Do something that your future self will thank you. Create a film, write that book you’ve always been wanting to, learn a new language, start that dream company. Whatever it is, just do it. 

How Do You Become a Better Person?

Becoming a better version of yourself is probably the most wonderful aspiration one could ever have. Often the most ambitious and difficult to achieve too. We will encounter constant obstacles and run into some challenges we never thought we could overcome but at the end of the day, what matters is that we never stop trying.

I’ve always been the kind of person who constantly strives to become the better version of myself. I like to learn new skills, new strategies and grow my already growing set of friends. Learning is much better and perhaps faster when we’re acquainted with other people who have similar goals and the same level of enthusiasm in whatever aspirations and goals we’d like to achieve.

More than being a dreamer, I’m the kind of person who doesn’t mind waking up in the middle of the night just to make my dreams happen. I remember waking up at 4 in the morning just to take down notes of some ideas I’ve formulated while I was half asleep. Or maybe I wasn’t really sleeping but you get the idea.

However, the journey to becoming a better you is not always a straight and comfortable path. Sometimes you have to choose the path that may often look too dangerous and too difficult. It’s not just the challenge it represents that makes it all worth it. It’s the after feeling that you get once you defeat the beast of self doubt that’s been trying to shackle and baffle you.

You’re actually way stronger and smarter than you actually think you are.

The photo above was taken by my lovely friend Mary Jane. It was taken at KLCC in Malaysia when I was so confused and about to take a decision that will change my career. It’s not easy to give up something when you thought you had it all alright. I was confused, feeling all defeated and worthless. However, the smile I’ve managed to put on on that day somehow fascinates me up to this day.

The journey to becoming a better you isn’t always forward. There will be setbacks and you will encounter troubles (specially in the form of self doubts). However, all the weaknesses and flaws you feel often do not even exist. It’s just you who sees and feels it. It’s just you who’s holding yourself to becoming a better you.

Unleash that awesome in you. The world sees you perfectly, sometimes it’s just you who views yourself differently.

For our ongoing report from Socialbakers on the top brands on Facebook in the Philippines, below are some of the brands that have gotten the most engagement and top performances on Facebook.

Nescafe – The Brand with the Most Local Fans
Cebu Pacific – The Most Socially Devoted Brand
Smart Communications – The Most Engaging Brand on Facebook

Smart Communications, Inc emerged as the most engaging brand on Facebook in the Philippines for the month of April with two of its status updates being the most popular posts and have gotten the most interactions of 33,000 and 22,000, respectively and having an engagement rate of 2.18%.

Top 10 Facebook Brands with the Most Number of Local Fans

1. Nescafe (Global)
2. Nescafe (Philippines)
3. piZap.com
4. Starbucks
5. Our Mother of Perpetual Help
6. Samsung Mobile
7. Kit Kat
8. Kit Kat (Philippines)
9. Smart Communications, Inc.
10. Starbucks Philippines

If you compare the current standing with the previous month’s, Starbucks has dropped from its previous rank from 3 to 4 and replaced by the photo editor, PiZap.com, with over 1.9M of local fans out of it’s over all 7.5 million of fans globally.

Top 10 Facebook Media Pages with Most Number of Local Fans
1. Abs-Cbn
2. MYX Philippines
3. MTV
4. TV5
5. HBO
6. FHM Philippines
7.Cartoon Network
8. GMA Network
9. Maria Ozawa
10. I am 100% Filipino!

It’s interesting to note that the media pages previously dominated by brand pages of the giant media companies in the Philippines are no longer exclusive to corporate accounts but even Facebook pages by celebrity Maria Ozawa and a group I Am 100% Filipino! making to the top 10 media pages in the Philippines list.

Top 5 Brands by Post Engagement Rate
1. Del Monte Kitchenomics
2. Vaseline Men – Philippines
3. Johnnie Walker Philippines
4. Knorr Philippines
5. Wrangler Philippines

Top 5 Socially Devoted Facebook Brands
1. Cebu Pacific Air
2. AirAsia Zest
3. Airphil Express
4. Pepsi Philippines
5. Watsons Philippines

Top 3 Most Popular Posts
1. Smart Communications, Inc
2. Nescafe
3. Smart Communications, Inc

How Were the Engagement Rates Calculated?

Engagement Rate: Calculated as the average number of likes, comments and shares per post on a given day, divided by the total number of fans for the page. It reflects the percentage of your fan base that interacts on average with your post.

You may view last month’s report and a sample computation of the engagement rate here.

If you’re too busy to update your personal blog or your domain has been sitting for years unupdated, it’s time for RebelMouse to power your domain! It allows you to instantly have a social, dynamic site. You could try and spend thousands (if not more) on designers and developers to create a custom site for you or your business OR sign up for Rebel Mouse Power Site for only $9.99 a month.

