Singapore’s Social Media Landscape

Singspore is one of the most advanced digital markets in Asia Pacific and Singporeans are so much interested in exploring new gadgets and staying abreast of the latest technologies. The country is a perfect location for local and overseas digital marketers to develop their digital marketing strategies, for both local and nearby markets. The combination of high broadband penetration, heavy online engagement and the overall tech savvy of Internet users in Singapore make it an ideal market for the adoption of valuable existing and emerging digital technologies, including search, social media and online video. The growing opportunities in digital market, especially in social media, are clearly shown in recent findings about new media consumption of comapies and citizens on this island

Business Consumption

Last fall, the government invited proposals to shape new media landscape by encouraging established industry players to collaborate, and tap the burgeoning sectors of online publishing and virtual worlds. Companies in Singapore are also gearing up fo the future of media in a rapidly-transforming media landscape to exploit the opportunities in initiatives that seed the development and delivery of next-generation consumer applications, services and experiences. In order to move into markets faster than the competition, companies are embracing new technologies for innovation and growth, rather than to reap cost savings, to help people do their job more positive, efficient and productive.

According to a recent finding by Avanade, it was found that Singapore companies are in high demand of digital marketing solutions, especially in social media, illustrated by:

• Singapore businesses turned to social networks over three times more than their global counterparts as a source of general business news and information.
• One in five Singapore companies already have in place a fully implemented strategy for integrating social media technologies in the workplace, almost three times higher than the world average proportion
• More than half of organisations, which haven’t had a social media strategy, expressed an interest to explore its use to enhance business outcomes.
• Three in five Singapore firm see embracing social networking as a crucial factor in attracting top talent.

Individual Consumption

According to ComScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, more than 2.5 million people in Singapore age 15 and older accessed the Internet from home and work locations. Online communication, entertainment, and social networking are topping the list of how users were most likely to spend their time. Sinapore netizens spends more than half of their online time for Social and Entertainment Sites, in which: 

• 24 percent online time for instant messaging, capturing the largest 
• 14 percent for entertainment sites (e.g.: Youtube, MediaCorp)
• 8 percent for social networking
• 6 percent for Web-based email

According to Alexa.com, Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Facebook and YouTube are the most visited sites in Singpore. Search engines are still in top listings. However, social networking sites, aside from YouTube and Facebook, also made an impressive appearance in the ranking with Blogger, Twitter, Wordpress listed in the top ten. Online video is an integral part of consumers with more than 80 percenr of Singapore’s Internet population viewed video online, displaying the strongest online video engagement among young people. 

The Internet filtering in Singapore is found to be minimal in comparison with nearby countries like Vietnam or China. However, Singapore netizens are generally critical in nature. Netizens might welcome business marketing or communication efforts via social media, especially for early adopters. The increase of celebrity bloggers and specialised bloggers offer opportunities for business to use celebs as representatives or to focus on niche target audience.

From all the findings, it is found that a large percentage of Singapore online users are heavy consumers of social media, even those above 30 or older are trying to catch up with young people on social platforms. Therefore, social media is surely a recommended investing area in companies' marketing strategy in order to enhance online performance and reach more audience effectively. If you are not engaging in this area now, you may lose the advantage to your competitors soon.

From all the considered aspects, it is undeniable that the digital market in general, and social media in particular, is growing at a rapid pace in Singapore and Singapore companies can leverage the opportunity in this emerging sub-sector to be part of the value chain. The digital “pie” is currently so delicous and everyone want to get the share, thus, the competition between not only companies but digital solution providers becomes harder than ever. It requires organizations to have a smarter strategy, focusing more on the “depth” and the “inside” of the online/digital media nature itself to fit the organization’s objective than only chasing to the glamorous “outside” or simply  following common pratices.

(Sources: ComScore, Avanade, Alexa, MDA)

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Should Marketers Do Social Marketing in Vietnam?

As somebody may know, I’m a Vietnamese living in Singapore. So sharing my understanding about social media in Vietnam is something I enjoy to do. This article is writing based on reliable research and reports on Vietnam online consumption behavior and digital landscape, and certainly my personal insights and experience. 

