How brands can effectively establish a social media presence in Singapore

What is more persuasive? Watching a brilliant TV commercial or hearing your friends comment on an awesome experience with the brand on social networking sites. Most people would find the latter an experience more persuasive and credible.

Facebook has evolved the way people relate to one another and developed a simple but effective platform for brands to harness one of the most powerful forms of marketing – word of mouth.

To break through the clutter and get in front of people who may be interested in their products, brands have to effectively engage with consumers via social media. In this case, word-of-mouth is the ‘point of marketing’ and

Facebook is the tool to help brands amplify this message.

According to a recent study on the use of smartphones in Singapore¹, the local mobile penetration rate is at an astonishing 148.9% of which three-quarters are 3G subscriptions.

Brands taking advantage of this trend are turning to advertising on mobile to reach out to their target audience and becoming part of consumers’ mobile Facebook experience in a relevant and integrated way.

Facebook is not designed to be a one-way broadcast mechanism, but a conversation between the brand and its fans. With the right social media strategy, brands can effectively establish a social media presence on Facebook to help them create dialogues with the community, which will eventually help increase awareness and drive business outcomes.

To reach out to customers and grow their business, brands can adopt a 4-prong approach in using Facebook.

BUILD – The first step would be to establish a social media presence by creating a Facebook Page and telling the story of your brand.

CONNECT – The next step of the equation would be to connect and grow your audience across the social media network by getting more people to be fans of your Facebook Page. Apart from acquiring fans organically, businesses can also consider utilising some of the tools that are easily accessible to reach out to specific target audience groups.

ENGAGE – The next phase of the approach would be to engage with fans, tell the story of your business. At this stage, brands should explore with various types of content to see what works best for their target audience.

This includes asking relevant questions on the brand, encouraging participation, sharing news and exclusive content with fans and rewarding them for interacting with your business on the space.

It is also critical for brands to leverage necessary tools on Facebook to gather insights on posts that have high engagement levels. 

INFLUENCE – Lastly, with a pool of captive and engaged audience, brands should aim to drive word-of-mouth by encouraging fans and customers to tell their fans about the brand.

Interestingly, research has revealed that influencing friends of your fans drive sales. This is especially true for small and local businesses - local restaurants, trusted dentists, etc. often come through friend recommendations.

Finally, brands must be clear about the three Rs of brand advertising to track and understand the best way to achieve success.

The first metric is REACH – how many people saw my message, who they are and how often. The second metric is RESONANCE- the ability to measure brand recall, brand awareness and purchase consideration.

The third and final metric is REACTION – measuring sales and ROI. It is important to note that there isn’t just one metric brands care about; it is dependent on what the campaign objective is and what the industry is.

Brands have to agree on the metrics to evaluate success.