Asia Social Media Report 2008 - Can Brands Have A Social Life

INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL FROM OGILVYONE WORLDWIDE
CAN BRANDS HAVE A SOCIAL LIFE?

HOW BRANDS IN ASIA CAN BENEFIT FROM INTERACTING WITH CUSTOMERS THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA.
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Content
Foreword Introduction What is Social Media? The Social Media evolution Why should brands care? Asia Market Analysis Social Media dynamics Social Media planning Measurement Tips for success Case studies How to get started References Acknowledgements 2 3 5 7 9 11 31 33 36 37 40 48 49 50
Foreword
The rise of social media across Asia is not a story about the importance of blogs. It is not about how people can collaborate on wikis or join in social networks. All of these are just pieces of the story. The bigger trend is that social media is allowing connections between people in a way that has never happened before. From international friendships to regional conversations, the web is moving from a static collection of pages to a more social communications platform where word of mouth counts. What does this mean for brands? That the world we are all marketing our products and services in is changing around us, because our customers are evolving along with the tools available to them. This is not just happening in one part of the world, it is a global shift. Yet it is not happening in the same way in every country. The problem with much of the social media advice is that it is based on lessons learned in one part of the world without a more local connection. As a global agency, we face this cross cultural challenge often. So much so, that it has led to the collaborative piece that you now hold in your hands. This is a study about the impact of social media across Asia and how it is helping to bring brands to life. It was prepared by bringing together digital experts from more than 10 countries across the Ogilvy network. Top rated bloggers, digital strategists, public relations pros and media planners all shared their expertise to develop a comprehensive look at Asia from market to market. The result is a surprisingly fresh look at social media from the perspective of 12 different countries across the Asia region. In this guide, you will see actionable insights, useful statistics, and relevant country-based information. When I first read it, I found it uniquely useful. Since then, I have kept it beside me as I started to plan global social media strategy as an invaluable cultural resource to understand the state of social media in key markets. If you are trying to unlock the potential of social media, I suspect you will find this report similarly illuminating.
Rohit Bhargava SVP, Digital Strategy & Founding Member of Ogilvy's 360 Digital Influence Group Author, Personality Not Included (a guide for brands on using your personality for marketing)
Introduction
All brands can have a social life. Big brands, small home grown brands, business brands, consumer brands and individuals who want to create their own personal brand. Social media is democratic by nature and the barriers to entry are relatively low. This study provides direction to brand marketers and digital consultants on how to design a social media strategy in Asia as part of a brands overall digital strategy. It starts by defining social media, as well as giving insights into its similarities and differences across key Asian markets - China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. It then provides practical, hands on advice on what steps brands should take to plan their social media strategies along with frameworks and tips for success. As social media is changing, this is a dynamic study which invites you to share your questions, observations and experiences. By exchanging ideas, it will get more marketers to better understand social media in Asia, and in turn deliver more effective solutions that not only enhance consumers lives but deliver deeper value to brands. This study does not have all the answers, but hopefully goes some way towards addressing the key questions or at least stimulating the debate. Please join the conversation at www.the-open-room.com
05 OGILVY INSIGHT: CAN BRANDS HAVE A SOCIAL LIFE?
OGILVY INSIGHT: CAN BRANDS HAVE A SOCIAL LIFE? 06
What is Social Media?

Social Media is the combination of channels, platforms, communities, content1 and tools that power the phenomenon of peer to peer communication or word of mouth. This breaks down into 6 areas [see Figure 1]: 1. Social Networking Platforms 2. Social Bookmarking Platforms 3. Content, Applications & Media 4. Blogging Platforms 5. Social Gaming 6. Social Connectivity Tools Lets describe these briefly in turn.
1. Social Networking Platforms Sites that connect friends and their peer networks together spurred by user generated content of all forms. These networks are growing by the day to become habitual platforms for people to stay in touch. Often thought of as interactive address books, big players in Asia include Cyworld, Hi-5, Mixi, Friendster, Orkut, Facebook, Bebo and My Space. 2. Social Bookmarking Platforms This is an emerging area in the region riding on the back of the power of aggregation. These sites aggregate and promote content on the web through indexing, user-collaboration and voting mechanisms to save time. Examples of this include del.icio.us, digg, Yahoo! Answers and Wikipedia. 3. Content, Applications & Media There are a number of sites that are considered the forefathers of Web2.0, by making it easy to create, store and share content by putting that power in the users hands. These entities essentially host and store proprietary content of all forms, and because of their richness are becoming destinations in their own right. They also become the source of a lot of the content that users are publishing back into their social networks and include FlickR, You Tube and application developers such as slide.com. 4. Blogging Platforms Blogs and Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) continue to be a major source of social media providing platforms for communities to come together, opinions to be voiced (often anonymous) and discussion on a range of topics. These have evolved from the modern day form of a public diary to a broadcast platform for individuals to share their news and connect. The personal nature of blogs continues to remain popular particularly for entertainment and educational purposes as well as for citizen journalism. Today bloggers have credibility as public informers and as a result of RSS and micro-blogs, are highly inter-connected and collaborative. Key enablement platforms include blogger, blogspot, typepad, twitter and wordpress. 5. Social Gaming Asia would not be complete without the mention of social gaming and it will be interesting to see how this phenomena will spread. The internet has made it possible for users to connect and escape into gaming worlds where teams can compete and participate realtime against other gamers. These specialist sites include World of Warcraft and Ragnarok, and have a tribal following. 6. Social Connectivity Tools All of the above entities would not be able to operate if it wasnt for the connectivity tools that power them email, SMS, RSS feeds, instant messenger and live chat. Each of them fuel the dialogue and connectivity that make it the place to flirt, debate, game, share, exchange, vent. Platforms for deeper connections.
