From blogs to forums to SMS campaigns

I HAVE recently experienced a phenomenon over at my personal blog, where I had casually invited a few photographer friends to a cosplay shoot with Jerry Polence over at the Intramuros Golf Club on a Sunday afternoon. Where I had estimated that about five or six people would come (we were around that number at 1:45 p.m.), we ended up with a total of over forty five photographers from different photo organizations.

For a few minutes I was greatly overwhelmed and panicked over the situation but then, after gaining some composure, realized that this is a proof of concept of how viral marketing works in the Philippines: from blog post to forum thread to an SMS campaign. At least for this case.

I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out how such a thing could happen. Either (1) the post was made at the right time when no other photo events were occuring (2) nobody ever shot cosplay before so this was something different. Then I started to analyze the posting patterns.

I first made the announcement back in May 12 with a follow-up on May 18. The comments and signups only started in May 17 and peaked after the second reminder. I also found out that there was a cosplay event the day before at the Mall of Asia side by side with “Eat Bulaga!” and there were photographers there too.

My findings do indicate that there were point persons involved with spreading the word, who are “trusted and credible” sources of information. There was even an SMS campaign thanks to Eric Isaac. These would be your online forum mavens and connectors, as Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point would refer to them. The quality of relationships, and not just the message itself, is what matters.

As a blogger, I have learned that there is an offline component to your blogging. Attending blog events and networking with people to reinforce your positive self-concept as well as making the sincere effort to make new friends is one key to a successful blogging career.

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