Geek Girl

Here’s an excerpt:

Time was, few people had heard of blogging, let alone maintained their own blogs. Now that blogging has become a familiar online activity, with users ranging from hobbyists to professional bloggers to journalists to companies, how can Pinoy bloggers stand out from the crowd?

For blogger and social media manager Lia Espina Lopez, who maintains the Geek Girl Manila site, the key differentiator is passion. It’s what fueled the growth of her blog and led to it being named the best blog in the Lifestyle Category for the National Level of the 2011 Philippine Blog Awards.

Read the full story to check out her blogging tips.

Check out the clip.

The song’s about a dark period in her life — glad things have been sorted out, Carmina.

How can you expect people to try your product or service if you don’t make your content easy to discover? And why should visitors become loyal customers when you make it frustratingly hard to find the right information on your site?

Here’s an excerpt from a very useful article on Entrepreneur.com:

What I love about Sheridan’s story is the way it clearly demonstrates that any company–even a swimming pool company–can find tremendous success with content at the lead-gen stage and throughout the entire sales path, from generating interest to converting browsers into buyers by educating them and by serving as a resource for referrals after the sale.

So what kind of content is being used to start and nurture relationships with prospects? According to a study from Focus Research, companies use a mix of content types to attract customers, depending on the kind of business they do: from blog posts, white papers, webinars and other virtual events (especially business-to-business operations) to research papers (particularly businesses that sell to consumers).

Read the full story.

How is your company using content to build relationships?

I’m a big fan of Gina, not just because of her looks and charisma but also her athleticism. She paved the way for female MMA fighters and was rightfully called the face of women’s MMA.

I’m looking forward to watching her first movie, “Haywire.” Here’s the trailer, which was also shown at UFC 141.

Will we ever see Gina fight again, preferably in the UFC (which still doesn’t have a women’s division)? Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Want to be fit in 2012? Make fitness a habit! Here’s an excerpt from an excellent blog post from Leo Babauta over at zenhabits:

Instead of creating a list of resolutions this year, create a new habit.

Habits last, and they lead to long-term fitness (and more). They require more patience, but they are worth the wait.

As some of you know, fitness habits are what started me along the path to changing my life. I quit smoking, started running. Then I started eating healthier, became vegetarian (now vegan), quit the junk food addiction, started doing other types of workouts (bodyweight, weights, Crossfit, anything that was fun).

Check out his blog post.

Thanks to my high school buddy Marianito Rodrigo for recently introducing me to zenhabits.

Harnessing the power of the Internet to support Original Pilipino Music, Yahoo! Rocks features some of the country’s top acts, chosen by Yahoo! readers. Yahoo! readers also voted on submissions from aspiring Pinoy musicians, who will now get to perform on stage in front of thousands of fans.

If you’re outside the Philippines or can’t go to the concert, you can watch the live video stream and join the live blog at the Yahoo! Rocks site.

Here’s the list of Pinoy acts performing at Yahoo! Rocks.

Are you on Twitter? Follow @YahooPH and use the hashtag #YahooRocks to tweet about the concert.

Support our local music artists! Mabuhay ang OPM!

That’s why I’m glad that the Ateneo Association of Communication Majors (ACOMM) is holding its first Social Media Summit, with Yahoo! Philippines as its online partner.

I’m one of the speakers, and I’m honored to be in the company of Maria Ressa, Pilar Pedrosa Pilar, Jim Paredes, Ivan Henares, Candice Montenegro, and Rowena Azada-Palacios.

Here’s ACOMM’s 2011 Social Media Summit video.

For more information, check out this article on Yahoo! Philippines.

See you there!

Who’s your favorite Muppet? I love a lot of them, but the one who really makes me, my wife Ellen and our daughter Sam laugh is the ever popular Swedish Chef.

Here are some of our favorite Swedish Chef clips.

Thank you, Coke! And thanks to all OFWs and their families.

You’ll be hearing more about ECOMTAP. Soon