Social Media & Digital Marketing in Singapore

Is Blogging Still Relevant?

I was listening to a great conversation between Mitch Joel and Joseph Jaffe on blogging and they talk about how blogging is still relevant and I certainly think it still is.

If you’ve been active online for awhile, why not start a blog now? It’s not too late. I think of local examples like omgzam who are “new” to the blogging scene but have integrated fairly quickly, or even international examples like Amber Naslund, who I referenced myself in an earlier post, “Twitter Numbers and Why You’re Being Fooled“.

When I came up with the 20 digital and social media bloggers to follow in Singapore, I originally wanted to hit 52, one for each week. Unfortunately there just was a lack of people who were committed to producing quality, long-form content. However if I had to make a list of Tweeters, there would be no shortage at all.

I think the biggest “sin” is to start blogging when you need to. When is that? When you’re looking for a job. I know of a personal example who didn’t have a blog while he was still employed, but after he left, wow, suddenly he was all into blogging so he could show prospective employers “hey look I’m active! I’m a thought leader!” Needless to say, once he landed the second job, the blog died.

This just isn’t how it works. We educate and encourage organisations to be present and create quality content, but for us, we’re allowed to blog when we need to just before a conference to look “current” or when we’re job-hunting, but fall off the bandwagon otherwise. I think that’s terribly hypocritical and smacks of double standards.

So do you think blogs have gone the way of the dinosaur in favour of more “social” channels like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter? I would love to hear your opinions on this, whether you’re a regular blogger or one who has fallen off the bandwagon or someone who just leverages other social media channels aside from blogging.

[image credits: Gaping Void]

Tags: @omgzam, amber naslund, blogging, digital media bloggers, double standards, hypocritical, is blogging relevant, joseph jaffe, mitch joel, singapore bloggers, social media bloggers, twitter numbers

3 Comments | Posted in » Blogs, social media

Singtel Fails Because It Won’t Admit It’s Wrong

I don’t usually call companies out by name – but my last interaction with Singtel over the last two weeks has really gotten to me, and after reading @wynlim’s post titled “Why I refuse to be a Singtel mobile subscriber anymore“, has led me to the conclusion that I’m not the only one feeling this way.

Let’s start with my first issue, the pricing of multi-sim plans, specifically the microsim plan, which I use for both my iphone and my ipad.

When I got it, it was $16/month, however I found out two weeks later than Starhub (a Singtel competitor) was offering the exact same plan at $5 a month. We’re not talking about the difference of a few dollars here. We’re talking three times the price for the exact same service.

Needless to say I gave Singtel a call, and the person on the end was incredibly uninformed and couldn’t even confirm with me that the cost of the plan was $16, let alone tell me how overpriced they are compared to Starhub.

Next step, I dropped them an email to which I got a nice, curt email that read (and I quote) “In response to your query, please be advised that our prices are competitive with regards to MicroSim as Multi-Sim. We charge $16.05/month while Starhub charges $21.40/month (Prices after GST).” Of course the email had the usual “thank you for your email” and “have a nice day” stuff.

Now at this point I was all ready to send back an email to “advise” them that Starhub had its rates publicly up on its website, and there was no mention of $20/month.

Lucky for Singtel, work kept me busy but a few days later I got an sms:

Well I’m glad one of us is “pleased” to lower rates from charging me 3x what another telco charges to 2x (let’s not even bring up the fact that the fee for my first month could pay for an entire 3 months with another telco).

Over the weekend, the new Barclay’s Premier League started and after all the hoohah, MIO tv delivered an absolutely abysmal transmission. The picture was fuzzier than my dog and the audio quality was suspect. What did Singtel do? Instead of acknowledging the problem, they set a message to scroll that “apologies” for the poor quality, noting that it is “inherent from source“. I guess it’s always someone else’s fault.

To be fair, it’s not like the other telcos are very well-run enterprises either, especially in the realm of customer service. However, given that there really are only three companies to choose from, you would think that they would put in some effort at differentiating one from the other (sorry, network coverage doesn’t work and price doesn’t work either).

So here’s a word of advice to Singtel, try to be a little more human and apologise and take ownership for your mistakes instead of acting like a huge, faceless, anonymous organization and perhaps it will go down better with the hundreds and thousands of people that are increasingly pissed with you.