Figure 1: Asia Social Media Landscape
The Social Media evolution

Social media is an evolution in the development of social connectivity. In the offline world, people buy their newspapers to get their news. They take pictures, print them out, put them in an album and share with friends. They call their family for a chat. They send letters and birthday cards to loved ones. In the digital world, nothing has really changed, its just become so much easier. Technology has made things faster, more affordable and is able to deliver it on a larger scale making it accessible to everyone from individuals to the smallest brand.
SPEED ability to connect faster SCALE ability to reach far more people than ever before COST ability to participate, create and generate content
As a result, traditional media entities have taken note and seized the potential of the interconnected-ness of the consumer worldwide. BBC is among many to create its YouTube channel, AOL has invested USD850m in Bebo not to mention entrepreneurial players in the region such as Li Ka Shings USD120m punt in Facebook, the launch of a dedicated YouTube channel in India and the many VC funded social media entities that are popping up in China, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and Malaysia. The list goes on. Social media has transformed the way people consume information, and that will continue to happen. News spreads faster, trends gather pace, people connect and information is available to all - on an unprecedented level. And the implications are significant. If youre not online for a few days let alone hours, you run the risk of being out of date. Social media launches stars. Take the Backdorm Boys in China, Duk-In Joo in Korea, Wan Wan in Taiwan, Kenny Sia in Malaysia and Mr Brown in Singapore. It also fails them. Take Edison Chan in Hong Kong and the high society exposs by Brian Gorrell in the Philippines. Its also big for politics and news. Campaigns are being won and lost through social media in Asia, and the web is the platform for a new type of reporter - the citizen journalist. Take the election campaign in Malaysia and the amazing coverage of the China earthquake in Sichuan Province in early 2008. These examples are all evidence that social media is transforming the way consumers interact with each other online, and most importantly that people really do listen and trust what other people have to say.
Humans are social beings, they like to share things, talk together and technology lets them do it on an unprecedented level. Ken Mandel Regional Managing Director, Yahoo! South East Asia
Why should brands in Asia care?

There are 4 key reasons: 1. Social Media is big in Asia. Brands cannot underestimate the size of social media in Asia. Over 450 million consumers are engaging with social media, some of whom are as dependent on it as their Western counterparts, if not more. When social media eventually goes mobile, the numbers reach over a billion, and this scale is something that brands cannot ignore. 2. Consumer opinion counts more than ever. Consumers in Asia are talking about your brands whether you like it or not, and that opinion has a huge impact on their views of a brand and consideration to purchase. 7 of the top 10 markets that rely most on recommendations from consumers hail from the Asia region2. The internet is a platform that people listen to and learn about your brand. If youre not participating in the discussion or feeding into it, you are likely to lose. 3. Consumers are highly connected and harder to reach then before. The diversity of Asia needs no reminder, and this further accentuates the need to understand commonalities and differences in media repertoire as well as consumer motivations. Marketers are losing the ability to reach consumers in the way they used to as social media starts to displace aspects of traditional brand advertising. Building a corporate website and driving traffic is simply not enough, and calls for brands to re-evaluate the way they reach their audiences. Brands that understand social media by creating a web of activity that can influence and surround the target audience are most likely to be effective. 4. The Y-Generation3 live their lives in social media and if youre not talking to them, someone else will. Social media creates a huge opportunity for brand marketers where they can connect with their target audience like never before. Though the importance of this media may be in its infancy with some of the older demographic segments, there is no disputing that for the Y-Generation and future generations, social media is part and parcel of their daily lives. Brands that fail to appreciate this opportunity will risk losing an entire base of consumers in the future making social media not just a growth strategy but a defensive one too.
Right now, the largest single group of users on the Internet today is in Asia. Half a billion Asian users. And thats only 14% penetration. So when they get to 70% penetration which is where we are in the US and some parts of Europe, were talking about a couple of billion people. Thats a very, very big customer base. Its a very diverse customer base but the internet can reach all of them once we get to that penetration level. So this is a really exciting place to be. Vinton Cerf Vice President & Chief Internet Evangelist, Google Inc.
The consumer can now make a huge stink about something if they are not happy about it. And so if a company isnt going to be there online monitoring that and contributing to the discussion in a positive way, then theyre going to pay the price. The most obvious examples are that simply a blogger is unhappy with a product and will post something online and that then through Google, through search engines becomes a kind of mecca, a big kind of water fountain around which other disaffected users and consumers will gather. Now if the company doesnt know that that website exists, or tries to ignore it or worse knows that it exists and tries to crush it, then they are going to experience serious problems. Jeremy Wagstaff Technology Commentator, BBC, WSJ, Loosewireblog.com
Theres not the same ability, the same physics of the old days where you buy a few things [media] and you reach your audience. Today, the audience is an aggregation of in some cases, thousands of individual points, individual blogs, destinations and sites that in totality get the audience that a marketer is looking for. Kent Wertime President, OgilvyOne Asia
You should try to embrace as many different forms of media as possible because different audiences are in different places. But you will see an increasing amount of, especially the younger generation thats going to hang out online and be comfortable in communities and social media. And if you dont market to them, or if you dont have dialogues with them (not even market to them.) ... then youre going to lose an entire customer base. Lee Kin Mun Founder & Blogger, Mrbrown.com
Asia Market Analysis: The size of the pie

We estimate that just under a 3rd of the worlds online population or a staggering 456M users in Asia are actively consuming social media. There will always be differences in reported data but irrespective of whether its 450m or 470m or even 500m, the numbers are too big to be ignored as social media becomes endemic in internet culture. Whats most important to understand is the vast differences in adoption and use of social media. In Japan and Korea who arguably lead the world in terms of sophistication, its all about ubiquitous access (mobile and PC internet) and rich functional engagement through intimate social networking, open blogging and gaming. China, on the other hand has its social media roots in discussion, information gathering and sharing through public bulletin boards and blogging with broadcast entertainment on the rise, and this pattern is being fast followed by Taiwan from a much smaller base. Other markets in the region vary significantly. In Hong Kong and Singapore which have high digital penetration and rich broadband, the role of social media is catching on but splits acutely between English and Chinese speaking dialects who are consuming the medium in different ways to augment their personal and professional networks. India too has evolved its very own type of social media centering on personal and professional networking. Matrimonial sites are hot platforms for socially engaging, and LinkedIn finds its highest demographics are Indians both at home and abroad. The opportunity for entertainment from the home of Bollywood needs no reminding as broadband penetration slowly increases. The Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia have a thriving social media scene which cannot be ignored by brands. Social networking and blogging are the key platforms for expression extending from the leading portals. Entertainment is on the rise but still secondary. Even the likes of Indonesia and Thailand have embraced social media by providing a platform for netizens to collaborate with each other and to reach out and learn from public blogs in ways they couldnt through traditional media. What is most important is that their high use of mobile has already seen internet-enabled SMS services being offered in these markets to see mobile start to go social. Figure 2 provides a macro view of whats happening in social media to provide a sense of scale. To give a more balanced perspective, working with Ogilvys in-market digital specialists and a wide range of desk research, we have pulled together a view by market of the different motivations and trends - political, social, economic, cultural or otherwise to help marketers better understand what role social media is having in its consumers lives, the opportunities, and why it is gripping Asia overall.
