Rockwell Center, Makati City)

The DigitalFilipino.com Club, in collaboration with Search Profile Index, will be having its 4th workshop on "Search Engine and Social Media Strategy Workshop" this October 4 to 6, 2011 from 9 am to 4:30 pm at Ateneo Graduate School of Business #20 Rockwell Drive, Rockwell Center, Makati City. Target participants are entrepreneurs, marketing, and sales professionals who would like to explore further use of the Internet to promote their business online.

Search Profile Index was created to help companies assess their current or planned website versus their competition including online marketing and sales strategies. In addition, listen and monitor online conversations. Reports are produced on a monthly basis, giving insights and suggestions to its subscribers.

DigitalFilipino Club Members are entitled to the following free slots:

• Corporate member - 2 slots and can attend for 3 days
• SME member - 1 slot and can attend for 3 days
• Individual member - 1 day session (not transferrable). Discounted rate of P5,000 for the remaining 2 days.
• Non-members can attend this workshop for P10,000. (pay through Paypal)

To reserve your slot, please contact Janette Toral.

This workshop will:

1. Discuss tips and techniques to get your site to the top of search engine rankings (e.g. Google, Yahoo and Bing) and stay there. 
2. Help you create a social media strategy and work plan.
3. Use tools (e.g. Search Profile Index) to monitor your website, search engine, and social media campaign performance.

Participants are requested to bring their own laptop. The venue has wi-fi Internet access. However, bringing of back-up Internet access gadget is encouraged. Note also that food is not included in this workshop.

Day 1: Creation of a Search Engine Marketing Plan

Discussion and Demonstration
Introduction of search engine marketing and optimization. Topics include:

• Identify niche positioning for products and services that you will sell, target customers, buying frequency and motivation
• Keywords discovery, attractiveness analysis and navigation
• Competition analysis
• Improving your website page titles, description, menus, body text, other assets and good content (on-page optimization)

Day 2: Creation of a Social Media Plan and Presence Online

Discussion and Demonstration
Techniques to improve ranking on search engine results and engage your readers. Topics include:

• Web copywriting
• Developing content designed for the buying cycle.
• Creating your social media presence online
• Social media plan development
• Building an online footprint
• Social bookmarking and tagging
• Directory submission
• Links through blog posts
• Microblogging
• Social Networks

Day 3 Plan Presentation and Monitoring Performance

• Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Plan Presentation
• Tracking results and calibrate
• Using Search Profile Index to track performance.
• Working with service providers

To earn a certificate of attendance from DigitalFilipino Club, participants should: 

• complete the 3-days session
• submit and present completed assignment work and any revision asked for through webinar on October 13, 2011.

To reserve your slot, please contact Janette Toral.

Sales Tactics Using Search Engine and Social Media Marketing

The DigitalFilipino.com Club, in collaboration with Search Profile Index, will be having a workshop on "Sales Tactics using Search Engine and Social Media Marketing" this September 28 to 30, 2010 at Room 207, Ateneo Graduate School of Business, Rockwell Center, Makati City from 9 am to 4:30 pm.

Search Profile Index is created to help companies assess their current or planned website versus their competition including online marketing and sales strategies. In addition, listen and monitor online conversations. Reports are produced on a monthly basis, giving insights and suggestions to its subscribers.

DigitalFilipino Club Members are entitled to the following free slots:

• Corporate member - 1 slot and can attend for 3 days
• SME member - 1 slot and can attend for 2 days
• Individual member - discounted rate of P10,000 for 3 days
• Non-members can attend this workshop for P15,000.

To reserve your slot, please contact Janette Toral.

WORKSHOP OUTLINE 

Day 1: DEFINING YOUR TARGET AND HOW TO AIM AT IT

1. Understand your goals, products, audience, and potential leads.

• Identify niche positioning for products and services that you'll sell
• Profile of target customers, buying frequency, and motivation. 
• Business potential (one time , short – term, long – term, seasonal, cross-sell, up-sell) 
• SWOT, Porter’s, Blue Ocean 

2. Learn from the Best: Find market leaders, conversations, and influencers.

• Introduction to Search Engine Marketing / Search Engine Optimization
• Keywords discovery, attractiveness analysis, and implementation. 
• Profiling and learning from leading websites. 

3. Sending the message: Best practices in creating a web presence.

• Improving your website structure, navigation, and performance.
• Web writing techniques to persuade customers and readers to trust, get in touch, buy, subscribe or read more. 
• Improving your website page titles, description, menus, body text, other assets, and good content (on-page optimization). 
• Positioning an effective message. 