On top of that, you may get 20% off if you use the coupon code = IJUSTDID (Yes, your incentive for reading my blog  

So go ahead, power up your website with RebelMouse and don’t forget to use the coupon code IJUSTDID to get 20% discount!

If you’re still unsure as to what RebelMouse does and how it cam empower your site, check out the following webinar by Megan Berry.

Have you heard of the Escherian stairwell that loops back into itself at the Rochester Institute of Technology?

Could it be possible for staircase to violate the laws of physics and basic logic by looping back into itself?

Published on their school’s online publication, it is one of the questions Michael Lacanilao, a film and animation graduate student at RIT, examines in his video series and Imagine RIT exhibit The Escherian Stairwell.

You may even find some sketches which may help to prove that the existence of such structure is possible.

Proof that the Escherian Stairwell Could Exist? 

Another Example of Visual Illusion of Stair and Sky (Source)

Not until you read this and this.

Felt like all your hopes for science all tumbling down? Felt betrayed?

Well, illusions come in many forms.

From the creative illusions created with money and other illusions to make money. You may find several other examples of clever and creative advertising samples here, here and here.

Advertising: The Process of Making People Believe the Unbelievable

However, being creative and clever is different from coning people. There had been several products sold in the market that try to sell products and services that promise far reaching returns and improvement in problems that do not exist in the first place.

That’s why commercial like that of Revolution by Dove provides a refreshing approach. It tells the real story behind the distorted stories we see on TV commercials these days.

Startup companies often struggle in getting coverage for their service and products mainly due to limited budget. These companies often don’t have a marketing and PR department to handle the press releases and outreach to  journalists and bloggers. However, there are some startups for startups which aim to help companies to make the outreach much easier and budget-friendly.

1. Pitchpigeon - Formerly Peterpings, it’s a news-site pinging service that delivers your pitch about your app to the world’s best-known tech blogs and tech journalists — and gives you the tools to monitor your progress. Pricing starts at $49 per pitch.

By setting up an account, you can then let Pitchpigeon “talk directly” to iTunes App Store and and Google Play to pull data and pre-fill your launch email, ready for you to tweak and send. The service also allows you to keep track which among the Publishers on its network list have viewed your message. Tech blogs and media sites in the US, UK and Asia Pacific that are include in their publishers list are Mashable, BusinessInsider, TechCrunch, LifeHacker, Wired, Gizmodo, Kotaku, VentureBeat, TheNextWeb, SGE, BusinessHackers and 200+ publishers.

2. Presspass.me - A new website that serves as a directory of journalists and media professionals who are active on Twitter in North America, UK, Canada and and Ireland. Essentially it’s like a much cleaner and organized version of a Twitter list of journalists and editors and makes it easy to see track what journalists on Twitter are sharing, and show you what they’re reading, how they rank compared to others, the topics they care about and who gets their attention. Free.

The lists are categorized by Journalists, Beat (Topics), Media Outlet and Region. Some of the top media sites included are The New York Times, CNN, Time, ESPN, TechCrunch, CBS News, Mashable, Entertainment Weekly, ABC News and several others.

3. BuzzStream - Helps generate the buzz or word-of-mouth-marketing campaigns by identifying the blogs and influencers in a specific topic and effectively manage relationships with these influencers through link building and social media. It enables the users to do link prospectivting, reporting and tracking and even save templates that you’ve previously used. Link building plan starts at $29 / month.

Those are just some of the tools which could help you kickstart your blogger and journalists outreach with a limited budget. Do you use other tools for your relationship and link building which were not included in the list? Share  them with us in the comments below!

Engage 2013, an exciting event by Socialbakers, is now happening at the Hilton London Metropole hotel. Since I couldn’t make it at the event, I was pleased to receive an email from Laura Grigerova that I could watch it live!

You may also watch the livestream through this link.

Rick Edward, wroter for BBC Free Speech was the opening speaker. He was then immediately followed by Jan Rezab, the CEO of Socialbakers who spoke about Entering a New Era of Social Analytics.

 Jan Rezab discussing the need for brands to join social media and even said foretell that: “In 2013 a company will go bankrupt because of social media. From @Janrezab at #Engage2013 http://sbks.co/tts” 

A video game study from Deloitte UK found that positive tweets can influence purchase decisions

Pete Blackshaw, Global Head of Digital & Social Media at Nestlé discussed about how they manage their command centre and how the use of analytics tool help create a visual ROI for a brand.

Jiri Voves, VP of Socialbakers, gave a rundown of the Socialbakers Dashboard and importance of analytics

I don’t want you to be missing this event so head over to this link to watch the livestream.

