Published on at 2:29 PM PHT,
by
Dennis Cabrera
Building Sustainable Income Streams Thru Digital Platforms
What is the Filipino Concept of "Hanapbuhay"?
This article seeks to "bridge" the traditional concept of Filipino "hanapbuhay" into the AI Era. The Filipino term "hanapbuhay", can be divided into two Filipino words: "hanap", meaning to search, and "bu-hay", meaning to live (stress is on the first syllable), or living/alive (stress is on the second syllable). If hanap and buhay are combined, it means "search for a livelihood" or "search for a living" - searching for a job, occupation, business, employment, or career. The word "hanapbuhay", rooted in the word "search", is also relevant to present methods of livelihood, like content creation and web production. These two digital means also use "search" as a means in employing search engines with AI capabilities [1][2].
Our parents' generation, and a generation before them, always valued being simple, conservative, practical, and self-sufficient in their outlook towards work and life. These are the values they embodied in their work. So, we were taught that the goal isn't about “getting rich quick.” It's about learning well the ropes of "hanapbuhay", both with the practical values and wisdom of past generations, and by extending it now to present strategies of investing in new technologies.
While deeply rooted in traditional values, the pursuit of "hanapbuhay" in the digital age demands a new level of adaptability. Past Filipino generations who have "withstood the challenges of wartime" embody the traditional ethics. The younger generation, who have learned from them, now demonstrate how those values can still be significant and relevant in times of economic downturn. However, since the current landscape is characterized by rapid transformation and pervasive uncertainty, it also necessitates the adoption of innovative strategies to maintain both competitiveness and sustainable growth. This is possible by continuously evaluating economic environments and staying attuned to evolving customer needs in B2B MSME relationships.
With Filipinos being inherently resilient - a human skill known to be irreplaceable in the AI industry - they can combine it with a proactive mindset and preparedness. A proactive mindset is crucial for navigating economic and environmental shifts. It can transform disruptions into opportunities for growth. For Filipinos to respond proactively to those shifts, it involves not merely adopting new technologies, but truly adapt to them, and to continue acknowledging human relationships and genuine connections as important in the use of AI for the benefit of all. It is testament to the new rallying cry, "Sana all!" [3].
Symbolic GEN AI image of traditional Filipino "hanapbuhay" in a rural setting with more extended family members involved and with strong, established ties with neighboring families
Adaptability & Growth in Business & Technology Systems
The strategic goal to adapt and grow as a Filipino MSME or freelancer in the era of AI is to leverage tools responsibly as a productivity boost and insight tool for work. For content creators, successful AI deployment can mainly mean aiming at producing copy and other digital content that delivers and obtains leads. However, the objective is not just to produce copy that gains leads, but to achieve it with:
- efficiency and cost-effectiveness,
- enhanced customer experience and productivity,
- value breakthrough,
- and tool reliability and accuracy [4]
This is the real purpose of proper and responsible AI deployment: to make work easier, with better quality output, and in less time, so that MSMEs and professionals can attend to those human skills that can build the Filipino economic community with "bayanihan, pakikisama, utang-ng-loob", and that quality of resilience that does not break the faith nor the spirit of the Filipino soul.
This strategic goal can be applied to digital platforms to accomplish adaptability well and build income streams through
- Personal Branding & AI-Optimized Outreach in LinkedIn
- Building Community & Authority on Facebook w/ AI Automation
- Amplifying Reach & Expertise through AI-Powered SEO
- Zero-Click Searches: Gaining Visibility Without the Click
Personal Branding & AI-Optimized Outreach in LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a crucial digital platform for
- professional brand development,
- networking,
- AI career development,
- and job hunting.
You can do all these with AI tools that automate content generation, tailor engaging messages for your brand, and identify leads for connections or sales.
Awareness of industry trends and connecting with a core group of professional family members, schoolmates, former co-workers, or MSME contacts is a good start to strengthen your professional platform. These main connections become the base to build new links to market your work expertise and skills to a bigger professional network through a marketing strategy called geotargetting (location-based marketing that reaches specific markets and channels income streams) [5].
Geotargeting helps:
- precisely target the right audience & boost conversions
- increase relevance with personalized content
- allow "localized advertising" and "region-specific promotions, offers, and messages"
- improve customer engagement
For a stronger awareness of your brand, you can also repurpose long-form content from your other written works to your LinkedIn posts, so that you aren't just networking for connections, but actively establishing your expertise and unique insights into the LinkedIn feed. Repurposing long-form content means you reformat your blog posts or other articles into other formats like short reels, videos, audio content like podcasts, or infographics (an effective format used by LinkedIn professional content creators). This is what Mr. Neil Patel, a popular professional voice on LinkedIn, mentions in one of his posts as making your brand visible "everywhere".
