Yesterday, Facebook showed me the ad above for lingerie. In case you’re wondering, NO – I’m not a cross dresser who likes to dress up in baby dolls and teddies.

While it was a good laugh for my friends, this ad campaign is a typical example of a rookie mistake in online marketing: not taking advantage of targeting options in online advertising.

Online advertising is not like traditional advertising

If an advertiser could only choose a single traditional advertising channel to run their campaign, they would probably choose the channel that would reach the most people. If it was a choice between The Star, Malay Mail and The Sun, the advertiser would most likely choose The Star because it has the highest circulation and biggest reach.

But there’s a problem when doing that – not all of The Star’s readership will be interested in the advertiser’s ad.

Fortunately, that problem is abated / reduced with online advertising. On the web, advertisers can track web user’s interactions to a very detailed level. For example, they can choose to show ads based on location (by looking up your IP address), interest (based on which websites you visit) or behaviour (based on what ads or links you click).

In Facebook, you can take that even further. Facebook knows A LOT about you, so advertisers can target ads on your gender, your birthday, relationship status and even your friends.

So in the example above, Secretnite.com the lingerie store could easily show their ads only to women. This would reduce the cost of their ad campaign because they are reducing the reach (audience). This will also result in better advertising ROI because money is not wasted advertising to men who are not interested in buying lingerie.

Target Facebook ads by demographic

How to sell lingerie to men

“But some men may want to buy lingerie for their wives or girlfriends,” you say.

That’s exactly right, but there’s a better way to do it: Show men a different ad.

Because advertisers can easily target audiences on the web, it’s not all or nothing like in traditional advertising. Secretnite.com could show one ad for their female audience, and another version to their male audience. Better yet, they could show the ad only to men who are in a relationship.

The goal of the men-only ad is the same (to get the audience to buy the product) but you can make it more effective by changing the content of the ad. Here are some examples of lingerie ads targeted at men:

• Give her an anniversary present she won’t forget
• Show her how much she turns you on
• Buy lingerie discreetly through our online store

Think of it as advertising for women’s lingerie in FHM or Auto Driver. If the advertiser knows their audience are men, would they show them ads that were made for women? Of course not!

In summary, online advertising allows you to target your audience much better. By doing so, you can reduce your audience group to something very specific so you can make a very targeted offer or deliver a very relevant message. The benefit is that you will save money on your ad campaign, and get better results.

Finally, here’s a great article on How to Create Successful Facebook Ads

If you thought this article was useful, please share it with your friends. And if you have questions about online advertising, feel free to ask in the comments below, or contact my friends at Level5 Creative for a proposal.

P.S. I’m not singling out Secretnite.com to shame them, they were just an eye-grabbing example

P.P.S. Lingerie is pronounced lonj-er-AY

How To Sell Lingerie To Men A.K.A. Why You Should Target Your Online Ads – originally published on Buzzmedia Online Marketing

It’s World Cup season and we’re being inundated with TV adverts in between the games. As usual there are the creative ones as well as really bad ones. One bad advert in particular is the MyEG advert featuring Deborah Henry. Twitter users were not shy in expressing their thoughts of the advert.

Count me in as one of those who thinks the MyEG advert is a poor effort.

However, as bad as the advert is, I’m not sure that MyEG should drop it. In fact they may even be doing the right thing by sticking with it.

MyEG has been running other adverts with this theme for a while now–this theme being girls in striking red outfits, and more recently – Glee style show tunes. The adverts aren’t particularly clever but seem to be doing the job of raising awareness, generating word of mouth and getting the message across that Malaysians can get of e-Government services done through their website. (This is my own opinion – I have no numbers to back this up)

I would argue that if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. Sure it’s a silly advert and maybe even downright stupid, but if it works and it’s generating an acceptable level of return then by all means MyEG should continue with the campaign.

Many times brands try too hard to appear hip, cool and witty. Unfortunately they don’t always pull it off. Also take note that hip, cool and witty ads aren’t guaranteed to grow your market share or win new customers. If you are lucky enough to find a formula that works, you should stick with it and try to improve on the formula.

This applies even more so to small businesses. Small businesses don’t have the luxury to create clever campaigns and promotions. What small businesses have to do is to win customers, even if they only have old school, run-of-the-mill tactics and ideas.

