SOCIAL MEDIA WEEKEND 2013 #fwdPH

Last weekend's not just an ordinary one, well at least for those social media savvy who are aware of this year's Social Media Weekend / #SocialMediaWeekend! 

This is the country's second time to participate, and this year's theme is "Let's move #fwdPH". The first leg was last Saturday (June 29), held at the Glorietta Activity Center. The second one took place last Sunday (June 30) in Bukidnon, Davao, Cagayan de Oro, Baguio, Cebu and other cities.

To give you a brief background about the event, the global Social Media Day is headed by the famous US based website Mashable. Its main goal is to gather all social media enthusiasts and practitioners in one place and celebrate digital revolution! Thanks to the community netizens that make up @TweetupMNL for letting us join the fun. After all, we are the social media capital of the world! Last year's theme is even named "Social Media Capital", recognizing Filipinos who made this title achievable.

Now let me share what happened for this year's #fwdPH!

Forward Philippines or as we netizens put it #fwdPH is all about utilizing the social media for social awareness and improvement. It is being responsible and taking advantage of the social media to promote and elevate our stand on national or political issues. On making it as a means to help others, community and calamity wise. 

Pre-program started around 12pm (from the supposed 11am time). I wasn't in the event yet but it covered a talk on creating great content for Youtube, Google Ads, BlogWatch, EpalWatch and Citizen Media, on Mommy Mundo and mompreneurship and reps from Google Developers Group.

I arrived few minutes after the main program started. The supposed 4pm started around 5pm with the performance of RomCom. 

After you finish the registration, you'll get this name tag which you should complete (by asking all the sponsors around the area to sign it) to get a surprise loot bag from Team Manila!

The program was hosted by Bry Ramirez, Chuckie Dreyfus, and later on was joined by Patricia Hizon. 

Some of the speakers were: 

Marie Lu of Google Business Group who shared her insights about Google and also shared some trivia as she discussed Google+ functions. She gave a pop up quiz after and if she was to give her cute Android top as prize, I would have exerted much effort, LOL.

Marideth Talusan of Rice Field Collective talked about their project and how social media can help them with their objectives. Rice Field Collective is a collaboration of US and European knitting teachers and designers, together with some Ifugao natives too, that aims to help generate money for those in danger of losing their ancestral land due to poverty.

Ed Calaycay of IGers Manila discussed about Instagram'ing in the Philippines. He shared some user statistics and also how Instagram was able to promote Filipino creativity and social relevance. IGers Manila is the open community for Filipino Instagram'ers, their 9PM habit is absolutely brilliant! 

There were a lot of games and good prizes as well! They gave a Samsung smartphone for answering a very hard question. They even encouraged us to connect to Google to search the answer. I personally wanted to get the Android stuff toy from the raffle, but I'm not so lucky with random winning.

Even though I didn't win from any of the games and raffle, I still felt like a winner upon finally seeing Ms. Maria Ressa of Rappler who visited the event! I am a fan, and after a long time, I felt star strucked again! But because of another game on stage, I forgot to take a picture of her. I went out the venue to look for her feeling frustrated, until finally I saw her again just behind the stage! I ran and asked a guy bystander (coz I can't find my companion) to take a picture of me with Ms. Maria Ressa! She's soooo nice, she even asked for my name!! Gaaaah!

no make-up and messy hair hence my one and only photo-op in the event =/

And to cap off the day, I did let the sponsors around the area sign my name tag for the lootie lootie loot bag!

Some of the sponsors were:

R-L: Commune, Bayani Brew, Binalot, Muni, Galileo, Zomato, GBG

Give your uploaded Instagram photo with the hashtag #fwdPH to PRNT and they'll upload it for you! Coolness!

Go, go team! Volunteers were very patient with the packing of loot bags. I WANT THAT TEAM MANILA SHIRT THOUGH :(

It was nice seeing Black Pencil Project again! I remember being so amazed with their works and advocacy ever since I saw their video when I was in college.

Had a good dinner also in Glorietta after and was surprised to feel really really exhausted. Probably because I was standing most of the time, taking photos, taking notes, and busy roaming around the area. It was a good kind of exhaustion anyway.

Social media's everywhere, from personal and professional profile, photo and video sharing, long and short-term writing, however you want to use it, it's accessible. The challenge now, especially us whose careers also involve the social media trend, is to handle it responsibly. As a democratic country, our social media intelligence can definitely be a great medium for positive change. Let's move forward Philippines! #fwdPH