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Influencers? Are they real or fake?

A Social Media Influencer is someone who has established credibility in a specific industry on social media. He/she has with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social media.

These “ordinary” people (aka influencers) earned a substantial following due to their expertise and transparency online. These influencers are being used more and more by companies to grab the attention of millennial such as creating content that subtly pushes a product or service. This is a win-win situation for both influencers and company. Not only allow the company to reach its target audience, influencers are paid and following continues to grow.

The Influence Economy

It is a new status which has to do with the economy of gaining status on social media. As technology advances, many people these days have at least one social media account. Since the rise of social media, influencers have become a major trend and are making money by promoting brand’s products.

Having a high follower counts is critical for these influencers that determines their income. According to data collected by Captiv8, a company that connects influencers to brands, an influencer with 100,000 followers might earn an average of $2,000 for a promotional tweet, while an influencer with a million followers might earn $20,000.

Bots & Fake Accounts

According to an article by CNBC, out of 48 million of Twitter active users, nearly 15% are automated accounts designed to simulate real people. In addition, Facebook disclosed that it had at least twice as many fake users as it previously estimated, indicating that up to 60 million automated accounts.

These fake accounts which is known as Bots, can help to sway advertising audiences, reshape political debates and help to persuade people to buy products to make it more attractive than they really are.

Anyone heard of the recent news about nearly half of Singapore Influencers found to forge their popularity?

According to a report by HypeAuditor, an AI-powered analytics tool that detect social media fraud such as artificial followers, likes, comments and other types of engagement, states that over 47% of influencers in Singapore use artificial methods of Instagram growth such as buying followers, likes and comments as well as using follow/unfollow and comment pods. The report was published at August 2019, mentioned that 61.37% of nano-influencers, defined as Instagram users who have between 1,000 and 5,000 followers, are most fraud-free.

Kevin Hart Say What GIF - KevinHart SayWhat Stare GIFs

HypeAuditor classifies influencers into the 5 categories:

Mega-influencers and celebrities (over one million followers)
Macro-influencers (100,000 to one million followers)
Mid-tier influencers (20,000 to 100,000 followers)
Micro-influencers (5,000 to 20,000 followers)
Nano-influencers (1,000 and 5,000)

The influencer marketing industry is mainly driven by the value of a sponsored Instagram post, which normally hinges on the Instagram account’s number of followers and post engagements, such as the average number of likes and comments. Since it takes time to organically generate a following and build up an actual influential figure, these “impatient” influencers tend to resort to buying followers, likes and comments in bulk so they can earn more money from (big) brands.

HypeAuditor found that influencers in Singapore use the following methods to artificially inflate their growth on Instagram:

Buying followers
Buying likes and comments
Using comment pods — groups that are set up by influencers messaging platforms such as Telegram, with the purpose of collaboratively enhancing engagement on their social media pages
“follow/unfollow” strategy – influencers follow other users on Instagram on a massive scale in the hopes that some users will follow them back. A few days later, they then unfollow the users

Fun Fact #1:

56% of macro-influencers cheat on their numbers – highest level of Instagram fraud in Singapore. Out of 56%, 34% inflated their comments by buying comments or using comment pods
More than 15%of mid-tier influencers use the “follow/unfollow” strategy
34% of micro-influencers bought Instagram followers
Nano-influencers were found to have the lowest level of Instagram fraud – but still came in at 38%

*As Singapore had a few mega-influencers, but they were under 1%, hence were excluded from the report

Fun Fact #2:

Xiaxue Taught Us How To Check Whether Any Influencer Buys Followers & It’s Fun

Head to social blade and key in the username you would like to snoop on, can look at their growth chart. Here are 2 examples:

Deekosh’s growth chart, which looks pretty “organic” – healthy & gradual increase

Verses this… sudden and extreme spikes

What are your thoughts about Bots and fake accounts? Will you trust these influencers reviews? How do you differentiate them with organic influencers? Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below! 😊

Is there any magic formula to create a successful marketing campaign?