And to tie it back to the World Cup theme – a scrappy goal is better than no goals. So don’t worry about scoring a well-placed lightning strike. Just side foot the ball into the net.

What do you think? Should MyEG stick with or drop their ad campaign?

For the record though, I think MyEG should take this experience to heart and get their ad agency to come up with better, less cheesy ideas.

When to stick with or drop an unpopular ad campaign – originally published on Buzzmedia Online Marketing

Facebook is an important tactic in every small business marketer’s repetoire, and the key to success in Facebook marketing is to grow your Facebook Fan base. Contests are a popular way of achieving this goal, so here are some contest ideas which you can implement for free to grow your Facebook Fan page. Take note that Facebook has some strict promotional guidelines, so be sure to read my advice on this at the conclusion of the article.

Facebook Treasure Hunt

This contest model involves posing questions to your fan page and providing clues or answers on your website. To participate, Facebook users must look for the answer on your website and then answer the question with a comment to your status update or note. Of course, to be able to comment the participant needs to be a Fan (Like) your page first.

This contest model provides the additional benefit of driving traffic to your website. For best results, make your questions easy to answer and provide a series of questions so that people have multiple opportunities to partcipate.

Most Creative

Asking fans to post a creative picture to fan pages is one of the most popular contest models on Facebook. The mechanics are simple – ask fans to snap a picture (ideally with your product) and post it to your Fan page. The most creative / interesting / clever submission wins. Variations of this contest model include creating a drawing instead of a snapping a photo, create a video or to simply post a short 100 word story.

A more aboveboard variation is to ask fans to snap photos with your product and use them as their product picture in addition to posting the picture to your Fan page. This is the model that Dunkin Donuts used to promote awareness of a new product. This variation requires participants to change one of their most public Facebook profile elements, so you should be sure that your incentive is attractive enough.

For best results, ask participants to name and caption their photo specifically (e.g. “Contest Name Entry”) so that their friends are aware of the contest. Also, encourage your Fans to get their friends to vote on their entry by Liking their picture or video.

Exclusive Contest Rules

This is a really simple way to grow your fan base, but requires a little knowledge of HTML. Create a new tab with the Static FBML application and hide the contest rules within that tab with the tag. To see the contest rules, visitors my Like the page first. John Haydon explains how to do this on his blog with a cool video.

To be successful with this contest model, you must clearly specify the benefit to your page visitors, i.e. tell them what they stand to win. You may also want to provide an instant benefit for becoming a Fan, such as a video tip or discount coupon as an added incentive for Liking your page.

Suggest An Idea

Papa John’s recently launched a contest with this model, asking Fans to create a new Pizza for their menu. While they used a fancy Facebook app, you can simply write a note asking for suggestions for your product, tagline, or even testimonials and ask Fans to provide ideas in the comments. Best comment wins, sweet and simple.

Tag Yourself

In this contest model, you upload a photo album of your products to your Fan page. Ask your Fans to tag their name to a product to win that product. To maximise this contest model, upload 1 picture every few days to encourage Fans to keep returning to your page. This is the same contest idea which IKEA used in a wildly successful contest. As an alternative, ask Fans to post a review or testimonial of your product in the photo comments.

Success Factors

You can increase the success rate of your Facebook contest by keeping the following in mind:

1. Make use of the viral news feed effect. All the contest ideas above rely on using the News Feed to spread the contest further. The idea is to include some sort of Facebook interaction (comment, like, photo upload, etc) into the contest. This interaction will show on your Fans’ news feeds, driving awareness among their friends.

2. Keep contests simple. Understand Facebook user psychology – people visit Facebook to play games and connect with friends by viewing photos, poking friends, etc. Your contest needs to be quick and easy to complete. Remember that your main goal is to gain Fans, not marketing data, branding, etc.

3. Provide an incentive. The better the incentive, the more participation you’ll get in your contests.

Take Note of Facebook’s Promotional Guidelines

Technically, some of the contest ideas above violate Facebook’s Promotion Guidelines (I think). Facebook says that you can only administer promotions through an application, and that the promotion can only take place on a canvas page of a Facebook app and on an application box in a tab in a Page. Facebook also says that “you will not condition entry to the promotion upon taking any action on Facebook, for example, updating a status, posting on a profile or Page, or uploading a photo. You may, however, condition entry to the promotion upon becoming a fan of a Page”. Read more.