Asia Social Media Market Analysis

Internet Penetration Forecast (% Breakdown 2008) 19.0% 69.5% 5.2% 10.5% 73.8% 70.7% 59.0% 10.4% 15.1% 87.4% 67.2% 20.5% 23.4% Estimated Social Media User Forecast 2008 202,400,000 3,902,970 48,000,000 20,000,000 75,200,000 27,856,000 11,923,200 14,000,000 11,200,000 3,221,120 12,320,000 10,732,800 16,127,692 456,883,782 31%
Asia Social Media Statistics China Hong Kong India Indonesia Japan Korea, South Malaysia Pakistan Philippines Singapore Taiwan Thailand Vietnam TOTAL ASIA TOTAL WORLD
Population 2008
Forecast Internet Users 2008 253,000,000 4,878,713 60,000,000 25,000,000 94,000,000 34,820,000 14,904,000 17,500,000 14,000,000 4,026,400 15,400,000 13,416,000 20,159,615 571,625,328 1,463,632,361
1,330,044,605 7,018,636 1,147,995,898 237,512,355 127,288,419 49,232,844 25,274,133 167,762,040 92,681,453 4,608,167 22,920,946 65,493,298 86,116,559 3,363,949,353 6,676,120,288
Sources: i] www.internetworldstats.com [population and internet user forecast Jun 2008] - China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Total Asia Pacific and Total World. ii] Singapore population www.internetworldstats.com and internet user forecast - IDA Jun 2008. iii] Social media estimates based on calculation of 80% of forecast users reflecting endemic nature of social media amongst internet community. Figure 2: Asia Social Media Statistics
Who said that Asia was following? I mean, what statistics can you show me to prove that? ...Its not the highest percentage of the population but the largest total aggregate block is in Asia. If you look at blogs, a third of the bloggers in the world are in Japan. If you look at the developments in mobile, a lot of that, the most cutting edge stuff is happening in places like Japan and Korea but increasingly China, India, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan are very innovative new users of technology. Kent Wertime President, OgilvyOne Asia
Social Media Clustering For regional marketers in Asia, trying to define a role and plan for social media is no easy task. The Social Media Cluster Grid provides a framework to try and organize the vast data looking at it in the context of the prevalence of, and dependence on social media in the consumers life. This needs to be overlaid onto the brands business and marketing objectives but provides a point of view on how to make sense of the wide differences in social media across the region and serves as a useful starting point.
SOCIAL MEDIA CLUSTER GRID MARKETS Cluster 1: LEADER MARKETS China Japan Korea Social media has matured and is a pivotal part of the consumers digital ecosystem. This is accounted for by pervasive broadband as well as maturity of home grown social networking, bulletin board platforms and increasing multi-channel convergence. Cluster 2: DEVELOPING MARKETS Hong Kong India Singapore Taiwan Social media is reaching the tipping point amongst these markets as consumers start to integrate it into their daily lives. This has been enabled through an increase in high broadband infrastructure and social media from the West as well as Asia. Cluster 3: CATCH UP MARKETS Malaysia Philippines Vietnam Social media is gathering pace but is yet to reach critical mass - symptomatic of urban/rural infrastructure gap. Simple text-based social media bulletin boards and blogs - are the foundation. However, urban cities are starting to see the emergence of social networking in line with broadband improvements, and can expect to see a big jump as infrastructure improves. Brands have an opportunity to reach early adopters by starting to engage with social media in these territories. Cluster 4: FOLLOWER MARKETS Indonesia Thailand
DEFINITION
Due to infrastructure restrictions, social media collaboration is limited to text based blogging, forums and instant messenging. The opportunity for a rich social networking experience is yet to be realised though it may leapfrog to mobile social media with the emergence of affordable integrated mobile internet services.
IMPLICATIONS
Social media must feature as a core part of the digital strategy in these markets alongside search. Absence of social media activity is a major gap and risk for brands. Use these markets to build sustained relationships with key influencers. Test and trial solutions on both PC and mobile internet.
Opportunity for brands to take a lead and stand out from their competitors in these markets as overall brand activity is still immature.
Brands should consider translating learnings from catch up markets or initiate pilot programs with less brand exposure.
STRATEGIES
Use these markets to innovate new social media marketing tactics to attain learnings which could flow down to catch-up markets.
Deploy proven social media solutions to geo-segments e.g. youth segments in Kuala Lumpur, Manila or Hanoi where results can be monitored. Start listening to conversations going on.
Explore basic mobile social media opportunities, and take some risks by testing alternative ways to reach consumers and build mindshare.