Day 2: GETTING THE WORD OUT

Guest talk:

• Managing Your Online Reputation (Advocacy, Public Affairs, and PR Online) by Amor Maclang, Co-Founder, GeiserMaclang Marketing Communications.
• Loyalty Marketing as a Sales Tactic by Yayu Javier, CEO, Avanza.
• Search Engine Advertising Tips by Aileen Apolo, Google.

4. Effective digital marketing strategies

• FACEBOOK: Tapping into social networks to generate buzz.
• EMAIL: Developing a person-to-person e-mail campaign. 
• SEARCH ENGINE: Improving search engine visibility.
• PAID ADS: Effective utilization of paid advertising programs. 
• BLOGS: Jumpstart conversation with consumers. 
• Utilizing social media for brand awareness and traffic generation. 

5. Ignite conversations and generate leads

• Support an advocacy, movement, greater purpose.

6. Building relationships that last

• Listen and respond to customer feedback.
• Build trust and inspire community ownership. 

Day 3: BASIS FOR CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT: PERMANENT BETA

7. Tracking results and calibrate.

8. Working with Service Providers
9. Workshop presentation

To reserve your slot, please contact Janette Toral.

Cebu: Search Engine, Social Network, Blog Marketing & Advertising Hands-on Workshop

All DigitalFilipino.com Club members are invited to attend the forthcoming Search Engine Marketing, Social Network, Blog Marketing & Advertising Hands-on Workshop series this June 8 to 9 at Netopia Internet Cafe, Lower Ground Floor, SM Cebu from 10 am to 6 pm. On June 10, the training will be in one of the offices in Cebu and disclosed directly to club members.

DigitalFilipino.com Club members can send participants for free on this training noting the following conditions:

• Corporate members - 3 days (1 participant per day)
• SME members - 2 days (1 participant per day)
• Individual members can attend a one-day session. Not transferable.

Participants should fill-up the registration form and await slot confirmation. We can only accept a maximum of 16 participants per day. Participants should bring their own food and drinks during the training.

The training program shall be as follows:

June 8 - Drive Search Engine Traffic to Your Site Search Engine Marketing, Optimization, & Copywriting Workshop
(16 slots available)

This hands-on workshop will discuss tips and techniques to get your site to the top of search engine rankings (e.g. Google, Yahoo, and MSN) and stay there. It will also teach participants how to write web content that is useful and attractive for its target audience to attain search engine rankings.

On-page Optimization 1o1

• Introduction to Search Engine Marketing / Search Engine Optimization
• Identify niche positioning for products and services that you'll sell, target customers, buying frequency and motivation.
• Keywords discovery, attractiveness analysis, and implementation.
• How search engines process information as it crawls websites.
• Improving your website structure and navigation.
• Improving your website page titles, description, menus, body text, other assets, and good content (on-page optimization)

Web Content and SEO Writing Workshop

• How the Internet user reads online
• Web writing techniques to persuade customers and readers to trust, get in touch, buy, subscribe or read more
• SEO writing skills to:


• Inform search engines what your site is about.
• Push your article and website to a high position on search results.
• Encourage target readers to click on the links.
• Connects with your readers once they reach your website.


• Writing effective newsletters, blogs, Web 2.0 content, among others
• Encourage readers to subscribe to your website content updates.

Off-page optimization 101

• Getting your website linked through directory submissions, article writing, online press releases, and social media/networking tools. (off-page optimization)
• Introduction to paid advertising programs.
• Tracking and fine tuning your website.

June 9: Social Network Marketing & Advertising
(16 slots available)

This hands-on workshop will tackle how to use the top social networking sites as a tool to promote your products, services, and website.

• Introduction to Social Networking
• Top social networking sites in the Philippines
• Using social networks to promote yourself


• Improving your profile
• The power of tags


• Using social networks to promote your company


• Creating groups
• Creating fan pages
• Uploading photos
• Uploading videos
• Disseminating updates
  
• Advertising in social networks
  
• Audience targeting
• Ad campaign text
• Monitoring results


• Creating a Social Networking Strategy

June 10: Internet & Blog Marketing & Advertising
(16 slots available)

This hands-on workshop will look into various ways that blogs can be tap as a medium to reach out to target market segments as a new advertising and marketing alternative.

• Blog Marketing
  
• Tapping Blogs to Create Buzz (events, give-aways, promo)
  Tapping Bloggers for Insight and Feedback (alerts)
• Identifying target blog
  
• Internet & Blog Advertising


• Direct advertising
• 3rd party banner or text ads (Google AdWords & other sites)
• Paid review
• Paid features
• Identifying target blogs and websites
  
• Blog Advertising Campaign Plan and Actual Hands-on


• Product, Service, or Website to Promote
• Keywords or keyphrases identification
• Registration in a blog advertising marketplace for blog post & site-wide linking
• Blog selection
• Campaign placement: blog post and site-wide links
• Monitoring of output


• Joining the Internet & Blog Advertising Specialist Program

All training materials shall be posted at the club member site and also at our social network for online interactive learning purposes.