However, I think that the guidelines above apply to larger brands with big budgets and not so much to small businesses who are the target audience of this article. In any case, be aware that you may be in violation of Facebook’s guidelines and be ready to shut down your contest immediately if you receive a warning from Facebook.

If you have the budget, you could always use 3rd party promotion applications like Wildfire to run your contests rather than building your own.

Other Resources

• 5 Contest Strategies That Will Skyrocket Your Facebook Fan Base
• How To Get More Facebook Fans – Some Basic, Proven Ideas

Please share your own ideas

There you have it, here are the ideas and contest mechanics I use myself. I will be constantly adding new ones to this list. If you have any to add, please share them in the comments and I’ll be happy to link to your website or blog.

Facebook Contest Ideas to Grow Your Fan Pages – originally published on Buzzmedia Online Marketing

What is social media’s role in marketing? Many marketers and business owners find social media difficult to grasp. They may know they need to start using it, but failure to understand of it’s role in the marketing process lead to wrong tactics which just annoys social media users.

For example, some marketers simply blast out spammy messages through Twitter, Facebook groups and blog comments. I don’t know about you, but that pisses the heck out of me.

In my opinion, social media helps make your brand human and turns your marketing into relationships. Let me try to explain.

When early merchants started trading goods, they did so in public venues like souqs, bazaars and markets. They would have nurtured relationships and trust among their customers to ensure a good reputation and positive word of mouth, the main marketing vehicle way back when. They did this by listening to their customers, providing quality products and services, and actually caring – in short, they had to be human.

Fast forward to the industrial revolution and merchants, now known as businesses and brands, had a more effective way of reaching their customers: mass media. Through TV advertising, brands could reach millions and that was much more efficient than selling to a handful of people at a time in the market.

However, after decades of mass media advertising, businesses started to lose touch with their consumers. Businesses replaced building relationships with customers with branding – a poor substitute if you ask me. I have a feeling that many marketers today are more comfortable talking to an advertising agency or using automated spamming tools, rather than having a deep conversation with their customer.

In this case, the business is no longer human. It becomes a wall of light and sound, and consumers can’t form relationships with walls.

Social media offers brands a chance to be human again. It’s not practical to expect every company to have a personal relationship with each customer, but social media can help make that process more efficient. At the very least, social media allows businesses to listen to what their customers are saying, supporting customers and providing access to the people within the company.

Social media helps brands be human. We’re back to the merchant in the market again. One-on-one again, but amplified with social media tools.

Some brands recognise this and have begun to talk, joke, share stories with me in my favourite hang out spots like Facebook and Twitter. Some brands even have their employees dropping by blogs.

It’s not that difficult. If Tony Fernandes can do it, now everyone can use social media (geddit??).

Here are some action steps for you. What are some of the ways your company listens to your customers? (Hint: focus groups don’t count). When’s the last time you actually had a none sales-related conversation with your customers? How can you use social media to connect and increase your relationship-building effectiveness?

Please leave a comment below or share this post with your friends. This is just my own opinion, so I’d love to hear your thoughts, and am happy to share more if you’d like.

Photo credits

Huế market by Jaako
Wall of TVs by GabeB

The role of social media in marketing: It makes your brand human – originally published on Buzzmedia Online Marketing

Facebook has recently surpassed Google as the most visited website in the US according to Hitwise. It’s a trend that the rest of the world will soon follow and yet, many businesses and marketers are still obsessed about their search ranking when they should seriously start to consider a Facebook strategy.

Social networking is changing the web, so businesses and marketers have to change their online marketing tactics along with it. This change isn’t only confined to the US – the stats appear to say the same thing for Malaysia (Alexa’s Top Sites for Malaysia).

At this rate, having a presence on Facebook is as important as having an email address. If you have never considered Facebook as part of your marketing strategy, here are some steps to take:

1. Stop thinking that Facebook is “just for personal use”. Recognise Facebook for what it really is – a marketplace that connects consumers and businesses on a personal, one-to-one level. Start using Facebook for your online marketing and you’ll begin to realize its potential.