In an infographic presented by LinchPinSEO called Tablet Usage Stats, it shows that 43% percent of people who have both a tablet and a computer spend more time on the tablet than on their actual computer. While 28% users actually replace their desktop browsing by browsing using their tablets instead.

It’s an interesting data for marketers who currently strategize for their business to actually focus on their mobile marketing strategies.

Free Seminar On How to Study in Australia

I was just browsing on the IELTS – IDP Philippines Facebook page when I came across their announcement for the The Australian Education Exhibition 2013.

It is organized by IDP Philippines to help Filipinos who wish to study abroad (specially in Australia) to meet with internationally renowned Australian University Representatives. Delegates from Top Australian Universities will be present here for on-the-spot offers, interaction, and free seminar. Student queries about courses, visa, etc will be answered by these delegates.

IDP Philippines has been truly helpful when I was processing my documents and requirements for the IELTS as I once wanted to study abroad in Australia. They have professional and very helpful staff so I always recommend them to my Filipino friends who wish to study in Australia. They’re not a recruitment agency, they’re actually the world’s leading international education organization offering student placement in Australia, the USA and UK. IDP has 40 years’ experience in international higher education, placing more than 32,000 students every year.

If you have questions on how to study abroad, visas and other frequently asked questions, you may want to join their upcoming exhibition in Davao, Manila and Cebu. Below is the list of schedule.

EVENT SCHEDULE:

DAVAO
May 17, 2013
Marco Polo Hotel
1PM – 6PM
Register Online: idpdavao.eventzilla.net

MANILA
May 18, 2013
Dusit Thani Manila
11AM – 5PM
Register Online: idpmanila.eventzilla.net

CEBU
May 19, 2013
Radisson Blu Hotel
11AM – 5PM
Register Online: idpcebu@eventzilla.net

For more information, you may email us at:
info.manila@idp.com / info.cebu@idp.com
or visit us at www.philippines.idp.com
or call (02) 8160755 manila and (032) 2362758 Cebu

IDP Education, through its subsidiary IELTS Australia, manages a network of IELTS test centres in more than 30 countries. IDP Philippines conducts IELTS Academic and IELTS General Training tests three times per month.

IDP Office is located at 2nd Floor Pioneer House Makati, #108 Paseo de Roxas, Legaspi Village, Makati City, Philippines. You may reach them by calling (02) 8160755.

This year’s conference will welcome Councilman Rolando Lavarro of Jersey City, Deputy Consul General Theresa DizonDe Vega of the Philippine Consulate General, New York and Krizia Medenilla, editor and founder of RedefinedMag, amongst other inspiring community leaders to lead discussions and give context to the group of international delegates on how to turn their good intentions into a reality.

To register for the conference, those interested should visit
http://uniprosummit2013.eventbrite.com/. Ticket prices are as follows:

EARLY BIRD SPECIAL ENDS 4/30: $20 Students / $25 Regular
Advanced Admission ENDS 5/26: $30 Students / $35 Regular
General Admission: $50 Students / $60 Regular

“Last year’s Summit focused on the Pilipino Renaissance a movement we hope to be a part of
in our lifetime, or perhaps one that’s already begun,” explained Iris Zalun, Vice President of UniPro and cochair of Summit. “So, with this year’s theme, we wanted to build on the momentum of Summit 2012.

Last year we inspired a group of young people through the incredible words of guests like Jose Antonio Vargas and Tony Meloto, and this year, we’ll give them the practical tools and resources to help them rise to action.”

Individuals and organizations are also invited to support UniPro’s annual event through FUNDRAISING CONTACT for more information.  

Individuals and organizations are also invited to support UniPro’s annual event through UniPro’s PhilAmTHropy page.

For more info about Summit 2013, you may visit the event page.

About UniPro Pilipino American Unity for Progress (UniPro) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization made up
primarily of Pilipino American students and young professionals. Our mission as an organization is to facilitate and encourage cooperation through coalition development among various Pilipino
organizations, institutions, and programs. For more info about UniPro, please visit unipronow.org.

What: UniPro’s Third Annual Summit Motivating Young Leaders to “Rise”
Where: NYC | Hotel Pennsylvania
When: Saturday, June 1 | 9:00AM 6:00 PM

The Marketing Budgets 2013 report by Econsultancy and Responsys based on a survey of 800 marketers, the results reflect a more stable economic environment, as marketers across all industries are looking to increase their budgets to create customer-centric, relationship-led campaigns.

It shows that companies are planning to increase their marketing budget with focus in digital marketing and targeting the mobile applications as a platform.

Image Credit: Flickr / Responsys