Interested non-members are requested to sign up as an Individual, SME, or Corporate member prior to the workshop and confirm attendance for slot reservation.

E-Commerce, Website Enhancement, Search Engine Marketing, Social Networking, Blogging, Blog Marketing & Advertising Workshop

All DigitalFilipino.com Club members are invited to attend the forthcoming E-Commerce, Website Enhancement, Search Engine Marketing, Social Networking, Blogging, Blog Marketing & Advertising Hands-on Workshop series this June 1 to 6 at Netopia Internet Cafe, Ground Floor Greenbelt 1, Legaspi Street, Makati City from 9 am to 5 pm.

DigitalFilipino.com Club members can send participants for free on this training noting the following conditions:

• Corporate members - 6 days (1 participant per day)
  
• SME members - 3 days (1 participant per day)
• Individual members can attend a one-day session. Not transferable.
  

Participants should fill-up the registration form and await slot confirmation. We can only accept a maximum of 18 participants per day. Participants should bring their own food and drinks during the training.

The training program shall be as follows:

June 1: Creating an eStore (Stand-Alone, Portal, Social Network based) & Accepting Payments Online

This hands-on workshop will help the participant plan and put up an eStore whether as an independent site, part of a portal, or hosted in a social network.

They will also be introduced to the largest affiliate program online (Amazon.com) and set-up an actual eStore.

• Identify niche positioning for products and services that you'll sell, target customers, buying frequency and motivation.
• Competition analysis
• Features list (prioritization)
• Product pricing
• Delivery options
• Content plan
• eStore Creation using Amazon aStore, social networks, stand-alone, portal
  

3:00 - 5:00 Accepting Payments Online Through Credit Card, Paypal, and Mobile Phone

• Introduction to online payments
  
• Evaluating online and mobile payment providers (comparative analysis)
• Demo of Philippine-based online payment systems (email billing, web-based payment, mobile payments)
• Using Paypal to accept payments online
  
  • Account creation
  • Creating Buy Now / Subscribe Now payment buttons
  • Creating an Invoice Billing
  • Creating Recurring Payments/Subscription option
  • Adding Paypal code to your website or blog
    
• Fraud detection

June 2 - Drive Search Engine Traffic to Your Site Search Engine Marketing, Optimization, & Copywriting Workshop

This hands-on workshop will discuss tips and techniques to get your site to the top of search engine rankings (e.g. Google, Yahoo, and MSN) and stay there. It will also teach participants how to write web content that is useful and attractive for its target audience to attain search engine rankings.

On-page Optimization 1o1

• Introduction to Search Engine Marketing / Search Engine Optimization
• Identify niche positioning for products and services that you'll sell, target customers, buying frequency and motivation.
• Keywords discovery, attractiveness analysis, and implementation.
• How search engines process information as it crawls websites.
• Improving your website structure and navigation.
• Improving your website page titles, description, menus, body text, other assets, and good content (on-page optimization)
  

Web Content and SEO Writing Workshop

• How the Internet user reads online
• Web writing techniques to persuade customers and readers to trust, get in touch, buy, subscribe or read more
• SEO writing skills to:
  
  • Inform search engines what your site is about.
  • Push your article and website to a high position on search results.
  • Encourage target readers to click on the links.
    
  • Connects with your readers once they reach your website.
• Writing effective newsletters, blogs, Web 2.0 content, among others
• Encourage readers to subscribe to your website content updates.
  

Off-page optimization 101

• Getting your website linked through directory submissions, article writing, online press releases, and social media/networking tools. (off-page optimization)
• Introduction to paid advertising programs.
• Tracking and fine tuning your website.
  

June 3: Improving Website Performance and Navigation

This hands-on workshop allows participants to evaluate the performance and structure of their websites and how it can be improved.

• 9:00 - 12:00 Improving Web Site Performance
  
• Factors that cause slow-loading Web Sites
• 14 rules for fast website performance
• Hands-on exercises
• 1:00 - 5:00 Improving Web Navigation
  
• Web navigation problems
• Mechanisms and type of web navigation
• Improving web navigation design
• Hands-on exercises

June 4: Blogging 101 Workshop

This hands-on workshop will help the participant go through the process of creating a blog, configure it for personalization, discuss blog ethics, developing content, and letting the world know that your blog exist. It will also tackle how blogging can be used to promote a company's products and services. It will also look into the various ways that blogs can be monetized and make it self-sustaining.