2. Create a Facebook Fan Page for your Business. Once you’ve launched the Page, you must engage your Fans regularly, preferably daily. Share useful information that’s aimed at selling, but aimed at growing trust and social capital. See the Buzzmedia Facebook Page and be a fan to get online marketing tips.

3. Ask your employees for advice. Chances are, many of your employees are already on Facebook. These employees will be your company’s brand ambassadors on Facebook. Ask them for ideas and examples of other brands who are doing well on Facebook.

In conclusion, I urge you to take a more holistic view to your online marketing. SEO today isn’t enough anymore, and you must supplement it with a social strategy. Because of it’s size and reach, Facebook needs to play an important role in your social strategy and overall online marketing.

I am currently developing a free Facebook Pages guide that will show you how to use Fan Pages to market your product and services on Facebook. Click here to sign up to be notified when the guide is ready.

P.S. Lim Yung-Hui did some excellent research to compile statistics of Asian Facebook users. He found that 30% of all internet users in Malaysia use Facebook. You should follow Lim on Twitter – twitter.com/zhiQ

Dude, you’re still obsessed about SEO? Wake up and smell the Facebook – originally published on Buzzmedia Online Marketing

Have you ever been in a situation where someone wanted to shake your hand.. but you saw him pick his nose a minute ago? Eww! It’s even worse if it’s your first meeting. Your first impression of that person will forever be spoilt by that image of him with his finger up his – never mind.

If you’re using social media to grow your network by friending and following people you don’t know in person, first impressions are even more important because I have nothing else to judge you on. I receive quite a few friend/connection requests on Facebook and LinkedIn, and a handful of new Twitter followers each week. However, I don’t accept many of these requests or follow back on Twitter because the first impression I get isn’t great.

So, the single most important tip for getting more followers, friends or connections: make your first impression count.

Let’s look at how we give off these first impressions through social media, and how to gain more friends and followers by making a good first impression.

How to make a lousy first impressions

Twitter

On Twitter, the first impression hangs heavily on your profile picture. That’s the first thing I see when you tweet me, or in the email notification that says you’re following me. If I’m curious, I’ll click through to your profile page to read your bio.

Here’s the Twitter profile page of MAS (Malaysia Airlines) Green Initiative.

And here’s the profile of a dodgy, potential Twitter spammer.

At first glance, I wouldn’t recognise Malaysia Airlines, and I may actually mistake them for being a noob at best, or dodgy at worst.

Facebook

On Facebook, your profile picture is just as important as in Twitter. Unlike Twitter, I’m more likely to assume that you’re someone I know since Facebook is a more personal social network. However, I’ll think twice before approving you if I see a friend request like this:

If I don’t know you personally my first impression is, That can’t be your real name right? This profile picture is also coming off a little too cocky. I’m going to click… Ignore.

Also, keep in mind that even if I click through your friend request to learn more about you, chances are I will see this:

Which is why it’s super important to make a good first impression on Facebook.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn encourages you to connect only with people you know. In fact, they’ve got a big button on pending requests that says “I don’t know this user”. That’s the button I’m tempted to click when I see a request like this:

No profile picture, no idea who you are, no approval for your request to connect.

Make a good first impression through social media

All the examples above are less than ideal first impressions. Here’s how to make sure you put your best foot forward and get more friends and followers.

1. Use a good picture and your real name. These help others recognise you and decide that you’re not dodgy. A good profile picture is one where you are not showing off certain body parts, making gang signs or engaged in unsavoury behaviour.

2. Include a personal message in your friend request. It’s really difficult to remember everyone that I’ve met before, so please remind me with a personal message. Or if I don’t know you, please explain why I should. Here’s an example:

Hi! I’m David from Buzzmedia and @blogjunkie on Twitter. I would like to connect since I notice that you’re also interested in XYZ / because I’d like to grow my network of potential business partners.

Add a personal message to Facebook friend requests

3. Personalise your profile. On Twitter where you can’t include a personal message when following someone, you must make full use of your bio to explain why I should follow you. For those who use desktop clients like TweetDeck, all they see is your profile picture, real name and bio. If possible, explain further with a custom Twitter background image.

Do you have any more tips of making a good first impression in social media? Please share them in the comments. Thanks!

