Last Leaf Designs | Web Designer » Philippine Internet Marketing Bootcamp Experience

Yesterday, I was finally able to attend the Philippine Internet Marketing Bootcamp which I was supposed to attend last Saturday had I been well then. I was up really early, around 6, which is very unlikely on a Saturday, I thought I will be late because the map on the site wasn’t really friendly for an idiot on maps like me.

In the end, I was able to be there just a few minutes late (Ely greeted me by saying, “I didn’t expect you til 9!”, gee Ely, you should have said so hehe) after walking a long way from Philhealth building to RCC Tower, where US Auto Parts is currently housed.

When I saw the people working there (during the tour, after the seminar proper) I was star strucked. There was Pinkseo, Mr. SEO Philippines, Jozzua, Internet Rising Star, Fool45, and Rico Sta. Cruz, I told Rhiz that they should get Abe and Gail and they would be complete lol.

Stuff I got from the bootcamp, coincidentally, the pen they gave me is the kind that I always lose, hope this time I can keep it ’til it run out of ink. Look at the paper on the left, see the scribbles? Speakers, I was listening!

It started just after past 8, Ely (Jozzua) was the moderator and *gasp* he made us tell something about ourselves, I hate doing that because I know I always end up looking like an idiot. Anyway, Alohapenny was also there so I just patterned what I said to what she said hehe unfortunately, unlike her, I still sounded like an idiot. Whatever.

THE Rhiz started the session with SEO and SEM, I have been out of the scene for I guess more or less a year now so I thought that what I know is so last year, but I was glad that it did not changed much aside from Google hating people who sells links. I think I was spaced out when Rhiz was talking about SEM (sorry friend!!) because I couldn’t remember a thing :( I do know though that under off-page optimization are the affiliate marketers and under the on-page optimization are of course, copywriters. She was followed by her fellow project manager Gabby who then talked about how you will be able to know stuff about your site using seodigger and google.

They were followed by the head of their email marketing team - Alvin Jimenez, his name sounds familiar, probably because he worked for summit media, was he interviewed a lot on TV before? Anyway, he talked about email marketing (duh!), honestly I thought email marketing was just all about harvesting other people’s email addresses and then spam the hell out of them. Apparently, I was wrong, (or perhaps it depends on the company hehehe, sorry I can’t just let the impression go :P) because you will be able to reach your targeted audience if you only optimize your email’s copy and your site’s content was able to convince the user to subscribe to your emails. It looks a tough job, glad I wasn’t doing it.

Then came online copywriting which was presented by Jennelyn Tabora who they fondly calls as “Tabs”, I don’t know it’s cute. She was the first person (aside from Ely) to actually talk to me, I’m shy, she’s friendly and sweet and down to earth, I like her. Anyway, she said that people should mind their punctuation in writing and I was suddenly made aware that my blog posts are crappy as hell lol, le sigh.

Rico Sta. Cruz, their creative director, talked about basics of design, what he gave as example was very simple but it made me feel so insecure. Darn, he’s incredibly good! When I saw him I thought he was a snob and a quiet type guy but well it’s really bad to judge people about how they look because when he went up front, he’s very eloquent and looks like he’s really approachable. He talked about colors and creating a structure in designing, something I couldn’t really master. Haaay, I’ve always been insecure about my non-existent design skills and seeing people like him makes me even more frustrated, hay!

Moving on, next was THE Mikey Villar who talked about affiliate marketing. Who would’ve thought that affiliate marketing can be interesting? Eh, like email marketing, I have very limited knowledge in this area. I see ads as very annoying (and yet I have ads in this site, oh what a hypocrite this mae paulino) and is in the way to the site’s usability specially if it’s an animation (I would’ve said this on one of his samples but I have this unknown disease where I become mute when I’m with a lot of people). He talks way too fast specially on some parts that I wasn’t able to catch it, his talk would’ve been fun if the rest of the participants are responding, oh well.

Last but not the least is Maia Nuguid, she’s a very sweet-looking person, you know, the kind who wouldn’t scream at you even though you just cleared your project’s files which were gathered for months, wait, I think that’s way scarier. Analytics looks very promising and interesting, too bad I hate those kinds of stuff. She mentioned usability though so I was woken up by that, hey Ely, can I see your notes? haha

Overall, I think it’s a nice seminar, the discussions are a little shallow however what do you expect from presentations of about 15 minutes each, right? At least they were able to lay the foundation and the rest depends on the people - if they really want to know more, there’s always Google.

While there, I began to think whether I’m just afraid of big companies or what because I thought will I still be happy with syndeo if and when the time comes our numbers multiply? The great thing about startups is that you are able to mingle and have fun with everyone and no one would think maliciously of one another. I guess I have read too much about water-cooler gossips and office politics that I’m kinda afraid of that. Oh well, negative thoughts be gone! I’m happy and that’s all that matters :)

Oh, the bootcamp is every Saturday at 8 - 12 in the morning. You may ask for an invite on their site, they’re also interviewing people after the seminar so if you’re interested in being a part of their team don’t forget to bring your resume with you ;)

[EDIT]Some URLs were broken, had to fix[/EDIT]