“Social Media is like teen sex. Everyone wants to do it. Nobody knows how. When it's finally done there is surprise it's not better.” says Avinash Kaushik at Google. Coincidentally, this is quite matched to the situation in Vietnam, where social media is emerging and businesses are seeking opportunities online. To understand more, there are 5 main points to mention in the large picture of Vietnam social media landscape.

1. Who are online in Vietnam?

Vietnam internet population is very young with 76% from 15-34 and they spend a lot of time online and enjoy the increasing high-speed connection. It makes Vietnam the fastest growth in internet penetration, outweighing other neighbours like Thailand or Philippines. 50% of urban Vietnam is regularly online - even more in Hanoi. If you live in urban Vietnam and do not access the internet, you are fast becoming the minority.

2. What are they doing?

According to Cimigo's recent report of Vietnam NetCitizens , main online activities of Vietnam online users are:

• Gathering information. Reading news and using search sites are the most common activities online. Google is the most widely used website in Vietnam. Online newspapers are also in top-visited websites
• Online entertainment. Online music, movies and gaming are most popular. Zing, the integrated entertainment and networks website, shows the second largest penetration in Vietnam. 
• Online communications. Communications is a further key activity on the internet. The most frequent usage is chatting and emailing. SMS online and instant messaging are coming next.
• Blogging and social networks. Social network become familiar with Vietnam online users with the blogging trend. The need of interaction and networking increases significantly
• Online business. Although there is an increase in online business activities, Vietnam online commerce has not been highly developed yet. The payment system is still weak and the threat of illegal payment is quite high.

3. How’s the social media landscape?

As Vietnam has only had internet access since 1997, social media in Vietnam is relatively young; however, it has been growing rapidly for the past one decade. Some popular social media platforms includes:

• Social networks. Self-expression demand in Vietnam is very high. In the past, social networking in VN just means “blogging”. While the world was eyeing on bloggers.com and wordpress.com, in Vietnam, Yahoo!360 ruled with more than 2 million users. It was not a tool specifically designed for the Vietnam market, but the market took it anyway, with great passion and enthusiasm. Since it closed in July 2009, Facebook becomes the fastest growing market in Vietnam. Local social networks also grow significantly.
• 
• Photo-sharing sites. Most of popular photo sharing sites in Vietnam are forum based with online gallery. The community used to focus more on professional photographers but now it opens to everyone who is interested in photography. And Flickr is the largest and most popular photo-sharing community in Vietnam
• Video-sharing sites. There are two popular video-sharing sites in Vietnam, YouTube and Clip.vn. However YouTube shows more advantages with better speed,great navigational and usability, reasonable advertising and huge community, while Clip.vn has slow speed, too many banners, weak usability and can not expand community. Therefore, YouTube is leading in video-sharing in Vietnam with fast growing community
• Music sharing sites. Popular sites are Yeuamnhac.com, Nhacso.com, Zing MP3. However, majority of users just visit, listen and download music without community interaction
• Career network sites. These websites, such as Cyvee.com or Caravat.com, are for sharing resumes and discussing about career and recruitment trend.
• Integrated-service sites. These “all in one” websites,mostly locally designed, such as Zing.vn or Zume.vn, offer everything from blogs, news, videos, music to photos. 
• Forums. Forum seeding is still very effective in Vietnam. Popular forums are Webtretho.com, Otosaigon.com, TinhTe.com, Hihihehe.com, DDTH.com and GameVN.net. 

The recent disappear of some popular social networking sites such as Facebook due to government censorship has raised another issue in Vietnam social media situation. It pushed Facebook’s users in Vietnam looking for “black” tips to access to the site. Before that, the government mostly blocks pornographic and political websites, which are against the culture and the government. But this recent censorship on social network sites for invisible reasons is not widely supported by online users.

4. Why doing social marketing in Vietnam?

• Decreasing traditional media. It is undeniable that TV and Print still dominate in Vietnam but they are losing their attention and all decrease for a “new kid on the block”, online marketing, which is more effective and cost-saving in the current economy situation. The size of the online advertising market in 2009 is estimated at VND 278 billion VND (approx. USD 15.5 million)
• High penetration rate. Internet user in Vietnam is expanding with “miraculous” speed with 66% home penetration in 4 key cities in Vietnam.
• Targeted. Social media provide chance to reach the “right” target, especially young audience. 
• Easy to measure and tracking. With the provided tools and programs designed for social marketing, it is easier to measure the effectiveness.