Photo credit: 365-05 Back to work! by HazPhotos

The single most important tip for getting more followers, friends or connections – originally published on Buzzmedia Online Marketing

While many Malaysian companies are just beginning to understand social media, Packet One Networks (P1), is a company that has been in the forefront of integrating social media into all levels of their organisation. P1 not only uses social media in their marketing efforts, but in their customer service operations too.

Many companies have grown used to speaking at their consumers through mass media advertising campaigns. However for P1, they recognise social media as a platform for them to engage with consumers directly in a public channel.

P1 Chief Operating Officer Idham Nawawi

Key to this is the whole-hearted support of social media by their senior management. COO Idham Nawawi told me in this interview how they deliberately fostered the adoption of social media within P1 by getting all the senior management to sign up for Twitter and learn how to communicate with consumers. By walking the talk, the senior management is able to lead the Packeteers to adopt the use of social media and promoting its effective and responsible use.

Another challenge for P1 was balancing the speed in which social media interactions happen with the necessary administration and control. Like many others they have an empoyee communications policy and ticketing support system in place, but I really loved their immunity cards.

P1 Immunity Cards

Employees are encouraged to take the initiative to solve problems and engage with consumers. Each employee is issued 3 immunity cards which they can use if they ever make a mistake to spare them from a ticking off. It’s a simple idea, but it helps their employees learn to be responsible and is great for morale.

Watch the interview to learn about how P1 cultivates a social media-friendly culture and how they engage their customers (I had to edit it down to <10 minutes for YouTube). Feel free to also share the interview with your friends.

My sincerest thanks to P1 for being open to this interview. A big shout out especially to Idham, Amin and Cynthia who made it possible. Follow the P1 senior management on Twitter – CEO Michael Lai (@MichaelLaiP1), COO Idham Nawawi (@IdhamNawawi) and CMO Kenny Wong (@KennyWong).

Packet One Networks (M) Sdn Bhd (P1) is Malaysia’s first and leading WiMAX telecommunications company with the country’s widest WiMAX network. P1’s goal is to bridge the digital divide by making access to the internet universal, ubiquitous and affordable for every Malaysian. P1 hopes to play a major part in realizing the nation’s goal – to have 50% broadband penetration by 2010. Learn more at www.p1.com.my.

Exclusive interview: Idham Nawawi on how P1 engages customers with social media – originally published on Buzzmedia Online Marketing

Following up from last month’s post on social media predictions, this time around I asked my friends in major brands and agencies to contribute their insights. The contributors to this article are:

1. James Yeang, Product Marketing Manager at DiGi Communications
2. Cynthia Seow, Senior Manager of New Media at Packet One Networks
3. Derek Tan, Social Media Specialist at AirAsia
4. Biresh Vrajlal, PR & Marcom Manager at Tune Hotels
5. Cheah Hsu Jen, Senior Marketing Executive at New Zealand Natural Malaysia
6. Rachel Foong, New Media Executive at Sunway University College
7. Niki Cheong, Journalist at The Star
8. Karen Hoh, Managing Director at Edelman Malaysia
9. David Lian, Social Media Strategist at Text100 Malaysia
10. Gan Mei Lian, Client Service Director at Euro RSCG Malaysia
11. Nizwani Shahar, Associate Brand Director at McCann Erickson Malaysia
12. Alex Lam, Managing Director at Integricity

Disclaimer: The views expressed by the above are their personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of their employer or clients.

Executive Summary

Here are the social media trends and insights for Malaysia that I extracted from their responses.

• Malaysian brands are relatively immature with regards to social media. While there has been an increase in participation recently, many are doing so for the sake of jumping on the bandwagon. Majority of the respondents agree that social media maturity will require more time. Takeaway – brands have an opportunity to crush it if they can get ahead of the curve of their competitors.
• There are many challenges facing brands in social media (strategy, expertise, perceived loss of control, etc) are causing brands to be very cautious. For the front-liners, the challenge is educating management and being able to engage and be transparent. Takeaway – many of the stumbling blocks are caused by lack of experience, therefore it’s extremely important to jump in and learn by doing.
• 100% of the respondents are planning to increase investment in social media. From the tone I guess that some may give social media a bigger slice of the marketing budget moving forward. Takeaway – be sure to measure and track results from campaigns to justify the investment in the channel.
• Facebook and Twitter rule.. but brands are cautious and cognizant of the fact that the next big thing are right around the corner. Takeaway – don’t put all your eggs in the Facebook and Twitter basket.