• 9:00 - 12:00
• Introduction to Blogging
• Type of blogs highlighting the popular ones
• Platform
• Blog creation
• Blog ethics
• Copyright
• Advertising
• Re-publishing
• Blog content
• Purpose
• Topic tracking
• Writing
• Monitoring performance
• Podcasting
• Vlog
• Mobile blogging
• Corporate Blogging Introduction and Uses
• Creating a Corporate Blog
• Corporate Blogging Guidelines

• 1:00 - 3:00 Blog Promotion and Marketing
• Ping
• Advertising
• Social bookmarks, networks, and media
• Contests
• Google Reader
• Comments
• Link exchange
  
  
• 3:00 - 5:00 Blog Monetization
  
• Generating online income through Google AdSense
  - Adding Google AdSense in your blog and website
  - Improving Google AdSense revenue performance
• Get Paid to Blog by Joining Blog or Content Network
• Joining Advertising Programs
• banner ads
• text link ads
• advertorials
• paid post
• Joining Affiliate Programs
• Sell products or service through the blog

June 5: Social Network Marketing & Advertising

This hands-on workshop will tackle how to use the top social networking sites as a tool to promote your products, services, and website.

• Introduction to Social Networking
• Top social networking sites in the Philippines
• Using social networks to promote yourself
  
• Improving your profile
• The power of tags
  
  
• Using social networks to promote your company
  
• Creating groups
• Creating fan pages
• Uploading photos
• Uploading videos
• Disseminating updates
  
  
• Advertising in social networks
  
• Audience targeting
  
• Ad campaign text
  
• Monitoring results
  
  
• Creating a Social Networking Strategy
  

June 6: Internet & Blog Marketing & Advertising

This hands-on workshop will look into various ways that blogs can be tap as a medium to reach out to target market segments as a new advertising and marketing alternative.

• Blog Marketing
  
  • Tapping Blogs to Create Buzz (events, give-aways, promo)
  • Tapping Bloggers for Insight and Feedback (alerts)
  • Identifying target blogs

• Internet & Blog Advertising
  
  • Direct advertising
  • 3rd party banner or text ads (Google AdWords & other sites)
    
  • Paid reviews
  • Paid features
  • Identifying target blogs and websites
    

• Blog Advertising Campaign Plan and Actual Hands-on
  
  • Product, Service, or Website to Promote
    
  • Keywords or keyphrases identification
    
  • Registration in a blog advertising marketplace for blog post & site-wide linking
    
  • Blog selection
  • Campaign placement: blog post and site-wide links
    
  • Monitoring of output
    
    
• Joining the Internet & Blog Advertising Specialist Program
  

All training materials shall be posted at the club member site and also at our social network for online interactive learning purposes.

Interested non-members are requested to sign up as an Individual, SME, or Corporate member prior to the workshop and confirm attendance for slot reservation.

Social Network Marketing Competitive Evaluation Workshop

(photo: October 2008 - DigitalFilipino Web Awards judges workshop phase)

All DigitalFilipino.com Club members are invited to attend the forthcoming Social Network Marketing Competitive Evaluation Hands-on Workshop this April 6 and 7 at I.T. Group, 3/F Unit 8, Topy's Place Building, cor. Industria and Economia Sts., Bagumbayan, Libis, Quezon City (map) from 9 am to 5 pm.

Those who are into Internet marketing may find this workshop useful.

DigitalFilipino.com Club SME members can send 1 representative while Corporate members can send 2 representatives. Individual club members can attend a one-day session. Please register to confirm and for food count purposes.

Non-club members (those who have not paid annual membership fee) can send a participant for six thousand pesos (P6000) for 2 days, exclusive of VAT. Slot is confirmed upon receipt of payment.

Participants should fill-up the registration form and await slot confirmation.

The training program shall be as follows:

• Introduction to Social Networking
• Social Networking as a Marketing & Advertising Tool
• Types of Social Networking Campaign
• Social Networking as a component of Search Engine Marketing
  
• Planning a Social Networking Campaign
  
• Social Networking Campaign Competitive Evaluation
• Mechanics of the campaign
  
• participation
  
• Creative angle
  
• uniqueness
  
• novelty
• Campaign promotion script
• Results
  
• return on investment
• achievement of goals
• value-added
• Workshop & Presentation
  

This workshop is also meant to support the judging stage of the DigitalFilipino Social Networking Awards. However, only club members will be able to participate in the actual judging.

• DigitalFilipino Social Networking Awards
• Judging criteria
  
• Assignment of categories
  
  • Social Network
  • Widgets and Add-ons
  • Social News, Bookmarks, Media Voting
  • Photo Sharing
  • Video Sharing
  • Social Shopping
  • Micro-blogs
  • Blogs
  • Search engine marketing

All training materials shall be posted at the club member site and also at our social network for online interactive learning purposes. Club members who can't make it, will still be able participate, learn, and help out in the judging online.