As compared to 5, 10 or even 15 years ago, marketers today have more choices such as how and where to promote/advertise products as services. Advertising methods in the past are no longer relevant today due to a shift in communication channels – traditional media to new media.

Traditional media (traditional marketing) like television, radio, print advertisements and billboards are replaced by new media (digital marketing) such as email marketing and social media marketing – ads on Facebook & Youtube.

Many businesses have learned the hard way, what works in, traditional print marketing, does not work as well (or at all) on the Web or social media sties, and vice versa.

So… what is the magic formula?

Sorry, there is no magic formula…

BUT, there is a 7 step ways to create a successful integrated marketing campaign 😊

Step 1: Have clear understanding of who your target audience is

Who are your target customers?
What is their motivation?
How do they like being communicated to?
Which channels are they using?

Step 2: Pick your channels

Which channels do my customers use?
What are the channels’ strengths and weaknesses?
How will they help me reach my business objectives?

Step 3: Have a consistent look

Some of the world’s most successful people have been known to wear the same outfit to work every single day. Steve Jobs, as an example, he is famously favoured a black turtleneck, jeans and sneakers. This distinctive “work uniforms” act as a trademark look and it’s marketable because people always see them in that outfit so it’s an identity type thing.

Step 4: Create clear, consistent content that can easily be adapted/repurposed to suit different media/channels

Communication ; messaging & offers must be clear
Compelling ; interesting and/or topical to the receiver
Consistent ; regardless of channel – web, phone, in-store, mobile

Step 5: Ensure your messaging is integrated

Make sure each element of the marketing campaign is set up to drive traffic to your ultimate target

Step 6: Make sure your marketing teams/agencies are working in sync

Ensure all members are on the same page
Ensure message behind the campaign is consistent

Step 7: Don’t forget to track your campaigns

Ensure you are achieving conversions or the results that you aim for (can be drive in-stores sales with coupons)

Using Daniel Wellington as an example, it is a young, classy and fashionable brand whose main target audience are millennial. Unlike competing brands such as Swatch and Rolex, Daniel Wellington doesn’t pay large amounts of money to celebrities to promote its watches. Instead, the brand’s marketing strategy is built around a strong presence in social networks like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, which are what millennial use.

Filip Tysander, founder of Daniel Wellington, used the joint communication power of many “small” influencers rather than relying on one famous communicator to promote its products. Daniel Wellington gives free watches to selected social influencers on Instagram and asks them to post a picture of the watch on their personal profile, using the branded hashtag #danielwellington. When posting pictures, influencers are given the opportunity to offer their follower bases a discount on the purchase of the watch by including it a promo code in their posts. As a result, Daniel Wellington watches were all over the Internet in a short period of time.

Can you think of any company or brand that uses these steps to create a successful integrated marketing campaign? Let me know in the comment section below 😊

the power of CLICKS

Can you remember how many times in a week or a day you search something on Google? I can’t, because it is way too many…. *guilty*

This is known as search engine. It is a tool we used to search the www (World Wide Web) for information on Google and Yahoo.

Search Engine consist of 3 basic components – Crawlers, Index (massive database) & Query Processor (search engine results page – after querying the index). It is a type of algorithm which is used to determine the significance of a web page.

Let’s say you search “digital marketing” in Google. Google’s algorithms will then search using Google’s codified index of the internet, which will then be your search result page. Also, the popularity of the search engine is based on how relevant the results will be for users.

the POWER of Search Engine Marketing

According to Chaffey et al (2012), Search Engine Marketing is about promoting an organisation through search engines to meet its objectives by delivering relevant content in the search listings for searchers and encouraging them to click through to a destination site.

There are 2 KEY Search Engine Marketing techniques – Search Engine Optimisation & Paid Search Marketing. I will be focusing on Paid Search Marketing as I find it more relevant to marketers as it is easier to use.

Paid Search Marketing refers to a pay-per-click model where advertisers pay only when people click on their ads and visit their website.

The most common Paid Search Marketing can be found in Google. Google Ads (also known as Adwords) is an online advertising platform developed by Google, where advertisers pay to display brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, video content, and generate mobile application installs within the Google ad network to web users. Also, Google has 800 lb gorilla in the space, advertisers can create text ads that appear on the search engine results pages.