Soundbites

Below are the questions I posed to the contributors, with some highlighted responses. You can view the complete responses at this Google Spreadsheet.

How far along are brands in social media maturity? Will 2010 see many brands who are still unconvinced, or will we see more becoming comfortable with social media?

James: I personally think it’s oversold and overhyped. Too many brands want to hop on the bandwagon JUST because it’s facebook or twitter or blogs, and they pay an agency TONS of money to manage them. What they should be thinking about is connecting with their customers.  Pick a few platforms, or even ONE platform, and just do it well.  If the agency does all the work, and they are the ones who build all the relationships – what is the point? And all you really need is to be timely, honest, transparent, and helpful – and a have good product to stand behind.

Nizwani: The core issue faced with brands is the classic case of the pink elephant – everyone can see it in the room, but nobody knows what to do with it. Brands are becoming more familiar with social media but will need to invest more time and effort in identifying their own objectives to be able to ultimately maximize the use of this space.

Karen: The year 2010 will be when social media will become ‘invisible’ – mainstream, a normal part of the fabric of discussion about marketing and communications for brands. Right now, we’re still quite a bit away from that, but things are moving quickly. Take for example the recent decisions by Unilever and Coke to move from campaign microsites to social media – that announcement caused panic and excitement globally in equal measures. In Malaysia, MNC and local brands could be a lot more engaged on social media.  By and large, many brand marketers in Malaysia are still reticent about social media and how it can drive business results, but it will change quickly.

What will be the biggest challenge in implementing social media in 2010?

Rachel: Companies will need to be brave enough to let the channels be their point of contact with consumers instead of letting agencies handle the channels. At this point, a lot of brands are still learning but without little to any hands-on. I hope that 2010 will be the year for brands to own social media and let it transform their organisation inside out to produce better customer service and products. No one should know the brand better than its mother.

David: Getting the right people. I believe eventually, every company should manage its own social media presence, with agencies playing a supporting role in creating content, channels and consulting on strategy. However, the dearth of talent means that its more likely for companies to outsource the social media engagement role to their agency at this point of time. Companies with a longer term view will invest in training and upskilling individuals to take on an internal social media role within next few years.

Nizwani: Biggest challenge in implementing social media this year, is how to get the most out of the consumer experience with the brand. The concern of the previous decade is that TV was becoming fragmented. Now with social media personalization and customization, brands are able to target the consumers in the most effective way possible. The ability to profile users and to create unique engagements enable brands to present their messaging to the right target and reduce wastage, as opposed to the typical spot-buys online (or on FB, MySpace, etc).

Hsu Jen: I think that because it has been used and abused by so many other brands/companies (e.g. merely pushing promotions instead of engaging people), the challenge might be grabbing the consumer’s attention, and keeping it. With so many brands hopping onto the social media bandwagon now and trying out new ideas to stand out from the crowd, there’s a lot of shouting going on. Sometimes, too much.

Biresh: The biggest challenge for implementing social media in 2010 will be for brands to engage with the people/fans instead of trying to sell them.  They would also do well to hire someone (not necessarily a guru) who can execute this well.

Cynthia: Alot of brands, are not sure of the space because it so alive and real. You don’t really know what is going in the heads of the consumers in this space, so you just got to try and find things that works for you. Of course, there are tried and tested methods but ultimately, its not a ONE size fits all solution. So you just got to try, and make mistakes along the way – after all, we are all human behind the walls of social media.

Karen: My view is that brands are curious at the very least, and would very much like to embark on social media engagement, but many brand marketers generally 1) are not sure how or where to start; 2) are not sure how much it will cost long term, not only spend, but investment in resources; 3) are unsure about measuring ROI; and, 4) are somewhat anxious about “losing control,” the exposure and risk, e.g. negative comments or criticism for all to see.

How much are you intending to increase / decrease investment in social media for yourself / your clients in 2010? Why?