Figure 3: Asia Social Media Cluster Grid
OgilvyOne 2008
Note: These clusters were derived from Ogilvy methodology using a scoring system on the following indicators the users dependence on social media, internet penetration, social media size and 3G mobile internet size.
Cluster 1: Leader Markets China, Korea, Japan

CHINA Prevalence of Social Media The sheer size and economic growth rate in China makes it a country to watch, for all brands in the region. As of July 2008, there were an official 253m4 online users with an estimated 200m consuming social media.The total represents a 56.2% year-on-year growth up by 91 million from June of last year. Impressively, 84.7% of Chinese internet users are now accessing the Net via broadband5 representing over 214m6 broadband users. The internet has also become a pivotal platform for entertainment along with eCommerce which has come of age, growing from RMB120b in turnover in 2001 to RMB1,020b18 in 2008. All this is set to grow even faster as broadband continues to roll out. Along with internet penetration, there were 500m mobile subscribers by the end of 20077. Out of these mobile subscribers, 73.05m owners used their devices to go online8. Access via mobile phone is still mainly supplemental, and is rarely the main means, primarily leveraging the channel for Instant Messenger (IM) and SMS. Dependence on Social Media Speaking Out Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) are at the heart of Chinas social media with 10m9 posts published daily and 80%10 of Chinese sites running their own BBS. An active BBS is the most valuable component of a brands digital campaign11 and an essential social element to all sites. Monitoring conversations on BBS is an invaluable gauge to determine what brand perception is. Blogging, while not anonymous, has also taken off, with blogging listed among the top ten applications for Chinese netizens. 107m people say they use blogs and personal spaces, approximately 42.3% of the Chinese Netizenry. Entertainment-lovers An overwhelming majority of Chinese citizens use social media for digital music and video, utilizing digital channels as their entertainment superhighway. Of the top ten applications, the three biggest entertainment apps are music, video, and online games. Internet music remains the biggest, with use rates of 84.5%, or 214m people and internet video use at 71%, and online gaming at 58.3%12. They are major drivers of internet use growth in China. This is reflected in the rise of YouTubelike video broadcasting platforms such as youku.com and tudou.com, which deliver as much as 100m13 video views daily to 12m users directly and through national broadcast sites. These channels address the demand for user and professionally generated content delivered at speeds that are faster than in the United States. Social Networking Being connected is a core part of a young persons life in urban China with over half14 of netizens making new friends online and 90%15 of young people using IM to connect with their friends. The instant connectivity with friends is what drives the growth of BBS, IM usage and in turn, social networks. Tencent rules the space16 having evolved from an Instant Messenger company circa 199917 to a social media empire that includes one of Chinas most popular social networks, Q Zone, as well as a leading portal and online game platform. Two well-funded companies with social networking offerings more like those popular in the west are also vying with Tencent for dominance. 51.com has been successful in penetrating lower-tier cities and hinterland provinces with 120m18 users and plans to move into the gaming space with Giant the online game developer. Xiaonei.com, the Facebook-like, campus-based social network which raised a whopping $430m and. enjoys a dominant market share in traditional social networking according to Shanghai-based iResearch, is now targeting the students and white collar workers. The early movers with large user bases (and war chests) may well continue to dominate the market, but newcomers like Kaixin001, which has soared in popularity just in recent months, may still play an important role. There is little doubt that social networking will continue to take hold in the way it has in Japan and Korea, but without one company dominating the way Mixi and Cyworld do in those respective markets. SOUTH KOREA Prevalence of Social Media Broadband has determined the future for Koreas technological advancement. Ubiquitous access to broadband from the late 1990s has meant that early adoption of social media services and voice over IP have become a way of life when North American and European counterparts - were in their infancy. The result is the worlds most advanced digital usage across ages and demographics with rich media content at the heart of the service. Dependence on Social Media Social Networking Leaders Social networking is big business in Korea. Cyworld has had a significant effect on the markets internet culture by being the worlds first successful cyberworld (social network) on a mass scale (>18m accounts28), dominating and creating a consolidated platform where consumers can handle their social lives and more. Its mash-up of social networking, blogging, music and video-sharing has drawn users whilst monetising itself through eCommerce video and music to become the worlds 2nd29 largest music/ video retailer behind iTunes. With approximately 48%30 of Koreans population having a Cyworld account and 30%31 of its users being in their 20s, its no surprise that its success has made little space for new entrants. Cyworld has also created a language in Korea. Apart from the abbreviations commonly used in Korea amongst network users, the individuals home page or hompy is commonly talked about. Personalised to include favourite streaming music, Koreans now only buy music digitally (CD is for the older generation) and competently stream it as background music to their home page as well as to their mobile devices. To date, over 200m songs have been downloaded on Cyworld generating over US$100m32 in sales revenues. Mobile Ubiquity Rich media and mobile come hand in hand. Mobile TV is pass in Korea. What people can do online, they can do via their mobile, and the channel is used to store and view downloaded content from the web while on the go. Cyworld, backed by Koreas largest telco (SK) has ensured ubiquitous access and removed all barriers including pricing so that individuals can really experience the opportunities presented by web2.0. The strategy has worked with 43%33 of SKs revenues coming from Cyworld itself. As a result, high quality mobile phones are used to create content with ease and post them to Cyworld in seconds where they can be voted, commented on and vy for the home page status. Trusted Communities Word of mouth is a very powerful phenomenon in Korea. Koreans tend to find safety in numbers so vertical blog forums are core sources for information gathering and sharing through the leading portals of Naver (31m visitors/ month34) and Daum (29m visitors/ month35). Its not uncommon for a Korean to post a question on one of the popular question and answer sites such as Knowledge In from Naver to request an answer within 24 hours, and to show thanks using knowledge points. This type of collaborative usage makes the internet a powerful and dependable resource. However, unlike Wikipedia which focuses on editorial accuracy and integrity of content, the posted answer will likely have no mechanism to check for accuracy. Instead, the Korean puts trust in the integrity of the online respondent and the speed in getting an answer. In addition to community collaboration, these forums are becoming broadcast platforms and most recently have been used for socio-political means to mobilize and generate support. For example, Agora, the online forum in Daum was recently used to organize passive, candle-lit protests offline against the governments decision to resume the import of American beef. Digital media was used to orchestrate, co-ordinate and amplify the activity, broadcasting the live demonstrations. Intimate Blogging The primary motivation36 for blogging in Korea is to communicate with acquaintances by sharing their thoughts. Culturally, there are some cultural differences37 in the way personal blogs in Korea are constructed from those in the West. In general, Western blogs comprise originated content discussions, photographs, pictures designed to stimulate opinion and discussion. However, most of the content you find on a Korean blog is an alternative form of expression. Blogs tend to comprise a highly personal aggregation of cut and pasted content from existing mainstream media sources creating a digital scrapbook or virtual filing mechanism. The intimacy of blogging thus makes it a more private platform for marketers.