Fun fact: these contextual ads that are displayed on 3^rd party site are making A LOT of money (approximately 1/3 of Google’s revenue) for having Google to post ads there. The screenshot below is an example.

swag gifs, money gifs, dollars gifs, dollar gifs, cash gifs, anime gifs, hokuto no ken gifs, $$$ gifs

So… what are some benefits of using Paid Search Marketing?

Paid Search Marketing produced faster results as compared to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). “Organic” search aka SEO takes time to generate and results is not immediate. Pay-per-clicks ads is able to bring immediate traffic to your site from the search engines.
Marketers are able to target a reach of specific audience that is more likely to be interested in their offer. For example, airline company will target people who intend to travel by including keywords such as cheap tickets or people who have visited certain websites. This way, advertisers will not waste their money paying for clicks where people aren’t likely to take any action.
Advertisers/marketers are able to track everything that happens in the Paid Search Marketing such as: how often their ads were seen, how often they were clicked and how many sales came from those visits. Using Adwords as an example, advertisers have to bid for keywords. This way, they are able to know and decide how much they are willing to pay for the clicks.

What are your thoughts on Paid Search Marketing? Can you think of any disadvantage of using Paid Search Marketing? Let me know in the comment section below 😊

the POWER of IoT

Do you know that we use Internet of Things (IoT) in our daily lives? IoT refers to things that we use everyday that connects to the internet, allowing us to either control or received data. Some examples of how we use IoT in our daily lives includes: Smart appliances (refrigerators, washing machine), smart assistants (Apple’s Siri) & Fitness trackers.

IoT is smart everything.

Using Fitbit, a fitness tracker, as an example, it has built-in sensors that records a person’s daily physical activity, together with other data relating to their fitness/health, such as number of calories burned, heart rate etc.

So…. How IoT benefits marketers?

According to ZD Net, there are billions of physical devices around the world connected to the Internet, collecting and sharing data, marketers are able to obtain data which were previously unattainable data about consumers and….

Analyse their buying patterns and behaviours across different platforms
How they interact with each device and products

which is always easier than predicting.

Using Fitbit as an example, it is a fitness/activity tracker which is a wearable technology where electronic technology is incorporated into accessories (a watch) which can comfortably be worn on the body. It is a device for monitoring and tracking fitness-related metrics such as heart rate, blood pressure, receiving calls etc.

As Fitbit requires users to on blue-tooth to sync to their mobile phones, this increases data collection such as buying behaviours. As it is a wearable, users are always “connected”, this allows marketers to tap on location-specific promotion opportunities and get users’ immediate response/attention.

However, with a smaller screen like Fitbit, marketers have to modify its content to make it “glanceable”. As compared to mobile devices and computer, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) will only show single top result than a full page.

Personally, I feel IoT is an essential, especially in business as it gives businesses a real-time glimpse into the inner workings of their company’s systems. IoT allows companies to automate processes, save money on labour and improves service delivery.

Do you think IoT is essential & beneficial? Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below 😊

Do you have nomophobia?

Has anyone owned a Nokia or a flip phone before?

As technology advances, mobile phones have evolved from being a mere communication device for only calls and text messages to a multi-utility device such as cameras, mobile internet, gaming and email. Mobile phone in the past were bulky and bigger in size. And now, it is smaller and slimmer in dimensions and with longer battery life.

What is the last thing you do before you sleep and first thing you do when you are awake? In this day and age, everyone has nomophobia – an irrational fear of being without your mobile phone or being unable to use your phone for some reason, such as the absence of a signal or running out of minutes or battery power. Mobile phones have played an important part of our daily lives that it is hard to function without them.

According to the Yellow Social Media Report (2018), more Australians own a smartphone (87%) than a laptop (76%) & 74% use smartphones to access social media. In 2011, 60% used desktop and 34% used smartphone to access social media. This leads to many companies doing their marketing and advertising online.

Online advertising make use of the Internet to deliver promotional marketing messages to consumers. Some examples are display ads (online banners) & search ads.