(Update - April 26, 2009) As this is an educational project, club members were encouraged to nominate and participate in the judging. Those whose campaign got nominated did not participate in judging the concern category. Many thanks to the following club members who helped out:

• Jan Pabellon (judged several categories and specifically coordinated the Search Engine Marketing category)
• Agness Talavera
• Oliver Robillo
• Michelle Pestano
• Arlyn Onte
• Dine Racoma
• Jona Oboza
• Anton Diaz
• Aileen Apolo
• Gary Viray
• Buddy Gancenia
  

The winners were recognized last April 24, 2nd day of the Social Networking & eBusiness Conference 2009.

Visiting Urdaneta City University

Micaela joined me this morning on my road trip to Urdaneta City University (UCU) to check out the venue of our upcoming SEO/SEM workshop. We left the Five Star bus station in Cubao at 5 am and reached the venue before 9 am.

The expected number of participants, that may reach to more than 120 resulted to conversion of this event from a simple workshop to a full blown seminar type. However, we are still allotting time in the late afternoon for those who would like to join the hands-on part.

I'm happy about the interest gathered in relation to this event with folks volunteering to help out and even share knowledge. Unfortunately, I won't be able to accommodate all at this time.

The good news though is that the SEO Pangasinan community, where Gary Viray is an active player, are currently organizing Search Engine Marketing Conference (SEMCON) Pangasinan. I'm sure that will bring the best of the best from Pangasinan and reach out to bigger audience. We will also actively support that event in anyway we can.

Lunch at Matutina's

I joined the Bitstop Network Services team for a hearty lunch at Matutina's Restaurant. Easy to say that I ate more than my fair share (so no dinner for me tonight).

See you tomorrow! Thanks again to Bitstop Network Services, Urdaneta City University, and ICT Pangasinan for making this possible.

SEM / SEO 101 Talk at College of Saint Benilde

I finally delivered my talk on search engine marketing 101 at College of Saint Benilde yesterday. Thanks to club member Adolfo Aran III for the kind invitation.

Several deans and professors dropped by prior to the start of my talk. They were very keen in exploring areas of collaboration. As we had very limited time, Adolf and I discussed this and spotted two. As it gets further confirmed, will post it here soon.

Many thanks also to Raymond Padolina of Junior Marketing Association for patiently coordinating with me and for that beautiful poster image that they prepared to promote my talk session. He also gave me copies of the photos that they have taken at the event.

Around 60 to 70 students attended and got interesting questions from those who are doing some thesis work. If there is anything I wasn't able to do, that would be getting the url links of students with blogs. I should do that next time and give them link love.

After the event, I invited Adolf to try my favorite Korean restaurant in our neighborhood and glad that he enjoyed it.

Search & You Shall Find talk at De La Salle - College of Saint Benilde

Through DigitalFilipino Club member Adolfo Aran III, I got invited to be a speaker by the De La Salle - College of Saint Benilde Emerging Trends in Marketing Class and Junior Marketing Association. This will be at the Case Room, 3rd floor, Mutien Wing, CSB Main Bldg on February 24. The talk will be at 6pm expected to be attended by marketing and business students.

My talk, dubbed as "Search & You Shall Find", is an introduction to search engine marketing.

My visit to this school has been long overdue and look forward meeting the students this Tuesday. See you DLS-CSB!

SEO / SEM Workshop at Urdaneta City University

I'll be conducting a workshop on Search Engine Marketing - Search Engine Optimization this February 27 at the 4th floor new building of Urdaneta City University (UCU), Urdaneta, Pangasinan.

The organizers of this training are Urdaneta City University, College of Computer Studies in cooperation with ICT Pangasinan and DigitalFilipino Club member Bitstop Network Services, Inc.
I was able to catch up with Wilson Chua last February 9 at E-Services Philippines who made this workshop possible.

This hands-on workshop will discuss tips and techniques to get a site to the top of search engine rankings (e.g. Google, Yahoo, and MSN) and stay there.

• Introduction to Search Engine Marketing / Search Engine Optimization
• Identify niche positioning for products and services that you'll sell, target customers, buying frequency and motivation.
• Keywords discovery, attractiveness analysis, and implementation.
• How search engines process information as it crawls websites.
• Improving your website structure and navigation.
• Improving your website page titles, description, menus, body text, other assets, and good content (on-page optimization)
• Getting your website linked through directory submissions, article writing, online press releases, and social media/networking tools. (off-page optimization)
• Introduction to paid advertising programs.
• Tracking and fine tuning your website.

I am excited to meet IT Graduating Students, IT Instructors, and other interested individuals who are expected to attend this one day hands-on workshop.