Don’t believe there are that many? Go search for “Singtel” on Twitter, here, I’ve saved the search for you.

[image credit: Dereth.org]

Tags: @wynlim, barclay's premier league, ipad, iphone, microsim, mio tv, multisim, singtel fail, singtel multisim plan, singtel on twitter, starhub, why i refuse to be a singtel mobile subscriber anymore

4 Comments | Posted in » Poor Practices, Singapore, case studies

Banner/Display Advertising – Tracking Effectiveness

Two nights ago, I saw a display ad on MSN messenger of Bossini’s new Marvel designs (Bossini is anapparel outlet). The ad actually looked pretty good so I clicked through and got to their homepage (which wasn’t a very good landing page), but liked enough of what I saw to tweet it:

The tweet also resulted in a couple of conversations on Twitter:

Yesterday, on the way home, I was in a shopping centre and made a conscious effort to pop into a Bossini, and I walked out with this:

This whole experience really hits two points home.

1) Display advertising works (if it’s relevant) – I consider myself to be an effective advertising screener. I don’t think I notice 90% of ads unless I make it a point, and yet, this ad managed to catch my eye because it was relevant. Not only did it grab my attention, but that banner ad created enough awareness, interest and desire to lead me all the way through the purchasing funnel to buy a $19 t-shirt.

2) Even if it works, it’s an incredibly hard process to measure – Hey I love the kumbayah stuff as much as anyone, but if I were Bossini, I wouldn’t be interested in hearing how many times my ad was tweeted about or re-tweeted or how many conversations it sparked off. What I really want to know is how many sales it generated. So in this particular case, I’m sure reach would have been reported (that’s why they chose to advertise on Live Messenger), maybe click-through rate for people who clicked through to their landing page, and if they’re advanced enough, maybe goal completion on the landing page (though I didn’t see any obvious goal that could have been measured).

All this stops short of letting them know that someone like me made a purchase because I saw the ad.

I don’t have the answer to this question but as I brought up more than a year ago in “How much is that banner ad in the window?“, everything boils down to sales. I don’t know how much Bossini paid for the display advertising (and I tried to look on Microsoft’s advertising pages, but they don’t display the rates) but one would hope that their conversion rate was high enough so that their advertising dollars were not wasted.

On a side note: As much as the online to offline measurement is not perfect, I still believe it gives you much more data and accountability than “leap of faith” advertising like TV or print ads)

So the next time you are thinking of display advertising be it on Facebook or a web portal, think about how far down the funnel you are able to measure online, and what you can do to extend that measurement offline (for example, asking everyone who buys one of the Bossini Marvel t-shirts where they found out about the t-shirts at the point of sale).

Tags: awareness, banner ad, banner advertising, bossini, desire, display ad, display advertising, display advertising works, interest, kumbayah, landing page, leap of faith advertising, marvel comics, microsoft advertising, msn, msn messenger, offline measurement, online measurement, purchasing funnel, tracking effectiveness, twitter, x-men t-shirt

4 Comments | Posted in » Marketing, Singapore, case studies, twitter

Library 2.0 – #nlbmeetup

Last night I had the pleasure of attending #nlbmeetup at the beautiful Esplanade Library. It was really interesting because it’s the first time the library was holding a social media event and I think everyone was pretty curious to see how they would pull it off. (Full disclosure: I work with the Speak Good English Movement which is a division of the National Library Board)

Me registering at #nlbmeetup

The library’s Facebook app – NLB My Library

My love for the library started at a very young age. From the time I could read, I remember weekly visits to the old Stamford Road library to get my weekly reading fix. Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes I wanted to borrow so many books I used my grandparents’ library cards. Shh. As I grew older, time got tighter, and visits to the library became less frequent.

I really like the analogy of the My Library app being the digital equivalent to Molly – the mobile library – which brings the library to where users are.

Let’s let that sink in for a little while: bringing a product or service to where users are.

I started using the app months before I even joined the NLB, and even referenced it as a positive example of protecting privacy back in May.

Dr Varaprasad (Chief Executive, National Library Board) officially launches the My Library app

Three things I took away from the event:

1) You need ownership – I’ve been to countless “social media” events. The vast majority have been hosted by the organisation’s agencies and it’s clear that some of the folk are just turning up because it’s a job. When you own the project, as the people at #nlbmeetup do, there is a noticeable increase in energy and passion that makes its way to the audience. I’ve always been an advocate of taking social media in-house, and this event further cements that opinion.