Mei: We will continue to encourage our clients to increase their investment in social media in 2010. Reason is due to the clutter and high cost in traditional media. Social media is also a complementary medium to traditional media as it enables clients to engage directly with consumers and connect with them on an emotional level.

Derek: We are planning to actually expand our outreach to meet the demands of our market growth and language needs in differing markets. We need to start reaching out based on market needs instead of an overarching strategy that will never encompass all our objectives in social media

Alex: Increase, as we see trends moving rapidly from the traditional one-way communication to two-ways [...] We have our own community managers now, and that’s a serious step towards social media adoption for 2010 on our part!

Niki: There is a notion now that social media is free, and it is to a certain extent, but everyone will need to invest more to keep up and to use it more effectively. This would be what I recommend any individual or brands trying to engage in social media.

Cynthia: We are gonna rock the social media space in 2010! Watch out! (Editor’s note: the gauntlet has been thrown )

What specific social media tools or channels will you / your clients be focusing on in 2010? Why?

Rachel: Our target audience uses Facebook a lot. That will be a permanent channel. But we are seeing an increase on Twitter. Blogs will also be an increasing focus, a new territory for us. LowYat has been a very good channel as well.

Niki: I think I’m more interested to see how far Twitter goes in 2010, and if it has the staying power, which i think it does. But with the Net, and social media, things change so fast and new technologies appear out of nowhere, it will be interesting to see what comes up next. To directly answer your question, I think it will be foolish to just focus on particular tools… I think you first need to look at the objective of your plan – whether for individuals or brands – to decide what are the best tools to achieve that.

Mei: For our clients who are just making their first steps into social media, we will encourage them to embark on a listening exercise to first understand what consumers are saying about them / their competitors , before deciding on the next steps.

Nizwani: Specifically, I believe the focus will be to leverage on social networking, gaming, micro-blogging and video channels. A mix and match strategy of these different channels will help brands cover more ground and in the end reach more of their potential targets by generating greater conversations.

Besides social media, what other online marketing tools or channels will you / your clients be investing in for 2010? How would you rate these other tools in comparison to social media?

Alex: Traditional email newsletters, micro-site based campaigns, media buy. They work well for different industries and types of people.

Derek: I think measurement has been severely underutilised and what do we do with the data has to also improve. It’s easier to say that we can’t speak to our 24 million database and generic messages should be adequate but that way, we will never fully accomplish the potential of social media and provide more interaction and prompt more loyalty and communication which should take center stage.

Biresh: Increasing our email database & online advertising will still be a major marketing tool for us besides a strong public relations drive which has always been a cornerstone of our branding and marketing initiative. Social media will complement those initiatives by engaging the guests.

David: Augmented reality is starting to get accepted in the mainstream and geo-location services (though not necessarily social) will provide new ways for customers to experience and interact with brands.

Any other comments?

Derek: I think what companies lack when they start is a unifying objective and a long term strategy. often the confusion of what social media can achieve can also deter not only external parties but also internally. The notion that social media is free media is a wrong approach and no amount of social media can alter the image of who you are but it can keep you connected, engaged and most importantly relevant to all stakeholders which should be the essence of the social media approach.

David: Don’t rely on predictions – especially in the tech industry. Be prepared to be surprise and prepared to react fast. The industry is so fast moving, and tools so quickly changing that the next new thing will be on us before the year is out.

* * * * *

I’d like to say thanks to the correspondents. I really appreciate you sharing your insights and helping to shed some light on social media here in Malaysia. For the full responses of the correspondents, you can view this Google Spreadsheet.

For those who are interested in learning more about social media, do attend one of the Social Media Club KL’s events and subscribe to our mailing list – the Buzzmedia Bulletin.

Social Media Predictions for Brands in Malaysia – originally published on Buzzmedia Online Marketing

Video is a great way to provide customer education and support sales and marketing activities. With the growing penetration of broadband and the dozens of video hosting services, it’s easier than ever to publish and distribute your videos to your market.

Unfortunately, not all video hosting services are created equally. For example, many of these services are based in USA and so videos can take longer to load when viewing them here in Malaysia. Now that I’ve started producing more videos for Buzzmedia (see my first one here) I’ve had to do some research on the different options we have here in Malaysia.

