Advocacy and the New Media, part 1

By Randell Tiongson on October 7th, 2009

I’ve been an advocate of financial literacy for many years now. Aside from the lectures & trainings I conduct regularly, I’ve been using the power of the internet for some time now.

In 2003, I started a yahoogroup called the financialplannersphils which was originally intended for Financial Planners and my colleagues. It has grown through the years and by the end of 2007, I partnered with another personal finance advocate and good friend of mine, Efren Ll. Cruz to put up a personal finance on-line community:  www.income-tacts.com. The growth and development of Income-Tacts is very encouraging – it has grown to about 2500 members since it went on-line in January 2008. Income-Tacts has been featured several times in traditional media and has a very solid following amongst its members. Many of the members of the said forum have gone on to have articles published in newspapers, magazines and on-line sites.

Early 2009, my good friend Chinkee Tan convinced me to try posting my articles through a social networking site called Multiply. For several months, I found myself writing many things and later found out that they are called ‘blogs’. I normally write stuff on personal finance, faith and family. In a short time, I noticed that readers of my blogs were increasing in number and reached to hundreds per blog. Like many of us, I got interested in the use of Facebook because many of my friends are using it and I found the interface easy to use.  I continued to write blogs in both Multiply and Facebook to convey a central theme: my advocacy for financial literacy and faith.

Some months ago, I was encouraged by my Pastor, Dennis Sy to put up my own site. I wasn’t too keen on putting up a site with my name on it, let alone pay for it so I was cold to the idea … until I met a brilliant young man named Carlo Ople. A few minutes talking with Carlo made me realize about the power of this new media he seems to be an expert on. He introduced a whole new world to me… the world of blogging. He gave such an effective argument as to why I should have my own blog site and encouraged me to widen my reach through blogging. He told me that I write good stuff that should be read by many, not just my friends. Carlo said I have a message and that message must be heard. This was the birth of my blog site, https://www.randelltiongson.com/

Catch Part 2 ….

Share

5 thoughts on “Advocacy and the New Media, part 1”

  • Galing! Time for you to write a book! May God use your blogs mightily as you give godly wisdom to your readers. I’m proud of you!

  • Hi Randell!

    Wow! I’m really a fanatic of humble beginnings stories. This kind of stories really inspires me. Thanks. Well, internet is the NEW media considering it’s a lot cheaper to promote yourself here than on old medias. Plus this is really fun and the relationship you build with your readers is genuine.

    I pray that your blog will be more Blessed. I’ll be visiting you here often bro. Keep in touch, and hope to learn more from you.

    More power! God Bless!

    JeD Chan

  • hi bro..thanks for your decision to have this blog site..it inspires a lot of people and that includes me. Dati ko na nakikita name mo sa moneysense pero ngayon ko lang nabasa articles mo, galing! Keep it up! Sana marami pang tao ang mamulat sa financial literacy

  • Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published.

Copyright © 2023 by Randell Tiongson | SEO by SEO-Hacker. Designed, managed and optimized by Sean Si

Be a pal and share this would ya?
Advocacy and the New Media, part 1