2) Do your homework – Looking at the attendees, the vast majority of them were pretty much the target audience for the event and it definitely wasn’t the shotgun approach. I think too many times people aren’t too discerning about who to invite to events just to make up the numbers, but the “who” definitely matters more than the “how many”.

3) Gov 2.0 is happening. Slowly. – When I tell friends I’m with the Speak Good English Movement, the general reaction is “You? Working for the government?” – and why not? There definitely is a change going on whether it’s cool stuff with the libraries, the National Heritage Board with yesterday.sg or Reach, the transition is being made and there is a lot of potential. Sidenote: the National Heritage Board was the first partner Social Media Breakfast | Singapore had – way before any commercial entity jumped in – I think this really demonstrates their willingness to get their feet wet firsthand.

Will mistakes be made? Sure, but I think the various bodies responsible need to be applauded for trying, especially when many commercial entities are still fearful of digital and social media.

Me, Liana and Kevin (who I finally met after 2 years!)

If you haven’t already, go give My Library a try and provide the team with some feedback. I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to hear from you.

For an even longer writeup on #nlbmeetup and more pictures, check out Walter’s post titled “From books to digital – NLB ups the digital ante“.

[All images credited to Kevin aka inju on Flickr]

Tags: #nlbmeetup, esplanade library, library 2.0, library facebook app, molly mobile library, national heritage board, national library board, nlb my library, reach.gov, shotgun approach, social media breakfast singapore, speak good english movement, stamford road library, yesterday.sg

6 Comments | Posted in » Events, Singapore, blogger outreach, social media

Digital Comes Before Social – Questions To Ask Yourself Before Going Social

Awhile ago I wrote a post on Digiramblings titled “Writing comes before Social” which really is a prelude to this post which in a nutshell says: get your digital hub down pat before venturing out into the social sphere. As always, this assumes that you’ve made sure your product doesn’t suck.

Before you start on your brave new social venture, I recommend asking a few critical questions about your site and thinking about some of the mechanics behind it.

For example:

• What is the purpose of your website? (One answer only)

• If visitors have to do one action (conversion) on your website, what would it be?

• Do you have proper tracking if you’re an e-commerce site?

• Is your content optimised for search/SEO?

• Do you have an analytics platform in place (that you understand)?

• How will your site or hub complement your spokes or outposts such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or a podcast?

• Do you have/will you have enough content to keep your audience engaged?

• Do you have/will you have enough resource (manpower and time) to keep your spokes or outposts maintained, or are you already stretched thin trying to update your blog once a week?

There are way too many examples out there (local examples) I could use to demonstrate what happens when you haven’t answered all (or most) of these questions, and they aren’t pretty. If you don’t know why your outposts exist, what they will be used for and how you will track their effectiveness, I can almost guarantee that you will be throwing your time, effort, money and resources into a black hole.

Too many people are going on and on about social and going on about Facebook and Twitter and Foursquare and whatever shiny new object there is, without thinking about how it ties in with the rest of your web properties and the overall strategy.

Too many times “buzzwords” like community, conversation, social media, advocacy, influencers are thrown around without proper analysis, and thus missing out on the realisation that the lowest hanging fruit is probably your website (most likely search) and that’s where you should start instead of jumping onto the social bandwagon before you’re ready.

You can’t build a roof if your house doesn’t have a solid foundation.

There’s a really helpful checklist of 34 items that should give you a pretty good feel of the state of your website, go download the free pdf and see how well (or badly) your site is faring.

What other steps do you feel are necessary before being ready to venture into social media?

[image credit: Sagolia on Flickr]

Tags: advocacy, analytics, blog, buzzwords, community, conversation, digiramblings, digital hub, digital marketing, digital media, e-commerce, facebook, hub and spoke, influencers, podcast, Search, SEO, social media, social media marketing, social sphere, tracking, twitter, writing for web, youtube

No Comments | Posted in » social media

iPad (Singapore) Review – First Impressions

A stroke of luck allowed me to get my iPad on Friday and since then I have been fiddling with it non-stop. Like a lot of the “geek” population, I wasn’t impressed when Apple announced the iPad, but after seeing it physically in action, I knew I had to get one. Here’s a very quick rundown of my first impressions:

What I Like

Battery life – this thing is amazing. I’ve been using it heavily for two days and I had to artificially leave it running to drain the battery so that I can bring it to work tomorrow and not worry about the battery dying on me. If only phones could be as powerful.