First-come first-served basis. Interested parties are requested to contact Ficer Dofredo - IT head of Urdaneta City University at 0908-2299114 to register. The workshop fee is one hundred pesos (P100). Food is not included. As computers are limited, if possible, bring your own laptop with portable Internet access (such as through your mobile phone).

2/20 Update: My tag team speaker at SEMCON Bicol, Gary Viray, will join me in conducting this whole day workshop. He will also talk about off-page optimization.

See you this Friday UCU!

Call for Nomination: DigitalFilipino Social Networking Awards 2009

The DigitalFilipino.com Social Networking Awards intends to honor Filipino excellence in social network marketing and advertising. Winners will be announced and recognized on the 2nd day, April 24, of the 2nd Social Networking and eBusiness Conference.

Entries will be accepted at the following categories:

1. Social Network
   Campaigns done or carried out in social networks either as an independent effort or as an advertiser of the site.
   
   
2. Widgets and Add-ons
   Campaigns done that requires widget installation or add-ons.
   
   
3. Social News, Bookmarks, Media Voting
   Campaigns that requires getting votes in social news, social bookmarks, social media, or related sites.
   
   
4. Photo Sharing
   Campaigns that involves sharing of photos by the advertiser or submission of photos by target audience or participants online.
   
   
5. Video Sharing
   Campaigns that involves sharing of videos by the advertiser or submission of videos by target audience or participants online.
   
   
6. Social Shopping
   Campaigns that promotes products / services and availed / shared within social networks.
   
   
7. Micro-blogs
   Campaigns done through the use of micro-blogging sites like Twitter, Plurk, and other similar tools.
   
   
8. Blogs
   Campaigns done through blogs or tapping bloggers.
   
   
9. Search engine marketing
   Campaigns meant to raise your site's visibility in search engines to attract more visitors.
   

Who may enter
The awards is open to all Filipino organizations and individuals who have used or involved in the process of developing campaigns under any of the categories mentioned in this award. Campaigns eligible for entry must have run at some time during the period from April 1, 2008 until March 15, 2009.

The person submitting the entry will be considered the "nominator" and will receive all communications regarding the Awards. Anyone can submit an entry.

Judging criteria
Entries will be judged on the following criteria and compete head-to-head with other entries within their specific category.

• Design (25%)
  The mechanics of the campaign.
  
  
• Creativity (25%)
  The novelty / uniqueness of the campaign.
  
  
• Copywriting (25%)
  The whole campaign promotion script.
  
  
• Impact (25%)
  Results and returns gained by the campaign proponent versus time, effort, and amount invested.
  

As this is also an educational activity, DigitalFilipino Club Members will have a Social Network Marketing Competitive Evaluation Hands-on Workshop this April 6 and 7 to review entries received.

Nomination will begin this February 1 to March 31, 2009 at the DigitalFilipino.com Social Network.

What to submit
Users and campaign developers will be able to post their nomination in the forum. The entities will be contacted in the best effort possible. If unreachable or no response by April 3, their nomination will be considered as void.

All nominees will be given up to April 3 to complete their submission including access to relevant files that will help judges evaluate and measure the entry's effectiveness according to the judging criteria. These files shall be posted in Google Docs and shared to digitalfilipino (at) gmail (dot) com.

Anyone can help in this award by:

1. Becoming a sponsor.
2. Chip-in any amount to help with the prizes.
3. Nominate deserving entries.
4. Create the awards logo.

SEO, Content Writing, Blog Marketing & Advertising, E-Commerce, E-Payment Workshop Series

All DigitalFilipino.com Club members are invited to attend the forthcoming E-Commerce, Search Engine Marketing, and Corporate Blogging Hands-on Workshop series this January 26 to 30 at Netopia Internet Cafe, Ground Floor Greenbelt 1, Legaspi Street, Makati City from 9 am to 5 pm.

DigitalFilipino.com Club members can send participants for free on this training noting the following conditions:

• Corporate members - 5 days (1 participant per day)
  
• SME members - 3 days (1 participant per day)
• Individual members can attend a one-day session

Non-club members (those who have not paid annual membership fee) can send a participant for three thousand pesos (P3000) per day, exclusive of VAT. Slot is confirmed upon receipt of payment.

Participants should fill-up the registration form and await slot confirmation. We can only accept a maximum of 18 participants per day.

The training program shall be as follows:

January 26 - Drive Search Engine Traffic to Your Site Workshop
(10 confirmed, 8 slots available)

This hands-on workshop will discuss tips and techniques to get your site to the top of search engine rankings (e.g. Google, Yahoo, and MSN) and stay there.