However, many consumers, like myself, find online advertising to be annoying.

According to Andreas M. Kaplan’s Classification of Mobile Marketing Applications, he explained that it is crucial to identify the degree of consumer knowledge and the trigger of communication so that companies can customize their messages to each individual user.

“Strangers” refers to people with low knowledge and push trigger, and companies do not know which customers have been reached by the message.

Using KFC as an example, they pay Mediacorp, Singapore commercial broadcasting company, to insert their commercials on various TV channels. With compelling headlines and graphics, it allows them to reach a wide, targeted audience.

“Groupies” refers to people with low knowledge and pull trigger, and the company does not know which specific clients it is dealing with exactly.

Panadol Singapore uses advertising banners in various MRT stations to introduce new product to the market. This is the simplest way as they are able to capture everyone’s (passerby) attention.

“Victims” refers to people with high knowledge and push trigger, companies know their customers and can send them messages and information without asking permission.

Starbucks is known to send monthly promotional text messages to its customers to get them involve in their campaigns and to build relationship with them.

“Patrons” refers people with high knowledge and pull triggers where customers provide personal information and give permission to be contacted. Companies loves “patrons” as it allows for one-to-one communication without running the risk of annoying their clients.

For $2.99 per month, Britney Spears enabled fans to receive Britney’s Diary: a weekly text message about her life during a concert tour.

As technology advances, we are more reliant on our mobile devices. Thus, it is important for companies to identify the degree of consumer knowledge and the trigger of communication so that they can make use of mobile social media for marketing.

Did any company leave you a deep impression of their mobile marketing? Let me know in the comment section below 😊

How did things blow up this fast?

According to Jonah Berger’s 6 key STEPPS which, if incorporated, will make your concept much more likely to be shared with others – viral success.

Image result for 6 stepps contagious public

I would like to share an example on how misusing these 6 STEPPS can lead to viral went wrong – viral failure.

Pretty sure most of you have heard about the controversial on E-Pay advertisement.

If you have not heard of it, it is an electronic payment (E-Pay) service provided by NETS which showed Chinese Mediacorp artiste being depicted as four different characters, including an Indian man with artificially darkened skin and a Malay woman wearing a headscarf.

Soon after the advertisement was published, it sparked controversial on a Chinese celebrity “darkening” his skin tone to portray an Indian character, instead of hiring minority actors to portray them.

A YouTube music video by social media personality, Preetipls and her brother Subhas Nair, posted a rap video on this “Brownface” ad insulting Chinese Singaporeans, using four-letter words on Chinese Singaporeans, vulgar gestures, pointing of middle finger, to make minorities angry with Chinese Singaporeans, which was taken down after the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) had deemed it to be “objectionable on grounds of public interest and national harmony”.

Through this E-Pay backslash, I have identified 3 out of the 6 STEPPS – Triggers, Emotions & Public.

Triggers refers to something that is easy to remember about a product or idea, helping to ensure it stays top of mind.

Emotions refers to the level of physiological arousal or activation that a message triggers also affects sharing.

Public refers to the product or the idea that should be shown to people to spread among them. The more times people see it, the more chance that they will remember it and share the information among their friends.

As seen from E-Pay advertising, a negative trigger was created – a Chinese celebrity has artificially darkened his skin tone to portray different ethnicity characters. This thus leads to the criticism (angry emotions), viral sharing (public) on both the E-Pay advertisement and the “Brownface” video uploaded by social media influencers.

Although NETS have quickly took down and replaced the advertisement and issued an apology, they could have prevent this incident by hiring actors of different races to portray multi-racial characters.

What do you guys think of the E-Pay ad? And what they could have done better? Let me know your thoughts in the comment sections below 😊

How to value add using digital business model?

Do you know that one out of three people access social media more than 5 times per day (35%), which is up from 26% in 2017 and 89% of people 18-29 years old check-in at least once per day? (https://www.sensis.com.au/about/our-reports/sensis-social-media-report & https://irp-cdn.multiscreensite.com/535ef142/files/uploaded/Sensis_Social_Media_Report_2016.pdf). To be honest, at times when social media accounts such as Facebook or Twitter is down, we feel anxious and at loss because we do not know what to do for the next few hours. This is how much social media has impacted on our daily lives.