Gaming Addicts Gaming in Korea is a key pillar and somewhat of a national obsession. Its not uncommon for teenagers or even young businessmen to head off after school/ work to one of the PC Bangs (or internet cafes) to finesse skills in Lineage II Koreans most popular online game double the size of World of Warcraft with 14m users38. Successful online gamers39 are paid professionals becoming sporting superstars in their own right with endorsements and celebrity status. Whilst gaming cuts across all demographics and ages, the alarming appeal to very young netizens with 65% of 5 years old40 using the internet to play online games has potential negative social ramifications. This raises challenges to brands who want to find an ethical and socially responsible means to tap into this passion.
JAPAN Prevalence of Social Media Social media has become an important part of modern Japan by providing a virtual extension to its traditional emphasis on personal relationships. Combined with pervasive broadband & mobile (3+G) 19 internet, it provides the basis for a strong social media culture satisfying an estimated 75m users . Dependence on Social Media Blog Nation Japan is a nation of bloggers. Japanese is the most used language in the blogosphere and the highest blog readership in the world (74%)20. Blogging is used habitually to create a positive record of ones thoughts using pictures, videos and text much the same way as a diary. Anonymous blogging and the creation of avatars indicate that the Japanese do not like to speak out overtly and be seen as confrontational. This reserved cultural reality is starting to change as younger Japanese, brought up with technology, are increasingly using it to share their views and opinions publicly and to speak out. They are also able to plug into what everyones blogging about using a Japanese based blog search engine called Kizasi.jp which aggregates the most popular key words from 7m authors and 171m entries. Key blog sites include Yahoo! blog, Ameba, Livedoor, Hatena diary, so-net and cocolog, but the most popular consumer blogs are tech blogs such as Gigazine, Gizmodo and Engadget21 as well as some celebrity or Otaku blogs Akiba and Shokotan. In addition to typical blog sites, Tokyo consistently has the highest daily twitter activity out of all the global cities22 which fits in with its blogging profile. Not so-Social Networking Local Japanese social networking sites adhere to the traditional maintenance of close personal relationships by extending connections to one or two degrees of separation versus western grown sites promoting six degrees of separation. With 90% of Japanese not being able to read English, its no surprise that Japans social media users have opted for localized domestic sites and content, for use across PC and mobile platforms. Not surprisingly, social network sites have already consolidated versus other parts of the region due to its controlled invitation-only policy and the power of word of mouth popularizing primary sites. Mixi is the de facto social networking site for Japanese-speaking netizens with 80%23 market share, having 10m users (1/8 of the wired market) and a staggering 11b page views a month. Mixi provides a birds eye view of ones relations on the net making it easy to connect and maintain contact through the diary, footprint, forum and message functions. It has become an entrenched daily communication tool for young netizens using it to listen, share music, chat and track back to friends. Gree with 4m users24 is its closest competitor and has taken a different slice of the market by targeting older professionals and providing customized content to cater for the more discerning consumer. Both platforms are accessed via the mobile phone with 30%25 of Mixi and 25% of Gree26 users, and this has spurned the rise of dedicated mobile social networking sites such as Mobage-town with 9.87m users27 indicating the trend of things to come.
Cluster 2: Developing Markets Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, India

HONG KONG Prevalence of Social Media
41 Hong Kong has one of the highest internet penetrations and breadth of broadband (2m subscribers ) in the developing world, with over 72% of the population online42. There are an estimated 3.9m netizens dipping into social media in Hong Kong. Though they are active, social media in itself is still quite a passive exercise for the majority of Hong Kongers making it not as social as one might expect.
