Web Design, Digital & Social Media Marketing in Singapore

Banking & Social Media in Singapore

// July 14th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Social Media Marketing

Banking and Social Media

I chanced upon an article shared via Twitter a couple of days ago. It is called ‘Social Media and the banking Industry’. The article touches on statistics on the adoption of social media as part of the banks’ digital strategy as well as some examples on how they were implemented. I was just talking to a good friend whom runs a financial institution in Singapore about the use of social media for banks. This blog post is for you bro.

The use of blogs for knowledge sharing with fellow team members across organizations has been adopted by many corporations for years. However, for the banking industry, we have yet to see blogs as a form of social media marketing tool being embraced by banks and financial institutions. I’m going use Wells Fargo as an example to showcase how blogs can be part of banks or financial institutions’ digital strategy.

Wells Fargo was the first bank in US to launch a corporate blog in March 2006. It has now expanded the use of corporate blog as a key platform in listening, understanding and communicating with its customers. It takes courage within the hierarchy of a bank to do this and they have my deepest respect.

The roles of the blogs run by Wells Fargo is to communicate. To communicate in a personal, non-intrusive way. To enable a conversation between the bank and the customer. To allow the bank to listen and know what the client wants and expects.

In the case of a merger between Wells Fargo & Wachovia, the blog not only allows merger news and information to be disseminated, comments from the ground are also heard and addressed. If such concerns are widespread, the following blog post will address them in greater detail. Adopting a blog approach in their digital PR strategy in this case facilitated listening and allows ‘questions’ from turning into ‘issues’.

The blog also focus on specific products like the student loan. It engages potential customers with good and useful content,  allowing banking relationships to be build from college years. That relationship is eventually the key factor in more businesses when the student graduates.

Banks need to wake up to the call of groundswell. There are numerous forums and online communities in Singapore that are talking about banking products and services. Choose to ignore gets you out of trouble momentarily, choose to listen allows you to learn insights of market demands, choose to engage will give you the leading advantage over the rest of the pack.

Will the Twitter craze hit Singapore?

// July 2nd, 2009 // No Comments » // Social Media Marketing

Twitter in Singapore

I asked myself this question before I decided to take the plunge into the world of tweets. I cannot find statistics of twitter users in Singapore. I asked around and most of my peers heard of twitter, probably got an account but has never used it since then.

The question is our mind is – who the hell what’s to do what you are watching, eating or playing with? I can do take on Facebook, I can share that on my blog so why twitter?

I recalled 10 years back when Blogs hit the shores of Singapore. People where asking, who the heck with the right frame of mind will want to publish his/her diary online? And who would want to read them?

Today, blogs have evolved. It has taken over corporate websites, spearheading the frontlines of digital marketing for various companies, allowing them to share their thought process and beliefs with clients. Blogs has became an integral part of digital marketing, a powerful tool in SEO and a necessity for promoting thought leadership. Would those would ridiculed the thought of a Weblog10 years back be left wondering how mypoic they were? I was one of them. my friends.

I see Twitter as a form of blog -micro-blogging. I didn’t coin that that word. With the emergence of multiple social media channels, consumers and companies will find it more an more difficult to devote their precious time to these channels. Maintaining a blog is time consuming task. As such, we are seeing a hybrid of blog and tweets. Blog sites can now pull twitter feeds real-time. Integrating these 2 channels allows content to be updated regularly. Tweet content that are shorter, or a hyperlink to a good read somewhere, etc. Blog content that are longer and requires more efforts in articulating your points.

Twitter will take roots in Singapore. Soon.

Integrating social media marketing into your digital strategy

// July 2nd, 2009 // No Comments » // Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing in baby steps

All these years, we have been focusing on SEO (and also SEM) as part of our internet marketing strategy to drive traffic to our websites. We have been obsessed with page rankings, keywords optimization, inbound links, etc. We are not wrong. But today, it is important to recognize that consumers are not just relying on search engines to find information, there are many more places that they search now.

We need to look into social media marketing as part of our strategy. Companies need to be more searchable in social media networks as well. Probably soon, somebody will be coming up with a social media page rank. From this perspective, Search Engine Optimization should be expanded to include Social Media Marketing, thus the new term Search Optimization.

According to the Aberdeen group research report released in March 2009:-
* 63% of companies surveyed plan to increase their social media marketing budgets
* 21% plan to increase spending by 25% or more
* 34% responding plan to make no change.
* only 3% plan to shrink social media budgets

This clearly shows that despite the current economy turmoil, which also hit us badly in Singapore, companies are beginning to understand that traffic sources are no longer solely dependent on SEO.

Companies in Singapore is slow to pick up social media marketing. They have heard alot about it but is clueless what it can be done and how it should be done. If we understand the important of being Search Optimized, our strategies our clients should  My point is that agencies need to start educating clients, encouraging them to take small steps into social media marketing. Illustrating to them their ROIs and managing their expectations. Small steps in this infant market is crucial.