There is no argument that digital media is becoming a powerful tool in this day of information age. The world is undergoing an information and a technology revolution.
As of this time when perhaps this article will be published in this paper we will be holding a talk via Zoom during the general membership meeting of the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (Finex) on October 14, followed by the annual membership meeting. The talk titled “The Power of the Digital Media” would be led by GMA New Media Inc. President Dennis Augusto L. Caharian and Industry Head of Google Philippines Prep Palacios as resource speakers.
As chairman of the Finex Media Affairs Committee and together with the committee members, we felt it is our advocacy to inform the public the best we can on how they can leverage and make the best use of the growth of digital media in the country. This will be the second webinar that our committee will be sponsoring for this year; the first one was last July 9, 2020 titled “Effective Media Communication in the time of Covid19.”
Media has never been more powerful as it is today with the pandemic hastening its growth. People stayed home most of the time now and the only way to get information is through the media and more likely through the digital media. I am staying for the past seven months in the province and for obvious reasons I cannot make those trips to Manila. With no air or sea travel, we have to rely on media, whether analog television or through cable, digital or social media, for our news. Personally, I get more of my news faster through Facebook and YouTube.
An updated statistics in 2020 shows that Facebook still surpassed other social media applications, reaching 2.5 billion active users, followed by YouTube. This year has proven to be a huge growth: just a little under half of the world’s population! If you want to use social media for business, the most popular is still Facebook with 86 percent popularity rate mainly because of the number of users, based in a 2019 survey by Clutch Social Media Survey. It is followed by YouTube at 46 percent although video service is not ideal for all businesses.
However, the ultimate business-to-business (B2B) marketing platform is Linkedin. Although ranked third only at 31 percent, Linkedin is considered a powerful tool for networking and a proven application to bring in more businesses for small enterprises. Ironically, smaller businesses are not talking advantage of LinkedIn (Source: revive.digital.com). I am taking a closer look now at how I can maximize the use of Linkedin for our audit firm.
For the broadcast and print media, people, particularly the younger generation, are now turning to Facebook, Google and YouTube in the Philippines for the latest news. Most of these print and broadcast companies in the Philippines had invested in online presence even before this pandemic knowing through statistics that Filipinos are at the top spot worldwide when it comes to the amount of time spent on Internet usage with an average of nine hours and 45 minutes everyday (Source: We are Social and Hootsuite, 2020).
The country is also ranked 12th worldwide in the number of users, according to a survey in the first quarter of 2020. Internet in the country is, however, the slowest in average speed in the world at 103rd out of 139 countries. You could just imagine the surge of users if our Internet speed could further improve!
We have seen the positive side of the use of digital media particularly the more popular ones. But I watched the documentary “The Social Dilemma” on Netflix and I, too, realized we are only looking at one side of the coin.
The other side, which could be the “bad,” is severely affecting society; and yet many are not aware of it. The documentary by Jeff Orlowski explores the bad side particularly of social media, which includes breach of privacy, addiction and, may I add, false news that could lead to false beliefs. The defectors from such big platforms as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and such other social media platforms even claimed that the “bad side” of the coin is not a bug but a feature.
This is precisely one of the reasons why they left these companies because nobody has the solution to address these downsides, which can have a significant impact on human behavior and mental health.
Perhaps the only solution to mitigate this bad side is more information to the public like these webinars Finex is organizing. Addiction, breach of privacy and fake news are something people, especially our young generation, should be warned of. Making them aware that digital media is like a coin with two sides: one could be good or bad. Having such awareness will help them avoid the adverse effects.
In the end, both young and old should embrace the good but avoid the bad.
Wilma Miranda is the chairman of the Finex Media Affairs Committee, Managing Partner of Inventor, Miranda & Associates, CPAs, Board Member of KPS Outsourcing Inc. and Treasurer of Negros Outsourcing Services Inc. The views Miranda expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the opinion of these institutions and the BusinessMirror.