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Wednesday, May 23

First Baguio Blog Conference: A Success

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Some of the members of the Cordillera Bloggers. From right to left: Yam, Dean, photographer, Joven, Emil and Dan.



Blogging event has never happened in Baguio before and the First Baguio Blog Conference has initiated this. The First Baguio Blog Conference kick started on May 19, 2012 bearing the tagline “Express your passion. Animate your life. Share the fun. Blog it!” It all happened inside the University of Baguio Square Hall, Assumption Road, Baguio City, Philippines.

Ingrid Payaket (right), Pilipinas Got Talent Season 1 finalist, attended the event.

Dean Cuanso talking about the different ways on how to monetize blogs.

Participants, speakers and organizers for a photo.

The event was actually drafted during the Google Mapping Summit held also in UB Square Hall on April 14, 2012. It was an introduction to a series of meetings and gatherings for the success of the event. Fortunately, we got SMART, Unilab and Sun Cellular as our major sponsors, SMART being the official telecommunications company. University of Baguio willingly allowed us to use their hall for the event. Solid Hosting gave away 15 vouchers for raffle (1 year web hosting for free). Azalea Residences Baguio provided accommodations for our guests. Kubong Sawali (Baguio-grown restaurant that serves mouthwatering Filipino cuisines) served a sumptuous dinner after the event and Jaypee Online and 18 BC (night bar and restaurant located along Legarda Rd) provided cash donations. The First Baguio Blog Conference was spearheaded by Vincent of Lakbay Baguio, endorsed by the Department of Tourism in tune of its slogan “It’s more fun in the Philippines”, and all posters, logos, slogan and banners were credited to Joven of Travex Travels for the designs.

Dean Cuanso (left) and Janette Toral (right)
First Baguio Blog Conference’s main goal is to open up the youth and the middle-aged group as well to share information through blogging. Be it about travel, food, tech, business, blogging itself, culture, pop, science, health, engineering or personal views, people can blog about it. Blogging is an emerging platform not only in bringing information closer to the audience but it is now also a tool in promoting one’s business, product or service through advertisement.

The event began at around 8:00 in the morning (registration) and the main talk formally started at 9:30. The first speaker introduced was Janette Toral of www.digitalfilipino.com. She talked about how blogging and social media act together in the emerging world of digital works. She discussed about how she started blogging and how the youth should start blogging. It was followed by Florencio JusayJr of www.manualtolyf.info (and he fondly call himself “FPJ Junior”) and discussed the creativity out of blogging. He gave some advice on how to grasp blogging as their own way of bringing up the passion they have. It was followed by a small talk by our major sponsors SMART and Azalea Residences (Azalea gave away four (4) accommodations to four lucky participants for free). It was then followed by a loaded lunch.

Janette Toral lecturing about social media and blogging.


Fitz Villafuerte on talks about optimization of blogs.
The afternoon session was started by a short speech about travel blogging by yours truly, Joven of www.travextravels.com. I talked about how I started to travel and blog, why the youth should travel and the things, tips and rules they should bear in mind when they travel and blog. Ane Fallarme of www.diaryofane.com discussed about food (and it’s not obvious in her body figure!). People were salivating on their seats when she started to slideshow her pictures of food and drinks. Dean Cuanso of www.watwatworld.com talked on how to monetize your blog, the different platforms and strategies. It was followed by Antonio Carranza Jr. of www.pusangkalye.net and he talked about events blogging, and the dos and don’ts of it. Azrael Colladilla of azraelsmerryland.blogspot.com shared his experiences on blogging, and the different social media now used. Finally, Fitz Villafuerte of www.fitzvillafuerte.com talked about search engine optimization (SEO), on how to optimize your blog post to rank in Google search results. Sun Cellular, Unilab and SMART also gave some advice and tips and eventually raffled their prizes (Sun Cellular gave away plug-it broadband sticks; SMART gave away gift certificates and Lady Gaga concert tickets).

After the talks were a series of photo ops. The event ended with knowledge and items given to the participants. Nobody went home with nothing. Literally.After the event was a mouthwatering dinner served by Kubong Sawali. There both the guest speakers and organizers gathered to know more of each other, while eating the best of Pinoy dishes and listening to the beautiful voice of Leonardo De Leon who sings for the acoustic nights of KubongSawali.

The next day came and organizers and speakers were toured to the different tourist spots in Baguio (Botanical Garden to Mines View Park and Tam-Awan Village in the afternoon). After the day tour, the speakers and organizers bade each other goodbyes, as the speakers were already going back to Manila. However, their knowledge will stay to the participants (and Cordillera Bloggers too). The First Baguio Blog Conference indeed was a success, at least for a day or two. And we were looking forward to our next event!

NOTE: We are yet to plan the Cordillera Bloggers’ next event which is purely a bloggers’ event. This may happen sometime in the third quarter of 2012. Who are invited? All bloggers, whether you are a newbie or a pro. And to those people who attended the First Baguio Blog Conference, start your blog now and let’s meet on our next event! It’s an event for bloggers now! Northern and North Central Luzon bloggers meet and greet! Sponsors are very welcome. See ya!

Florencio Jusay Jr (left)

All photos credited to Sir Dean Cuanso of www.watwatworld.com


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4 comments:

  1. Cheers! :D

    Next year uli! :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, next year ulit for the second summit....

      Pero hopefully this year yung bloggers meet and greet..team building baga... :)

      Delete
  2. Hope you hold a similar summit in the south, in Paranaque. I will surely be there, if you do:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I guess there are blogging summit out there in Manila. Actually the 8th iBlog Summit will be held this May 26, 2012. You can go there. We are only holding summit from Northern to North Central Luzon only... Manila is a different division as well as Cebu and Davao.

      Anyway, you can always go here for the summit. :)

      Delete

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