Building Community & Authority on Facebook w/ AI Automation
Facebook is another important digital platform for vital social media connections and niche marketing. For MSMEs, you can readily open a Facebook Page for your MSME and use it as a channel for producing short reels that promote community engagement and useful content dissemination. These reels can contribute very well to lead generation and brand visibility, giving more opportunities to tap new income streams. Images, AI-automated responses, and geotargeting can also be used. A real example would be antique buy-and-sell MSMEs in the province of Rizal. They use real photos of antiques and geotargeted ads that effectively reach leads in Pasig.
You can also use AI to generate content that delivers consistent brand value. Many GEN AI tools can be employed to easily produce copy and short videos for deployment with less work and time. These can reproduce leads that free up your precious time for the human insights needed for "brand storytelling". Brand storytelling that embodies your USP involves nuance and cultural cues that can pitch your value well. It can be combined with the efficiency of AI to provide clues for better presentation, and also act as a soundboard to test your ideas. Eventually, the clues AI provides lead towards crafting a more effective sales pitch.
Symbolic GEN AI image of modern Filipino "hanapbuhay" with less extended family members involved and living in an urban setting: not as strong ties with neighboring families, but stronger economically with ties to private and government institutions.
Amplifying Reach & Expertise through AI-Powered SEO
To expand reach and attract new income streams through digital platforms, SEO best practices are crucial. Content scaling can be done with AI through long-tail keywords, making your content more specific to your niche. Due to the conversational use of AI, you can research long-tail keywords that are often used by those who search in AI tools such as ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini. Content scaling can be done with product launches executed with the right timing and the right keywords. Executed at the right time, your expanded reach can tap leads to new income streams [6][7].
A blog or website is not a luxury anymore in the context of "hanapbuhay" for Filipino MSMEs or professionals in the age of AI. So, with your site, you can optimize for long-tail keywords in your posts or articles. These keywords directly contribute to establishing expertise and authoritativeness. This AI-powered SEO strategy is integral to the goal of producing and delivering valuable and high-quality content to your target market. As more loyal readers engage with your site, you can formulate an income stream strategy that can serve this audience. And this income stream is certain if you implement Google's EEAT framework [8].
The following are more SEO best practices that deliver. It can appear at first more technical than content scaling, but if specifically needed for your MSME or professional work, there is no obstacle to learning it. If interested, you can learn more about them through AI searches:
- building FAQ-based content to match AI snippet-friendly formats
- employing AI for schema markup,
- use of internal linking plans,
- meta description optimization,
- analyzing site visitor data to increase your SEO metric.
Zero-Click Searches: Gaining Visibility Without the Click
A particularly relevant strategy for MSMEs with blogs is the "zero-click strategy". This approach focuses on providing direct answers to user queries on search engine results pages (SERPs) without necessarily requiring a click-through to the site. Your brand's site still gains even without the "click", because visibility in the source links increases brand awareness supraliminally. When the user who searched remembers a title or word from your site listed in the source links after AI Overviews, he can remember it (supraliminally), and then decide to go back and gather more information from your site for stronger clarity in his search. A key strategy here is to find that keyword that functions "supraliminally".
What steps are involved in the Zero-click strategy?
- optimize for featured snippets: provide immediate answers using concise, clear formatting, such as bullet points or numbered lists, and question-based phrasing
- structure data: a schema markup makes it easier for Google to understand your content and display it in rich results like FAQs, reviews, events, recipes, and more
- study high-intent queries: conduct keyword research to identify questions that your audience is asking
- build brand authority: work to appear consistently in results to reinforce your expertise even without clicks [9]
Author's note: The old SEO of the past years is not as effective anymore as the Zero-click strategy. To find more income-generating streams, it is high time that adaptability to this Zero-click strategy in AI search is prioritized. Back in 2004, when I was studying web development with a Yahoo! Groups List, the strategy was simply to increase keywords in the meta tags and main content of your site, which users of search engines will use to find information they want to know, or an item they want to purchase. Your site will appear in the top 10 of the SERPs if you have a high keyword density for those keywords the user places in their search. But now in 2025, with the irruption of AI in AI Overview search results, and the list of source links placed below it, the Zero-click strategy becomes key, a signpost, and pillar for the income stream you seek. And that income stream is gained with consistent monitoring:
- changes in direct and branded search traffic,
- upticks in social mentions or video views,
- and using tools like Google Search Console and GA4
Rosauro's Cue
Unlock the power of "Hanapbuhay," the Filipino concept of searching for livelihood, blending traditional resilience and practicality with cutting-edge AI strategies. Discover how digital platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook empower sustainable income streams. Learn to navigate the AI age, transforming challenges into growth opportunities, relevant for all seeking lasting success.
To learn more about how to apply these strategies to your MSME or professional work, send us an SMS or an email. Or you can simply give us a follow, link, share, or connect.
