By Bella Angela Del Rio
MANILA, Philippines – PhilDev Foundation and Xepto Education officially launched two online introductory courses on Digital Storytelling and Social Media Management last 5 November 2021 to help startups reach their goals through marketing.
“Everyone uses social media now. These courses aren’t just for entrepreneurs but it is actually for any individual who wants their stories to be told. Or who wants to have a more impactful social media presence,” Patricia Siriban, Program Officer of PhilDev Foundation, explained.
According to Datareportal in January 2021, out of the 110 million Philippine population, 89 million Filipinos are social media users. And between 2020 and 2021 Datareportal highlighted an increase in social media users in the Philippines by 16 million.
[READ: DIGITAL 2021: THE PHILIPPINES]
Marketing in the digital world is on social media. The pandemic has shown how the digital space has created an avenue to better reach audiences as compared to the traditional media and physical advertisements. The social media management introductory course showcases examples of large businesses and startups that have maximized the digital arena, and ways startups can also build their presence. The course teaches aspiring entrepreneurs about knowing their audience and how to effectively communicate and reach them digitally.
“With digital storytelling, you are able to pick out the important parts of your story and highlight that to make your audiences more engaged and more interested in what you have to say.” Patricia shared.
The first part of the digital storytelling introductory course focuses on exploring ways to conceptualize the story’s idea using digital tools. It also goes through the basics of understanding audiences and how stories can influence action. In part two, the course dives deeper into developing a plan to format and organize the narrative and choose the best possible platform to communicate stories.
In these courses PhilDev collaborated with Xepto Academy, a digital library of quality courses for continuous learning and professional development. Responding to the new requirements of blended learning, Xepto Academy aims to empower Filipino educators with Continuing Professional Development courses.
“We saw that Xepto Education, through Xepto Academy, is aligned with what PhilDev is trying to achieve – advocating for technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship. So working with them was easy because all our thoughts were already aligned and on the same page in terms of direction and what we want to happen,” Patricia shared
The idea of developing these courses began back in 2019 when PhilDev was visiting universities across the Philippines to regularly monitor the performance of partner Technopreneurship Hubs (TechHubs), a network of universities nationwide that serve as centers for teaching innovation and entrepreneurship to science and engineering students. Given that these TechHubs come from a science and engineering background, their presentations were highly technical and scientific in contrast to business pitches which are more popularized.
“When we went through one of the presentations, I got so dizzy because it wasn’t easy on the eyes. 95% of the content was in text. The presentation was not in layman’s terms and it was very technical. If this was to be shown to possible mentors, supporters, or even funders, they might not be as hooked or interested because it would take a lot of time to read through it all,” Patricia explained.
Based on this experience, PhilDev decided to brainstorm and develop ways to support the TechHubs in terms of communicating their innovations and startups. They conducted interviews in which the results showed that how to write better stories and how to efficiently and effectively manage their social media content can be the starting point to improving their communications.
This led PhilDev to develop toolkits on digital storytelling and social media management. In 2021, the toolkits were converted into online introductory courses housed in Xepto Academy.
“Why digital storytelling and social media management? The way we created this course is to be very human-centered, meaning that we were able to determine the needs and pain points of the users we intend to engage in this course. We don’t just teach, “what is digital storytelling?” We teach you the “How?” How you can do it. How it can make your lives easier. And how you can make an impact in the lives of the communities you are serving,” Patricia shared.
Interested in building your online presence and telling stories of impact?