Dependence on Social Media Social Networking Polarisation Just over half (53.2%)43 of active internet users have a social network profile in Hong Kong. This splits broadly between Facebook (1m users44) frequented by a slightly older, western-educated set and the locally targeted Xanga (1.8m users)45 dominated by slightly younger Hong Kong Chinese. Though these players hold marketshare, the way in which these networks are used varies considerably. Facebookers in Hong Kong tend to be highly collaborative and participative in their networks by poking their friends or updating their pictures to keep in touch, and entertain. The motivation for Xanga, however, is far more reserved. For young Hong Kong secondary school students, its a way to express oneself and to passively share thoughts on things that matter to them amongst their inner circle an evolution in some ways from personal blogging and instant messenging46. The novelty for social networking in a country where proximity provides little barrier to communication, and where mobile communication is prevalent (157% penetration47), does beg some questions opening up the opportunity for more mobile social networking similar to Korea and Japan. Knowledge-Thirsty As the advertising capital of the world (US$7B48) with the highest per capita spending, its no coincidence that Hong Kongers value the open, honest and less commercialised opinions that they find in social forums and professional blogs. This strong faith in word of mouth is evidenced with 93%49 of online users claiming that they rely most on recommendations from consumers and 65.8%50 of active internet users claiming to have read a blog. This trend has resulted in the birth of homegrown forums such as the highly popular Cantonese site - discuss.com.hk (8%marketshare51) with 1m52 registered users - hosting 9,00053 discussion boards from topics as broad as the military to western art galleries. Other sites include Yahoos hk.knowledge.yahoo.com, and interest-led sites such as forum.hkgolden.com and miniforum.org. The accessibility and openness in sharing opinion and information on these exchanges is an important social media success story in Hong Kong particularly amongst Traditional Chinese users. These sites will continue to remain popular, as will sites on the mainland that are accessed through Baidu search. Surprisingly, political blogs or citizen journalism which are gathering pace in mainland China are practically non existent in Hong Kong. This is mainly attributed54 to a relatively open freedom of expression, as Hong Kongers dont yet feel that they have to treasure or tap these new outlets to get heard. Image-Obsessed Youth The young Hong Kong Chinese are more worried about their appearance than their US counterparts with 39%55 citing looking good and 53% citing overweight as key fears. It therefore comes as no surprise that this image-obsessed generationloves to go online and check out Canto-gossip, film, fashion and music hits from entertainment and blog sites in Hong Kong and the mainland. Celebrity blogs such as the (now infamous) Edison Chen Koon-hei and Eason Chan Yick-shun sites are popular amongst fans as are rich media video destinations like YouTube and its Chinese equivalent to view the official and uncut versions before sharing them with their friends.
SINGAPORE Prevalence of Social Media With over 80%63 broadband penetration, it is hardly surprising that this connected nation has found space for social media. The Government is supportive of digital as a progressive platform for economic growth and its investment in wireless broadband64, the ultra high speed digital highway infrastructure65 and commitment to nurturing digital talent is testament to this. Aided by Englishliteracy (the countrys official business language), it has meant that Singaporeans have been fast to adopt Western social media behaviours. Dependence on Social Media Blog Express According to a survey, 51%66 of Singaporeans trust a blog as much as they do traditional media and the Google Bloggerplatform now ranks 5th67 on the top 100 most visited sites for Singapore. Despite the growth of this medium, the reality of the internet being a completely open channel for expression is some way off. An unofficial blog etiquette has evolved in Singapore with slanderous bloggers facing extreme penalties. That said, the Government welcomes entrepreneurial thinking and positive expression resulting in the evolution of an active and influential blogger community which brands are starting to tap in the City State. Social Networking Social networking & forums are the dominant sub-category online, representing 10.2%68 of all Internet visits by Singapore users and evidenced with the meteoric rise of social networks. Friendster dominates the landscape with 13.31% marketshare69 and 940k70 unique visitors per month to its closest rival Facebooks 495k71 unique visitors (the 3rd largest market penetration for Facebook in Asia Pacific). Though the relative newcomer has continued to grow +7.5% a month since January 2008, Friendster is not likely to give up its dominance so easily as it invests aggressively to retain its young captive audience. Though other social networks do register72 such as Multiply, Windows Live Spaces and Xanga, the reality is that the battleground is firmly set between Facebook and Friendster. What makes these networks so popular is their simplicity and accessibility. Singaporeans spend a significant amount of time online a day, and being quite a reserved populus, social networks provide a culturally acceptable way for connecting. Singaporean netizens are the most likely73 people in Asia to visit and check out other peoples profiles on a social network demonstrating its power as a channel to reach out and connect with others non intrusively. For similar reasons, the anonymity aspect of Forums has allowed them to become important social exchanges for interest groups. One example is the hardwarezone community which is the 18th most visited site74 in Singapore addressing the needs of technorati. Other specialist forums include fashionation.wordpress.com, singaporecarsforum.com and expatsingapore. These are obvious platforms for brands to reach niche audiences, and with 24%75 of Singaporeans claiming that the online presence of brands significantly increases their interest, becomes a compelling platform for branded placement.
TAIWAN Prevalence of Social Media Taiwan can claim to be the first country in the world to have installed broadband infrastructure island-wide, providing connectivity to remote communities. Internet users exceed 60% of the population and an increasing number, 47% of internet connections are broadband76. The government has committed the country to being on a par with the US by 201077. The high penetration of broadband enables Taiwanese to access large amounts of content and empowers a digitally savvy country with an estimated 12m78 social media users. Dependence on Social Media Nation of Newscasters In a country where sensationalism in traditional media channels is commonplace, citizen journalism is growing in Taiwan due to widespread dissatisfaction with the range and quality of traditional news sources. The proliferation of social media channels to express opinions, comment on the news, and share content, has brought about competition and altered the traditional business model of mainstream media. UDN and Chinatimes are at the forefront of this trend with Apple Daily and Liberty Times also allowing commentary on their sites. Star Bloggers Wan Wan. Amaryliss. Amykaku. Taiwan is a nation filled with star bloggers exuding mass appeal. Across its active internet base, blogging has become a popular channel for the propagation of individual opinions with 86.6% having read a blog, and 70.9% having started a blog themselves. Blogging in Taiwan has led to a yearly bloggers conference TW Bloggers BoF over 600 Taiwanese Bloggers. The event is self-organized, by local enthusiastic bloggers, and sponsored by the Taiwan Government Information Office as well as traditional media like TVBS, China TV, China Times ISPs and web 2.0 companies79. Socially Charged BBS in Taiwan is big, with over 1.84m unique visitors a month. Social media is also coming of age with 63.1% of Taiwanese maintaining their own social networking site and engaging with various forms of social media from uploading photos (69%), to watching videos (89.25) and downloading podcasts (33%). Despite being highly engaged with the most popular entertainment forms of social media, downloading music is not one of Taiwans top social media activities.80 Mobile Ready Taiwan has more than 24m mobile subscribers, with over 6.5m on 3G.81 Despite mobile penetration, mobile internet is still a minority activity with only 9.25% of Taiwanese going online using a mobile device primarily because of the high cost82 Among mobile internet users, downloading ringtones (38.36%) and browsing (21.14%) are the most popular activities.
