Janette Toral

Bloggers and marketers have an interesting symbiotic relationship in the Philippines.

I learned that from talking with Janette Toral, who came to Seattle as part of a sweeping visit to the U.S. sponsored by a U.S. State Department. While in the U.S., Toral learned how technology is changing everything from how we shop to how we elect our leaders. She met with social shopping experts in Washington, D.C., a "daily deals" researcher in Houston. She also visited Pittsburgh and Huntsville, Ala.

She explored questions such as what should bloggers disclose about their motivations -- and compensation -- for writing about companies and their products. The issue is a big on in the Philippines, where marketers have embraced bloggers as a way of promoting goods and services in a country of 94 million people spread across more than 7,000 islands.

Bloggers who don't disclose connections to marketers can be penalized by the government. But bloggers who do disclose affiliations to marketing campaigns can be flagged by search engines as providing paid content, which can adversely affect how bloggers are ranked in searches.

The U.S. Embassy in the Philippines nominated Toral as a promising woman leader in entrepreneurship and technology. She came to the U.S. as part of a professional exchange program run by the U.S. State Department. The World Affairs Council of Seattle hosted her visit here.

In Seattle I got the chance to talk with Toral about blogging, after she had spent some time learning about some of our local blogging sites such NextDoorMedia.com and Grist.org, as well as visiting with SEOmoz co-founder Gillian Muessig.

Janette Toral with SEOmoz co-founder Gillian Muessig.

What do you do as a blogger in the Philippines? I wear many hats. I am freelance blog marketer. I own the DigitalFilipino Club. I teach blogging and social media entrepreneurship, search engine marketing and software process improvement. I also write a weekly business column for (the newspaper) SunStar Cebu.

Tell me about your blog network ... My blog network started in 2007 where I helped get companies mentioned in blogs within my DigitalFilipino Club community. But when I started receiving job orders for 100 blog post and more, I expanded my reach to outside of my club. My clients are mostly PR firms, ad agencies, digital marketing arms, and small and medium companies that would like to tap blogs as a means to spread the word about their promotion, events, news announcements, information awareness, and websites. Clients will usually cite the profile of the blogs they are interested in and the objective of the campaign. Upon receipt, I look at bloggers that suit the profile and personalize the campaign to ensure that the blogger will be able to write it naturally from an "experience perspective."

I understand you experienced an earthquake while in Washington, D.C. What was that like? I was at a meeting with a social media group that specializes in elections. I was asking for inputs on how can social media be used to find good people who can be encourage to run and break a "clan-archy" power structure. I felt the earthquake and our meeting host immediately asked all of us to hide under the table. My English language officer, who accompanies me throughout the entire trip, was with me. It was scary as you really felt things shake. Although I had experienced earthquake in the Philippines before, it was a big one hump like movement and that was it.

You also spent time with companies in Seattle ... I got the chance to meet representatives of some companies, schools, blogs, and publications here in Seattle. One where I am also a subscriber of the service since 2010 is SEOMoz. I use their service from time to time when doing baseline and monitoring reports for clients,. Their tools were very helpful for me as well when I did the DigitalFilipino Web Awards last year. That was the time when I decided not to do any nomination or judging but stick to (SEOMoz's search engine optimization) tools that gives enough metrics to look at a website's merit - making it performance-based.

The government in the Philippines takes a more hands on approach to regulating the internet, advertising and marketing that the U.S. government. What are the differences? Our government's approach is more of an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. I guess this is heavily influenced by the fact that running after violators and penalizing them is a long tedious process in our country. As a result, there is a screening committee that reviews all materials before it comes out particularly in broadcast. Sales promotions (contests, raffle, discounts, premium, redemption, games) go through a registration process as well.

However, the government is currently consulting with the industry to draft new guidelines that will tackle the concerns of the online bloggers. One thought is that either offline media get liberated or online succumbs to the (review) process offline media are subjected to.

Interview conducted and condensed by Greg Lamm