This is the biggest social media mistake of Singapore companies

What is the biggest Social Media mistake in Singapore?

Many large companies in Singapore don't get social media. After all this while companies here still can't hold a candle to the American brands that consistently get incredible ROIs out of their social media campaigns.

Weighed down by corporate bureaucracy and a traditional mindset, Singaporean companies are slow to adapt to changes in the digital media landscape. The companies that excel in social media happen to have the fortune of key decision makers who keep themselves abreast with the latest developments. Its usually up to them to champion a new direction for their company.

Unfortunately, not all companies have people in important positions who understand social media well. So most of the time this doesn't happen. What results in Singapore is companies seeing social media as something they have to utilize just for the sake of keeping up and being current.

They do not bother to fully embrace or understand it. Sometimes its just a standalone entity or even worse, outsourced with an endless series of scheduled posts completely disconnected from the company's current marketing plans. They set up facebook pages, set aside a budget for facebook advertising to 'buy' fans and then just go into reactive mode for the rest their facebook's page lifespan. That is reactive media, not social media. 

Customer-Brand relationships

There are five stages in a customer's relationship with a brand.

1. Unawareness of brand
2. Awareness of Brand
3. Curiosity / Engagement to Brand
4. Passionate of Brand
5. Loyal / Fanatical to brand

It is important to bring this relationship cycle up because the way most Singaporean companies behave, they manage to nail stage 1 and 2 completely. It's not very magical because anyone with a budget can do that so that's all that happens. They fail to realise Social Media provides an incredible opportunity to progress your customers through stages 3, 4 and 5. 

A chance to turn customers just aware of the brand into fervent evangelists creating cycles of their own that reverberate throughout their networks. They completely miss the opportunity and have been doing it wrong for years. Which is a shame since social media if executed well can be one of the marketing channels with the highest ROIs .

And sometimes they miss the mark by allocating resources poorly and even end up  annoying some customers. But that's for another article.

What is the biggest Social Media mistake in Singapore?

Social Media is not how much money you spend through facebook advertising. Social media is not a one way street where your social media manager just sits there in reactive mode waiting to reply to comments on your page. Social media is supposed to be quite simply, social.

The biggest social media mistake companies make in Singapore is forgetting to be social.

When brands interact with customers it grows grows relationships between them. It engages the customer and makes them feel important. Isn't making our customers feel valued one of the hallmarks of good marketing? Why isn't anyone applying this?

Interacting with customers helps progress them through the stages and presents the opportunity to build true connections with brands. This is at the core of all social media services. Breaking down barriers and fostering relationships. Having these new converts spreading their affection for your brand through their own social networks. This is harnessing the power of social media.

And guess what? It costs nothing. No promoted posts required.

Sharing a well taken picture by a customer on Facebook and tagging them, liking a photo or leaving a comment with your brand on Instagram, favourting or retweeting a relevant tweet to your followers. All this is social media 101 which you don't see many companies in Singapore doing.

All they know how to do is get low quality facebook fans because all you need to do is burn money on advertising. You often see big companies with miniscule twitter and instagram followings, effectively shutting out their brand awareness on these gigantic social network channels. It's a tragedy to see because these other channels are actually unbelievably easy to manage if you know what to do and are exposed to huge markets.

A good example to follow

There are many companies who don't do social media well so there's no point listing them. But if you want a strong positive example of a Singapore company that handles their Social Media well you can look at the Wildlife Reserves Singapore facebook page.

They encourage user contributions, they share relevant videos with their market (not just videos produced by them), they share their customer pictures, hold contests to encourage interaction and tag and mention them often. They engage their audience in an interactive way, fostering relationships with their customers consistently well.

This is social media and companies in Singapore have a lot of catching up to do.

The first step? Start learning how to be Social.

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You may also like my previous article - 5 reasons why Singapore firms must incorporate blogger marketing in their campaigns.