INDIA Prevalence of Social Media India is one of the fastest growing online markets in the region with a total of 60m56 and projected to grow to 71m57 users and 10.5m broadband users by 2011. The internets appetite from the Indian populus, centers around its use for socializing (chatting/ networking and Instant Messenger) as well as entertainment, finding matrimonial matches, and professional advancement58. This reflects the demographic skew of the internet in India which favours educated and affluent, English speaking Indians rather than Hindi or other dialects. In terms of mobile numbers India is second only to China in the region, with 142 million59 mobile subscribers, double that of landline owners. The channel promises to be big for the future with licenses just issued for 3G60 circumventing the regulatory issues that, until now, have impeded growth for anything beyond basic SMS and photo uploading for social media. Dependence on Social Media A Happy Threesome. TV. Internet. Mobile. TV, internet, and mobile have found each other. India is one of the few markets that tie on and offline channels in an integrated multi-channel social media marketing mix. With their mobile devices, friends and online buddies send messages via short code to television programs which are displayed at the bottom of popular TV programs. And with the partnership of Zee Dish TV and Shaadi.com, traditional and online integration will be even stronger as brands bring interactive matrimonial services to subscribers a notable social media trend where real world word of mouth has been extended to digital channels. The new service will enable Zee Dish TV subscribers to select from Shaadi.coms vast profile base and display the relevant matches on the TV screen with daily profile refreshes. With this partnership, the doors open for other joint TV/internet engagements for brands to capitalize on. Brand Evangelism While blogging has not taken off in a big way in India, it is not due to a lack of opinion. Strong sentiments towards brands, whether positive or negative are widely voiced in forums and selfformed groups within social networking sites. Self-appointed brand protectors adamantly defend or defame favored or disfavored brands in the social networking space at platforms such as http://pulsar200club.blogspot.com and http://www.team-bhp.com/web/ Climbing the Corporate Ladder The internet is a popular channel for professional advancement. Job searching is the 2nd61 most popular use of the internet with 73% of consumers using it for this purpose even higher than news. As further proof, the highest demographics on LinkedIn are both resident and non-resident Indians (NRI) who are leveraging their connections on the net to find and develop their careers. Acknowledging this trend, homegrown professional networks such as Ryze have been born but are increasingly losing ground to more established players. Entertainment Channel Biggest Driver Broadband brings with it rich media delivery and the recent launch of Youtube.co.in (Indias YouTube) fuels the reality that social media will take a new life in the coming months. As yet, there is little local content developed, but there soon will be, starting with the entertainment field and the recent Rajshri/YouTube.co.in deal, where full Hindi movies will become available through YouTube. Increased access to dedicated Indian content will accelerate uptake in web usage and power demand. As an interesting twist, Indian entertainment consumption is not occurring solely in India with 30%62 of video consumption in a 24-hour window coming from Indians outside of India USA, Japan and Philippines in particular- an important consideration for brands wanting to focus on Indian based consumers or opportunity for those wanting to reach Indian expatriates.
Cluster 3: Developing Markets Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam

PHILIPPINES Prevalence of Social Media Social media is thriving in the Philippines. Despite one of the lowest internet penetration figures in the world (15.6%) and only 14m Filipinos92 connected to the internet, social media consumption has still become a prevalent channel with an estimated 11m93 users. Its strong culture of self expression, entertainment, and networking leads to a natural synergy with social media as a platform to express oneself, interact with friends, family and broadcast to a wider community. With IDC estimating the growth of Internet users to grow to 21.5 million94 by the end of 2008, there will be little doubt that social media will be play a much bigger part in the Philippines for years to come. Dependence on Social Media Friendster and Multiply A mix of social networking sites may exist all over Asia, but in the Philippines, Friendster with 10.7m95 subscribers is King. The Philippines makes up over 38.8% of Friendsters users worldwide. Its such an important market, that Friendster, recognizing the low internet penetration in the country, decided to complement online advertising with a mobile phone text messaging service exclusively for Filipino users. Friendster also set up a Mobile Broadcast System, a chat application, between the web and mobile phones to extend the use of Friendster Mobile in the Philippines.96 A challenger to Friendster is social media aggregator Multiply. With approximately 2.2m97 registered users in the Philippines, Multiply saw its share of the Philippine market increase rapidly enough to warrant an advertising deal with local media giant ABS-CBN in December 2007, then the launch of Multiply Philippines98 in June 2008. Blog This The prevalence of blogging has become so popular in Philippines, there is a yearly award show the Philippine Blog Awards which recognizes top blogging talent globally in a number of categories - Filipino bloggers, mainstream media practitioners, as well as local corporations. Blogging has become a powerful and respected broadcast platform used by media and government. According to Noynoy Aquino99, The blogosphere has become an extension of our democratic space where we express an opinion. Bloggers are a most compelling force indeed that could shape an informed vote. Internet Stars With a nation of aspiring stars, it is not surprising to find that YouTube is the 3rd most popular site in the country. More Filipino artists are finding avenues such as YouTube to share their talent online and get discovered. For example, Alyssa Alano, an actress trying to break into stardom, gained fame when a video of her singing Sixpence None The Richers Kiss Me was uploaded to YouTube, complete with garbled and incomprehensible lyrics. Similarly, Christine Gambito, a Fil-American actress, was tapped by the Department of Tourism to promote the Philippines after her Happyslip video blog gained a large following both at home and abroad. But its not always good PR. Brian Gorrell100, an Australian, exposed Filipino high society with his posts on their fraud and widespread drug use resulting in a public scandal. Whilst doing them some harm, he himself attained minor celebrity status and now hosts a radio show from Australia.