• Introduction to Search Engine Marketing / Search Engine Optimization
• Identify niche positioning for products and services that you'll sell, target customers, buying frequency and motivation.
• Keywords discovery, attractiveness analysis, and implementation.
• How search engines process information as it crawls websites.
• Improving your website structure and navigation.
• Improving your website page titles, description, menus, body text, other assets, and good content (on-page optimization)
• Getting your website linked through directory submissions, article writing, online press releases, and social media/networking tools. (off-page optimization)
• Introduction to paid advertising programs.
• Tracking and fine tuning your website.
  

January 27: Web Content and SEO Writing Workshop
(13 confirmed, 5 slots available)

This hands-on workshop will teach participants how to write web content that is useful and attractive for its target audience and attain search engine rankings.

• How the Internet user reads online
• Web writing techniques to persuade customers and readers to trust, get in touch, buy, subscribe or read more
• SEO writing skills to:
  
  • Inform search engines what your site is about.
  • Push your article and website to a high position on search results.
  • Encourage target readers to click on the links.
    
  • Connects with your readers once they reach your website.
• Writing effective newsletters, blogs, Web 2.0 content, among others
• Encourage readers to subscribe to your website content updates.
  

January 28: Creating an eStore (Your Own or Affiliate Site)
(7 confirmed, 11 slots available)

This hands-on workshop will help the participant plan and put up an eStore. They will also be introduced to the largest affiliate program online (Amazon.com) and set-up an actual eStore.

• Identify niche positioning for products and services that you'll sell, target customers, buying frequency and motivation.
• Competition analysis
• Features list (prioritization)
• Product pricing
• Delivery options
• Content plan
• eStore Creation using Amazon.com aStore (example posted at Busby SEO Test)
  

January 29: Accepting Payments Online Through Credit Card, Paypal, and Mobile Phone
(12 confirmed, 6 slots available)

This hands-on workshop gives participants an overview on various payment options that can be explored online. Demo of local payment systems and Paypal for credit card payment acceptance shall also be done

• Introduction to online payments
  
• Evaluating online and mobile payment providers (comparative analysis)
• Demo of Philippine-based online payment systems (email billing, web-based payment, mobile payments)
• Using Paypal to accept payments online
  
  • Account creation
  • Creating Buy Now / Subscribe Now payment buttons
  • Creating an Invoice Billing
  • Creating Recurring Payments/Subscription option
  • Adding Paypal code to your website or blog
    
• Fraud detection

January 30: Blog Marketing & Advertising
(17 confirmed, 1 slots available)

This hands-on workshop will give participants an appreciation on how blogging can be used to promote a company's products and services. It will also look into various ways that blogs can be tap as a medium to reach out to target market segments as a new advertising and marketing alternative.

• Corporate Blogging Introduction and Uses
• Creating a Corporate Blog
• Corporate Blogging Guidelines
• Blog Marketing
  
  • Tapping Blogs to Create Buzz (events, give-aways, promo)
  • Tapping Bloggers for Insight and Feedback (alerts)
  • Identifying target blogs
• Blog Advertising
  
  • Direct advertising
  • 3rd party banner or text ads
  • Paid reviews
  • Paid features
  • Identifying target blogs

All training materials shall be posted at the club member site and also at our social network for online interactive learning purposes.

Interested non-members are requested to sign up as an Individual, SME, or Corporate member prior to the workshop and confirm attendance for food count purposes.

E-Commerce, SEO, Blogging, Social Networks, Web Operations Hands-on Workshop

All DigitalFilipino.com Club members are invited to attend the forthcoming E-Commerce Hands-on Workshop series this July 23, 25, 29, 31, and August 5 at the Alfox Internet Cafe (beside Chowking), Kamuning Road, corner Edsa, Quezon City.

Whether you are preparing a holiday season campaign or simply improving your website, I'm certain that this can be useful to your needs.

DigitalFilipino.com Club SME members can send 1 representative while Corporate members can send 2 representatives.

Individual club members can attend a one-day (or two half-day) session. Please confirm for food count purposes.

The training program shall be as follows:

July 23: E-Commerce Project Planning

• E-Commerce Purchasing Trends
  
• Developing a requirements document
  
• Identifying needs
• Setting goals
• Features list (prioritization)
• User identification and needs
• Competition identification
• Direct
• Indirect
• Keyword performers
  
• Source of revenue
• Content plan
• Project Plan creation
  

July 25: Internet, SEO, and Social Media Marketing Workshop

• 9:00 - 12:00 E-Mail / Newsletter Marketing
  
• Introduction to E-Mail Marketing
• Components of an E-Mail Marketing Campaign
• Hands-on exercise
• Introduction to Newsletter Creation
• Creating a newsletter
• Hands-on exercise
  
• 1:00 - 3:00 Search Engine Marketing
  
• Search engine optimization
• Keyword research
• Keyword placement in web site or blog
• Content is key
• Writing good titles, description, and articles
• Re-directing pages
• Sitemap creation
• RSS creation
• 3:00 - 5:00 Social Media, Lifestreaming, Paid Campaigns for promotion
  
• Social Network
• Creating a campaign page in a social network site (Facebook, Multiply, Friendster, MySpace).
  