5. How to apply into practice?

• Follow the users. Marketers should understand and use what they are using. Interacting with them on Facebook, Blog, RSS, Twitter, Flickr , YouTube , Newsletter and Forums reasonably and wisely should be considered
• Increase traffic by quality. In order to maximize your traffic, microsite is still ideal for short or seasonal campaign. However, in long terms, marketers should ignore “quantity” and go more for “quality”. A well-designed strategy from the beginning including SEO, SEM, E-mail marketing, E-PR still an effective way to drive traffic.
• Have an umbrella. Nobody remember tons of micro-sites everyday. Therefore, building and maintaining the corporate website together with your micro-site campaign is crucial. Having brand account on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, etc. is necessary.
• Measure, measure and measure. Marketers should use social marketing statistics, tools and program, such as Google Analytics, traffic tracking, site ranking, conversion rate, etc. to analyze and measure the effectiveness of their online marketing plan.
• Connect with offline activities. In Vietnam, social media is not everything. Lots of people are online, but also lots of people are still out there. Social media is just wings for tiger, it’s not replace everything

Overall, there are a lot of opportunities in Vietnam with 25 millions of online population. Young people become more and more familiar with social media. Many online emerging trends have been established in a fast pace. Vietnam online advertising spend continually reaches new highs. So the opportunity is here but the challenge is also here. The decisions are all in hand of marketers.

(Sources: Cimigo’s Vietnam NetCitizens report, Vietnam digital landcape by Mr. Hieu Nguyen)

 

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Key Facts of Social Media across Asia and in China

One of the biggest stories in 2010 is going to be the exponential growth of social media in Asia, not only in terms of reach but also content created in varied Asian languages. Web users in China, Japan, and the rest of Asia comprise a massive online population, and no surprise; they're adopting and interacting in online social environments at incredible rates. While Facebook and Twitter might rule in the US and Europe, it’s a whole different game in Asia

The raising question is: “What is different about social media in Asia as compared to North america, Europe or Australia?" Are they the factors of “the scale of users”, “cultures and languages”, “monetization strategies” or “the localization”? Let’s find out!

The answer was significantly revealed in these below insightful presentations by Thomas Crampton, Asia-Pacific director of 360 Digital Influence for Ogilvy, and Mindy Zhang from China. There are also some takeaways extracted from their presentations for readers to remember and think of.

Social Media in Asia

Takeaways:

• Facebook would be the fourth largest country in the world in terms of users

• Facebook makes money from advertising, while Asian social networking sites make money from digital goods

• Dominant Social Networks: QQ in China, Cyworld in South Korea, Mixi in Japan

• Dominant Search Engines: Baidu in China, Naver in South Korea, Yahoo in Japan

• China has over 300 million netizens (larger than the US population)

• Chinese people have more online friends than offline (real world)

• Asians enjoy creating and sharing content significantly more than people in the US

Social Media in China

Takeaways:

• Government censorship promotes local players who innovate, not just copy

• Nearly a half of Chinese netizens are urban, but rural base is growing 

• Chinese netizens mostly access the internet by mobile phone (46%) or in internet cafes (35%)

• Internet usage is primarily for entertainment, information and communications

• A quarter of 120 million social networking sites’ users login primarily to play games

• A third of video content is user-generated while the rest is pirated

• Bulletin Board Services are very popular, especially for exchanging product info

• Viral memes quickly become cultural phenomena through social media

• Chinese users are more engaged in their online lives compared with Americans

It is obvious that social media in Asia is dominated by local players who, although partly inspired by the success of western services, have diversified their offerings to suit local tastes and interests. Outsiders will find it hard to compete in this space but may utilize the tools they offer as a platform for targeting their users. Mobile and gaming are also big factors here with a greater emphasis on having fun and the form factor content is consumed on playing a major role in its consumption. All requires marketers to understand the difference of local social-media consumption-behaviors across Asian markets in order to achieve successful social media strategy in this area.

(Sources: Thomas Crampton, SocialMediaToday, RandomWire)

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