IF the workshop’s theme were to be summed up in two words,it would have been “Blogging 101.”

With guidance from two of the country’s top Internet marketers, participants were given a step-by-step course on basics such as how to make a blog and writing their first entry.

Boo Chanco, PR Council head and SVP for corporate communicationsof Benpres Holdings Corporation,pointed to last year’s election of US President Barack Obama as an example of the need for businesses to enter the blogosphere.

Importance of social media

“The success of the Obama campaign for the White House has, once and for all, underscored the importance of social media in winning hearts and minds of people for whatever purpose,” he told an audience of the various PR and corporate communications practitioners of the Lopez Group in a workshop dubbed “Every Business Should Have a Blog.”

“I firmly believe that it is our obligation to harness all available technology as best we can in carrying out our corporate communications functions,” Chanco stressed.

The objective of the workshop, held by Chanco’s department at Rockwell Center, was to update participants on the latest PR strategies and the dynamics of marketing for the internet community.

PR and marketing guru Brad Geiser, cofounder of the GeiserMaclang Marketing Communications, maintains that having a bad corporate blog is “often worse” than having no blog.

“Limited exposure means your organization can be blindsided from a medium you are unfamiliar with and there will be little you can do to defend yourself,” he told workshop participants.

But blogs are also more than just online outlets mouthing company press releases, Geiser said. It’s about giving the company a human face and voice. Instead of the usual bland company news, blogs can sometimes discuss everyday goings-on at the office, such as the day’s canteen menu.

Beauty of blogs

One beauty about blogs, according to Geiser, is that they’re easy and inexpensive to maintain. But they can also be tricky, he cautioned. “Are you willing to answer tough questions online or practice transparency?”

Professional blogger Jayvee Fernandez, who also gave a presentation at the workshop, recommended that corporate bloggers maintain a presence in Web sites that have heavy traffic to generate Internet presence such as Digg, Facebook and YouTube.

He also pointed to why blogs exist in the first place.

“For the most part, they don’t report the news—they recall experiences,” said Fernandez, cofounder of BlogBank Inc., the country’s leading advertising platform for blogs and online viral campaigns.

If anything, Chanco said, the workshop is a big step forward into the realities of the 21st century.

“From there, our imagination should bring us to new levels of achievement in our task of spreading the good word about the Lopez Group.”