A social mom

quite disappointing to see it often used to play Pac-man, the same Pac-Man running around a maze, eating pac-dots. Being a workaholic during those days, I wanted to work on my dbase, a software which I needed for a project’s survey results. I had a PC XT at home where I introduced simple games to my toddlers. The computer was also useful in teaching my father who suffered from aphasia to recognize words and its pronunciation, through a game.

Blogging and social media

I discovered the internet in 1995 and

Internet Safety concerns for World Kids Network (WKN), a children’s fun website where I drafted the 10 Golden Rules on Internet Safety. I was called by kids around the world and helped moderate the kids’ javascript enabled chat rooms and the mIRC. I made sure my preteen daughters were properly guided in the use of the internet. It’s amazing how my children taught me a lot about being a mother in this technology-driven world.

I learned HTML and blogging together with my then 10 year old

Filipino Blogger in the Philippines. They called it “journaling” back then. Incidentally, the word “blog” from weblog was not coined until 1999. The term “weblog” was coined by Jorn Barger in December 1997. The shorter version, “blog,” was coined by Peter Merholz, who, in April or May of 1999, broke the word weblog into the phrase “we blog” in the sidebar of his weblog.

My stint with WKN lasted only until 1999. By that time, I had learned enough about basic HTML, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and how the world wide web worked. Before I went into blogging, I was creating websites for friends and organizations.

Blogging became a popular medium before the rise of social media . I used it as a platform in 2006 to share my story on how I lost my beloved son and moved on to my new normal. The platform served me well because I offered hope to my readers with similar losses. Twitter came but I used it mainly for broadcasting my daily grind . Then Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and other social networks soon sprouted. It is not just mom bloggers anymore. Blogging is now a part of the bigger umbrella term of social media.

The social mom

Using the monicker “momblogger” was a matter of convenience.

name. There is always a title before one’s name like Ma’am, Miss or Ate. Years later, how would I have known that personal branding would de-

focus of my advocacy?

Together with other bloggers, Blog Watch was born in 2009 in answer to a clamor from my mommy community that they wanted to know more about electoral issues. It has since evolved into a nonpartisan group of citizen advocates who engage government and the private sector, online and

my wildest dreams did I ever want to pursue the political scene. Just like any social media experiment, you never know what clicks or not in the internet.

The rise of social media moms or the social moms got recognized by a Nielsen study in 2011. A social mom can be both a blogger and/ or active social media user but not everyone will blog in the long form

- port on the Social Mom in the USA , these “moms in general tend to be heavy users of all the major social networks: YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+. They also tend to have larger networks of friends and followers than the general population. The social mom makes purchasing decisions for herself and the entire household. Her lifestyle is mobile, allowing for engagement at any time or anywhere.” Social moms in the Philippines are passionate about sharing their discoveries with other moms, giving advice, creating conversations and building relationships online with their readers and followers.

myself a social mom.

Let’s talk #Social

According to the 2018 Global Digital Report, more than 67 million Filipinos spent almost four hours on social media every day in 2017 until January 2018. Filipinos spend