The screen – reading is really a joy. Whether it’s clearing stuff on my Google Reader or flipping through free e-books on Amazon or reading comics from the Marvel/DC app, it’s just a delight to consume text on this screen. Videos look awesome as well.

Space – apps like Evernote in particular have really benefited from a bigger screen and it’s not just space per se, but how these apps choose to use the space. I can see this re-igniting my love for Evernote and I can’t wait to see how I can further integrate it into my daily life.

What I Don’t Like So Much

Lack of multitasking – I have an iPhone 3G so even with the OS update, I don’t have multitasking. While that isn’t a big deal on the iPhone, it definitely is a big deal on the iPad. When I’m in the middle of reading or watching something, I don’t really want to exit the app just to reply someone who IM-ed me and have to re-start the video all over again. I really hope they have an OS upgrade coming.

Lack of native document editing app – I know there’s Pages (for $9.99) but I think it should have come with a basic document editor. Dropbox, Evernote and Goodreader are doing the job for getting me my documents on the go, but I still need to be able to edit them and hopefully there’ll be a way to do that soon. And seriously, why isn’t Google Docs editable in Safari??

So that’s a really quick review of the iPad after two days of use, quick question to you, the readers, what apps are a must-have for the iPad? Love to hear from you in the comments.

Tags: amazon, apple, dc app, dropbox, evernote, first impressions, goodreader, google docs, google reader, ipad apps, ipad battery life, ipad review, ipad screen, ipad singapore, iphone 3G, marvel app, multitasking, safari

3 Comments | Posted in » technology

Facebook Likes – 3 Billion A Day: What Does It Mean?

Apparently there are 3 billion clicks on Facebook Like buttons a day all over the internet. No matter how much salt you take that number with, that’s a lot of Likes. Even if you assume everyone is equally active on Facebook (which they aren’t), that’s six likes per day per active user!

I was personally skeptical about the effectiveness of the Facebook Like button (notice there’s none on this site?) but seeing The Chinese Challenge 2010 go from 5 to almost 900 Likes in just about 12 days is making me a believer. (disclosure: I work with the people behind The Chinese Challenge).

So what is it about this innocuous Like button that is so appealing?

According to the original post on Simply Zesty, there are three main reasons why people would click on a Like button:

1) We like to give kudos

2) We like it because it’s social

3) We like it because it’s easy

Of the three reasons, #3 resonates most with me. Liking is so easy and requires such little involvement and commitment, that there is a danger of it becoming frivolous.

Think about it, if 3 billion Likes were given out today, what makes yours any different from the other 2,999,999,999 out there?

To me, what this means is simple. Facebook, in changing the action from “being a fan” to “Liking”, has drastically lowered the friction of being associated with a brand, product, service, cause or idea. As a result, more people are Liking than ever before and it’s easier to “collect” Likes than ever before.

There is however, a flip side to this: it means that standing out, being salient and maintaining engagement is harder than before. Perhaps previously people who really loved your product or service hunted your Facebook Fan Page down to join it as a fan, but now the most casual member of the public could click on like just because it was on a 3rd party site.

Is one necessarily better than the other? I don’t know, but let’s not blindly look at the numbers as the Second Coming and give some thought to what that really means for your brand, product, service or cause.

How have you used Facebook Like buttons? Have they worked for you? I would love to hear from you in the comments.

[image credit: zranwim on Flickr]

Tags: 3 billion facebook likes, 3 billion likes, brand, cause, easy, facebook fan page, facebook like, facebook like button, frivolous, give kudos, idea, low commitment, low involvement, maintaining engagement, product, salient, service, simply zesty, social, standing out, the chinese challenge

3 Comments | Posted in » facebook, social media

Old Spice – Remixes And Parodies

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard about and watched the latest Old Spice videos on YouTube, as well as his responses to people on Twitter and Facebook.

I’m not going to tell you about those ads since they’ve been well-documented elsewhere, but I do want to share with you a few remixes, mash-ups and parodies that have been going around as well.

