To beef up the vlogging skills of aspiring vloggers in Davao City, David Guison, Alodia Gosiengfiao, Erwan Heusaff, and Carlo Ople came together in Ateneo de Davao University (AdDU) to impart their points of expertise in the digital industry.

Their topics ranged from the basics of vlogging, and niche-finding to content creation and money-making schemes.

The said event was the first stop of the Smart Play Vlogger Camp Tour in the Philippines organized by Smart Telecommunications Inc. Fans gushed as Alodia, a known Youtube gamer and girlfriend of 2018 Shorty Awards Vlogger of the Year Wil Dasovich, entered the stage with her vlogging camera uttering her famous video monologue.

Alodia discussed the essentials of starting up a vlogging channel by emphasizing the importance of preparing the right tools, including a good quality camera, good lighting, and clear audio in videos. She also added the necessity of possessing basic editing skills.

 Alodia concluded her talk by highlighting that “content is king.”

Following Alodia was Top men’s wear blogger David Guison, founder of DG Manila blog. Guison elaborated ways to find one’s niche by using the acronym V.L.O.G. to: Visualize your path; Leverage on your interests; Optimize your strengths; and Gather insights. He further articulated that authenticity is the key to connect to the audience and that it is vital to “showcase what you are good at.”

On a more serious note, Erwan Heusaff, a known restaurant attaché, food and travel vlogger, and founder of The Fat Kid Inside blog, shared to the crowd his insights about content creation. He stressed that “creating content is solving a creative problem and learning how to tell a logical story.”

Heusaff then recognized the difficulty to stand out in the Youtube digital space. He then discussed the need to focus on sharing outside of Youtube, such as other social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

In the end, he stated that content creation should not only be rooted out of the urge to become viral but instead on the need to share meaningful content to the world.

Digital entrepreneur Carlo Ople also explained ways to monetize one’s output through advertisements, affiliate marketing, sponsorships, and brand deals. He highlighted the concept of cross-posting among social media accounts and collaboration to maximize connections.

He further imparted the “7 to 1 Principle,” which means building a career from 8 am to 5 pm and making one’s dreams by 7 pm to 1 am.

When asked by Atenews on the real essence of being an influencer, Guison wanted to nix the term “influencer” and said that having a small market niche to influence is already enough.

“I really don’t like the word influencer… I guess being a content creator is not really creating content, it’s just documenting it. There’s really no secret formula to it. I guess having that small niche market that you can inspire, I think that’s what you consider to be a creator,” he said.

In response to the question, Alodia replied by emphasizing that an influencer’s life purpose is essential as it can help contribute change in this generation.

“Your life purpose is to make your life happy. Me, my life purpose is being able to give the opportunity to others to pursue their passions, that way I mean, ‘cause when we were growing up before we didn’t have this path, we didn’t have enough support to be doing this. That’s why I’m just so happy that this is actually possible ‘cause at least we’re making a difference in this generation,” she said.

Ople also stressed that personal responsibility is important as an influencer in this generation.

“We have the responsibility also to be a positive influence as much as possible. So hindi lang puro benta, as much as possible, whatever you’ve learned, you pass it on in return,” he said.