One example that I mentioned on yesterday’s blog post is Klook, a popular online travel agency in Singapore. Personally, I feel what makes Klook successful in a short period of time is they adopt a similar concept of Smith and Colgate Customer Value Framework (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/200121245_Customer_Value_Creation_A_Practical_Framework).

Functional/Instrumental Value can be easily seen by receiving accurate, authentic electronic tickets after purchasing and after-care issues such as customer service staffs are able to do a service recovery in the event of activities got cancelled.

Both Experiential/Hedonic and Symbolic/Expressive Value can be accomplished by purchasing attraction tickets, activities or guided tour in Singapore or when travelling overseas.

Cost/Sacrifice Value can be easily seen as they often have discounts and promo codes on their activities which gives them an edge over their competitors (https://www.klook.com/en-SG/city/6-singapore/). In addition, customers whom have participated in the activities are able to give reviews, rating and provide additional information which reduces the risk (https://www.klook.com/en-SG/activity/117-universal-studios-singapore/?krt=r20&krid=5306dbfb-783a-43a5-62f0-f08410f172cd).

With social media rising, there is an increased in numbers of businesses having social media accounts to target and expand its audience. Therefore, it is important for companies to have a social media marketing strategy. As advertising on social media has become more popular, Smith and Colgate Customer Value Framework can be a good starting point to adopt.

What do you guys think? Share your opinion with me in the comments section 😊

Web 2.0, Social Media Marketing

Hello! 😊

This is my first blog post on Digital Marketing. I will be updating this space on a weekly basis on what I have learned and share my thoughts on Digital Marketing.

This week I am covering on Web 2.0, Social Media Marketing.

Pretty sure everyone of us have at least one social media account be it Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Social media, online presence is a key part of 21st Century communication. I have heard about Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 but I have not actually looked into the definition and behind of it.

Web 1.0 refers to the first stage of the development on World Wide Web (WWW) in the early 1990s. When collaborative website, Wikipedia surfaced in 2001, it allows everyone to have access to and contribute online. Web 2.0 is the second generation of WWW, which focused on the ability for people to collaborate and share information online via social media, blogging and web-based communities.

Web 2.0 and technology help us to present ourselves in the online world, for example, how do you want prospective employers to see you on LinkedIn?

The digital environment has created more opportunities than ever before for employees to develope ideas, participating in projects and collaborating with diverse people in potentially distant locations.

In addition, by using social media, it allows companies to maximise the opportunity in reaching a wide audience.

Here are some pointers that I found useful and applicable:

Advice for companies for using social media

Using media

Choose carefully – What platform are you going to be on? Who are your target customers? How are you going to reach them using that platform?
Pick your application, or make your own – Can be developing own app where you can have full control of it but it will cost more
Ensure activity alignment
Media plan integration
Access for all – especially employees

Being Social

Be active – take the lead, create relationships
Be interesting – listen and enable others to contribute
Be humble – learn how to use the platform
Be unprofessional – be personal and fun
Be honest – eg. Wikipedia is not advertising

One example I would like to give is, Klook, is a popular online travel agency in Singapore which provides activities, attractions and things to do whenever you travel (https://www.klook.com/en-SG/about/). Klook have over 18.5 thousand of followers on Instagram and over 16 million likes on Facebook.

According to Statista, in 2018, about 83% of Singapore population are on social media and as of January 2018, the number of social media users in Singapore have grown 9% since January 2017 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/284466/singapore-social-network-penetration/).

With social media such as Instagram and Facebook, it allows them come out with travel campaigns such as giveaway where participants can post their travel videos contests using their klook hashtags or getting influencers to promote their activities with discount code (https://affiliate.klook.com/home)

As compared to the past, I feel like there are more companies taking advantage of these “free publicity” via social media as they are able to save cost in advertising the “traditional” way such as newspaper ads, radio or tv commercial as those have lesser impact than Facebook and Instagram ads as it uses algorithm.