• Social Media
• Lifestreaming
  
• Internet Advertising (paid placements)
  

July 29: Blogging Workshop

• 9:00 - 12:00 Blogging 101 and Set-Up
  
• Introduction to Blogging
• Type of blogs highlighting the popular ones
• Platform
• Blog creation
  
• Blog ethics
  
• Copyright
  
• Advertising
  
• Re-publishing
• Blog content
• Purpose
• Topic tracking
• Writing
• Monitoring performance
  
• 1:00 - 5:00 Blog Promotion and Marketing
• Ping
• Advertising
• Social bookmarks, networks, and media
  
• Contests
• Google Reader
• Comments

July 31: Accepting Payments Online

• 9:00 - 12:00 Introduction to Online Payments
  
• Ways to accept payments online
• Demo of online payment systems (email billing, web-based payment, mobile payments)
• 1:00 - 5:00
  
• Evaluating online and mobile payment providers (comparative analysis)
• Fraud detection

August 5: Improving Website Performance and Navigation

• 9:00 - 12:00 Improving Web Site Performance
  
• Factors that cause slow-loading Web Sites
• 14 rules for fast website performance
• Hands-on exercise
• 1:00 - 5:00 Improving Web Navigation
  
• Web navigation problems
• Mechanisms and type of web navigation
• Improving web navigation design
• Hands-on exercise
  

All training materials shall be posted at the club member site and also at our social network for online interactive learning purposes.

Interested non-members are requested to sign up as an Individual, SME, or Corporate member prior to the workshop and confirm attendance for food count purposes.

Web and E-Commerce Hands-On Workshop

All DigitalFilipino.com Club members are invited to attend the forthcoming Web and E-Commerce Workshop series this:

• November 12 and 13 at the Laboratory 1, National Computer Center / Commission on Information and Communications Technology, C.P. Garcia Avenue, U.P. Diliman Quezon City (beside PhilVocs).
• November 17 and 24 at the Alfox Internet Cafe (beside Chowking), Kamuning Road, corner Edsa, Quezon City.

DigitalFilipino.com Club SME members can send 1 representative while Corporate members can send 2 representatives.

Individual club members can attend a one-day (or two half-day) session. Please confirm for food count purposes.

The training program shall be as follows:

November 12: Improving Website Performance and Navigation

• 9:00 - 12:00 Improving Web Site Performance
  
• Factors that cause slow-loading Web Sites
• 14 rules for fast website performance
• Hands-on exercises
• Guest resource:
• Web Site Growing Pains (Jay Frank De Jesus)
  
• 1:00 - 5:00 Improving Web Navigation
  
• Web navigation problems
• Mechanisms and type of web navigation
• Improving web navigation design
• Hands-on exercises
  

November 13: Web 2.0 Applications

• 9:00 - 12:00 Overview of Web 2.0 Applications
  
• Introduction to Machine Learning
  
• Applications
• product / content recommendations
• group clustering
• search engine
• needs matching
• decision predictions
  
• price models
• independent content matching
• Hands-on exercises
• Guest resource:
• Internet Enabled Collaboration and Coopetition in a Flat World (Jan Pabellon, IT Group)
  
• 1:00 - 5:00 Building Web 2.0 applications
  
• Using Open Web Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)
• Facebook Application Platform
• Google OpenSocial
  
• Hands-on exercises

November 17: Internet Marketing Workshop

• 9:00 - 12:00 E-Mail / Newsletter Marketing
  
• Introduction to E-Mail Marketing
• Components of an E-Mail Marketing Campaign
• Hands-on exercise
• Introduction to Newsletter Creation
• Creating a newsletter
• Hands-on exercise
  
• 1:00 - 5:00 Search Engine Marketing
  
• Search engine optimization
• Keyword research
• Keyword placement in web site or blog
• Content is key
• Writing good titles, description, and articles
• Re-directing pages
• Sitemap creation
• RSS creation
• Submission to Web Directories
• Internet Advertising (paid placements)
  
• Monitoring Web Site Traffic

November 24: Accepting Payments Online

• 2:00 - 6:00
• Ways to accept payments online
• Demo of online payment systems (email billing, web-based payment, mobile payments)
• Evaluating online payment providers (comparative analysis)
• Fraud detection
  

Interested non-members are requested to sign up as an Individual, SME, or Corporate member prior to November 12 and confirm attendance for food count purposes.