Video hosting comparison

It wasn’t as simple as I thought and I wanted to share the pros and cons of each service. In my research, I looked at YouTube, Vimeo, Blip.tv and Facebook video and weighed them against the following criteria: speed, video quality, terms of service and upload limitations.

Speed

Probably the most important factor when considering on a video hosting service is the speed, i.e. the time it takes the video to load and begin playing. Out of all the video hosting services I have used the four which I’m reviewing here (YouTube, Vimeo, blip.tv and Facebook video) have decent speeds when viewing them from Malaysia. Others like Viddler, DailyMotion and even Ovi by Nokia take noticably longer to load. YouTube has definitely got the best loading speeds since Google caches the videos and has a content delivery network that covers the whole world. I didn’t test the services by any scientific means, and mainly watched my network meter while trying out each service.

Winner for best video streaming speed – YouTube

Video Quality

Video quality is how good the video looks after you’ve uploaded it to the different services. The 4 shortlisted services all also support high definition (HD) videos too. This test is a bit more subjective, but I think that Vimeo has the best looking video out of all the shortlisted services. YouTube has got noticably poorer video quality, however HD videos on YouTube look pretty good.

Winner for best video quality – Vimeo

Upload Allowance

Each of these services have a limit on the video length and size when you upload them:

• YouTube – 1GB or 10 minutes per video
• Vimeo – 500MB per week, no video length restriction
• Blip.tv – 1GB per video, no video length restriction
• Facebook Video – 1GB or 20 minutes per video

Winner for best upload allowance – Blip.tv

Terms of Service (Licensing)

This is the main stumbling block when choosing a video hosting service. Besides the normal stuff that you can’t upload (copyrighted material, pornography), some of these services prohibit you from uploading certain forms of content. For example, on Blip.tv you cannot upload videogames. Blip.tv is meant for “original, episodic content” and prohibits content that advertises a product or service (source).

The same goes for Vimeo. You are not allowed to upload “commercials, infomercials, or demos that actively sell or promote a product or service” (source). There are a lot of stories of Vimeo suddenly deciding to yank videos off their service because they violate these terms, for example Why you will regret using Vimeo by Paul Boag. Vimeo’s inconsistency in enforcing their terms has also caused a bit of disatisfaction among Vimeo users because there are some accounts that have very clear advertising in their videos but Vimeo allows them, presumably because they are major content producers.

On the other hand, YouTube seems to be the least restrictive while there isn’t much info on Facebook regarding what you can or cannot upload to their service.

Winner for most flexible terms of service – YouTube

Which Service to Choose

Each of the different services also provide a slightly different value proposition for using their service. If you’re an aspiring filmaker or podcaster and you don’t promote a product or service, Blip.tv and Vimeo look to be excellent choices. Blip.tv even shares advertising revenue and helps to publish your videos to other places including iTunes.

However if you are using videos to promote your business, product or software demos, talks and seminars you presented at, you are probably safer sticking with YouTube. YouTube has got the tightest allowances on video uploads, so you’ll probably spend more time editing your videos to make sure they are under 10 minutes and 1GB, but they will also reach the widest audience and load the quickest for audiences in Malaysia.

If you’re willing to consider paid only services, vzaar seems to load quite quickly here, and there are also others like Fliqz and Brightcove.

My main objective of writing this post was to help make sure that you are aware of the pros and cons of each service before you choose a video hosting service. I myself have decided to go with YouTube despite its shortcomings after learning about the terms of service of the other services. What do you think? Which video hosting service do you use?

Online video hosting in Malaysia: your options – originally published on Buzzmedia Online Marketing

The sheer number of social media sites and services make keeping up with mentions of your brand a real challenge. Fortunately there are a number of social media monitoring services that have emerged to solve that problem. Benjamin Koe, co-founder of JamiQ provides a quick overview of social media monitoring and how to make use of it in the video above. Ben also tells us a little bit about how his product works.

JamiQ is a Singapore-based company that provides social media monitoring services, specializing in Asian markets and languages. As a user, I can vouch that Radian6′s coverage of Malaysia and Singapore can be hit or miss, so if you’re based in this region, definitely give JamiQ a try.

P.S. Thank you Ben for taking the time to speak to me!

An introduction to Social Media Monitoring by JamiQ – originally published on Buzzmedia Online Marketing