Writing for the Filipino audience: 3 key reminders

Whatever your product or service is, chances are you have had to promote it on social media or at least your website. But how do we ensure that we are noticed or stand out among all the content produced daily? How could we appeal to the local target market?

We asked our resource person on content writing, Kristine Sabillo, to enumerate three important things to remember when writing for the Filipino audience.

Go where the audience is

In the age of social media, there is a lot of fragmentation happening even in mainstream media. Younger audiences are becoming more and more dependent on online platforms for their source of information. Understand who your target audience is and where they frequent. Are they the senior citizens of Facebook or the Gen Zs of TikTok? You can either release your content on that platform or use insights on their behavior there in crafting your message.

Think of newsworthiness and virality

How is your content newsworthy? Is it current? Impactful? Or perhaps about prominent people? Sometimes, it’s just a matter of reangling your article to highlight the most newsworthy aspect of it. Oftentimes, it’s about ensuring that you hit at least more than a couple of news elements in your article for maximum coverage. Nowadays, it’s also important to look at shareability or virality. Does it have a special element that can make it go viral? If you are releasing content directly to your audience, remember that form is just as important as content, so any visual element should be on point as well.

Highlight your human-interest angle

Humans (especially Filipinos) are emotional beings. This is why content that evokes high-intensity emotions such as anger and awe—as shown in studies—are the ones that are most shared online. If your content deals with boring but important statistics or data, you can still make it work by introducing it through a relatable story, preferably one that makes people feel something. Stories that elicit emotion are sure to be memorable to any audience.

Sabillo will facilitate a virtual workshop titled “Creating Content and Building Relations with Media: PR Writing for the Filipino Audience” on Dec. 7 and Dec. 9, 2022.

For more information, you may write [email protected], or send an SMS to 0919-3428667 and 0998-9641731.

For your other online learning needs, Inquirer Academy could assist you in designing and facilitating a virtual workshop, a webinar or a self-paced online course for your organization.

The author is the executive director of Inquirer Academy.