In the “old” days (as recent as a few years back on internet time), remixing, mashing up and parodying might not be terribly well-received by the organisation who first came up with the video, but to me, these videos are a sign that Old Spice has “made it” into the public’s consciousness, so much so that they are willing to go one step further and make the more difficult step of content creation, up from content consumption.

And all for your brand.

Isn’t that a good thing?

Tags: content consumption, content creation, old spice, old spice parody, old spice remix, old spice responses, old spice videos, public consciousness

No Comments | Posted in » case studies, social media

20 Digital & Social Media Blogs You Should Be Reading From Singapore

In January of this year, I decided to create a list of the digital/social people in Singapore that I read regularly, really just for myself and for easy organisation within Google Reader. Then I decided hey, why not let everyone know about some of these great blogs and share some link love! So in no particular order, 20 digital/social media blogs I recommend from Singapore (note: the list only includes people who actually have blogs and not just a Twitter account):

Nizam (@omgzam) – Reading his blog, you wouldn’t be able to tell that Nizam is perhaps the newest (and youngest) blogger in the social media scene here in Singapore. I’ve met him in person once and his maturity of approach towards social media had me floored. Unfortunately, Nizam is serving the nation right now, but looking at the thoughts he has and the content he creates, it’s not going to be long before he starts creating an impact on the corporate world.

If you know of any great local digital/social blogs which are missing from the list, do drop me a note in the comments!

[image credit: Neezee on Flickr]

Tags: @armchairdude, @bleongcw, @cherrymagazine, @communicateasia, @groovygenie, @lim_jason, @omgzam, @paperexpoits, @pennolson, @rockyfu, @shalabhpandey, @standingsushi, @thegardenslug, bernard leong, blogs from singapore, coolinsights, digital media blogs, dk, dorothy poon, garden slug, geekonomics, google reader, isman tanuri, jason lim, jonathan wong, kelly tay, mark khoo, michael netzley, nicholas aaron khoo, nicole then, nizam, oldskoolmark, pat law, patlaw, penn olson, rocky fu, shalabh pandey, social media blogs, standing sushi, summerisque, tech 65, tech65, walter lim

18 Comments | Posted in » Blogs, Singapore, community, social media

Ebooks And Digital Distribution – 3 Things I’d Change

I’m an avid reader. I love reading books as well as graphic novels and I cannot wait for the day I can read selected material on a device like the iPad, particularly for graphic novels because they can be unwieldy to carry around.

However, there are three critical imperfections that I think publishers have to get around before digital distribution will really take off.

1) Pricing
Marvel comics recently announced a “same day” release for the Iron Man annual. In plain English, what this means is that the digital version would be available on Marvel’s app the same day you can get the physical copy in stores. Here’s what I find ridiculous: the digital version was 20% more than the physical version ($5.97 vs $4.99). So… Consumers are supposed to pay more for a digital copy that doesn’t require any logistical overhead of inventory cost? That’s ridiculous. Not to mention there’s no actual guarantee that you will always have access to the bought comic, which brings me to point #2.

2) Transferability
At least when you bought a book (or a comic book), it was yours and you could keep it on your bookshelf, even if you never read it again. What happens if you buy ten books on iBooks and decide to switch to another ebook reader at a later date? You’re either locked into using one particular platform for eternity, or need to re-purchase the same books again. Neither is a particularly ideal situation.

3) Physical Integration
I echo Tac Anderson’s thoughts on how to get him to switch to ebooks – Why don’t physical books come with the option to purchase the digital copy? Tac says he’d pay for it, I think it should be offered free, or for at most a couple of dollars. I mean you’ve paid for the intellectual property, logistical costs and everything, all that’s left is a few megabytes that will cost nothing to deliver electronically. So why hold back? Sometimes I want the physical copy to read, but I wouldn’t mind referring to the digital copy, especially if it’s searchable.

So there we go, three things that need to be changed to reduce the friction of consumers picking up ebooks. I know it’s early days yet, especially for graphic novels, which have only existed in digital form for a few months, but there are consumers, myself included, who are willing to plonk down their money for digital versions, if only you’d make it easy for us.

What else do you think needs to be changed about digital distribution? Love to hear from you in the comments.

[image credits: goXunuReviews]

No Comments | Posted in » Books, mobile, technology