MALAYSIA Prevalence of Social Media Social media in Malaysia is still in its nascent stages. Malaysia currently has 13.5m internet users (50%)83 up 265% from 2000. Despite the growth, only 5% of the total population is on broadband thus limiting the wider rich media opportunity. This is set to change as the government has slated a 30% broadband target by 2010 as well as allocating RM12.2b to develop the knowledge economy and build digital savviness. Today, we estimate social media users at around 11m84 albeit in a basic form. Dependence on Social Media Speaking Out With tight Government controls over traditional media in Malaysia, its no surprise that the internet has become an outlet for Malaysian netizens to express themselves. Ironically, politics has been a huge impetus to popularise social media. The 2008 political elections saw a well orchestrated campaign85 from the Opposition reaching out to young Malaysians using blogs (blog.limkitsiang.com and anwaribrahimblog.com), social networking, videos and political websites to communicate and gulvanise support. VotED (Facebook Groups) and Malaysiakini.com were the tipping point, as well as building credibility in the channel as an open, acceptable and social platform. Established bloggers include kennysia.com notorious for his open, honest observations on day to day life from his home in Kuching, Sarawak. To subsidise the trend in blogging, blog-advertising agencies have emerged - Nuffnang and Advertlets - providing Malaysian bloggers like Kenny with solutions to help monetize their efforts through online advertising. Socially Networked Social networking is gathering momentum in Malaysia. Friendster.com is the number 1 social networking site with 3.02m86 unique visitors a month - over three times the size of its nearest competitor. Facebook and MySpace register just 758k and 735k visitors respectively. Friendsters success has been attributed to its early market entry as well as being the first to offer a complete social networking experience887 in Malay (Bahasa). Its ability to capture networks of friends early has made it hard for later entrants to get members to migrate. Young Malaysians are extremely sensitive to commercialism and privacy, and Friendster has been highly sensitive to this. Creating an easy to use and customisable interface makes it a strong platform for individual expression and its popularity and credibility has been reinforced by getting big name brands and celebrities to set up their Friendster profiles in order to generate further engagement. For example, the 22 year old Malaysian star, Karen Kong has gained more than 92k88 fans on Friendster since setting up her profile in early 2007, and there seems to be no end to her friend requests. Though there is an understanding that engagement levels in Facebook are higher than that of Friendster, the reality is that Facebooks restriction to English speaking users limits its audience. Segmented marketing will be key to exploiting social networks by better understanding which tribes are using which platform and why. Entertainment Escapism With the government plans for broadband in place, domestic media owners such as Media Prima have seized the opportunity to launch GUA.com with an aim to be the biggest entertainment and lifestyle portal in Malaysia. They seem to be having an impact. The latest count of Media Prima websites show the delivery of more than 50m89 page views and 3.6m unique visitors per month. They are not alone. YouTube was the second90 most popular search term in 2007, as recorded on the Google Malaysia Zeitgeist, and is also the fastest rising search term in 2007 reaching 51.7%91 heavy internet users. Entertainment doesnt stop there. The explosion of networked games from China has fueled the number of gamers in Malaysia by bypassing piracy issues as well as allowing gamers to socialize and escape into a virtual world without barriers. Linked to this demand for engagement and infotainment is the growth of virtual worlds in the private and corporate sector such as Second Life an interesting market for brands to explore.
VIETNAM Prevalence of Social Media The internet in Vietnam is rapidly growing across demographics with 20% penetration rate101 and around 18m102 users online. Broadband service is still nascent at 7%103 penetration. The internet addresses the demand created from highly regulated and controlled offline media and gives consumers a channel to openly express themselves. Basic mobiles have experienced phenomenal update with a predicted 270% growth to reach 46m mobile users by 2010104. That said, mobile as a channel is largely untapped and limited to basic SMS services even since the opening of the telecom industry to private sector investment in 2006105. The population of Vietnam has a youth skew with 60% (over 80m people) under the age of 30. The young population coupled with the opening of the internet in 1997106, has created demand for trial and exploration online. The teen oriented websites in Vietnam record monthly page views from a few hundred thousand to a few million.107 As a result, internet usage has been growing steadily at an average annual rate of 30%108. Dependence on Social Media Entertainment Entertainment reigns supreme in the Vietnamese social media landscape with locally originated film and video at the heart. Video social media sites such as Clip.vn, along with YouTube, are among the highest visited sites with companies like Zing, Baamboo, and 7 sac also offering musical search functionality. However, with the regulation of online pirating of music by the Ministry of Information and Communications, the price tag for licensing is too steep for all but a few of the music service providers forcing consolidation amongst Vui.vn, Yeuamnhac, and Pops.com109. Teen portals are becoming popular social destinations for young people providing entertainment and youth oriented news fashion, gossip and sexual health. These include Hoahcotro (online version of Vietnams No. 1 teen weekly magazine), and Kenh14.vn within the channelVN.net. Another rising trend is the growth of gaming. Though research varies greatly with as high as 57% of the youth market in the urban cities actively playing games on such sites as vinagame.vn, regardless of number variance, there is no questioning that gaming is one of the top uses and will continue to grow. Social Networking & Blogging In contrast to offline media, social networks and blogs have enabled the Vietnamese to speak out, comment, and express their viewpoints like never before. Whilst news sites such as 24H.com.vn, dantri.com.vn, vnexpress.net and vietnamnet.vn have provided speedy sources for whats going on domestically and internationally accounting for 6/10110 of the most visited destinations, the blog phenomenon has been revolutionary. Blogging has become a core component of many social networking sites with topics ranging from behind-the-scenescelebrity exposs, political discussion from journalists to personal musings from regular Vietnamese netizens. In terms of scale, social networking111 has become one of the top activities for internet users with 72% of 18-30 year olds, and 43% of the older populus - using it to connect with their friends and family. Currently, Yahoo! 360 is the leader with other competing sites including Cyworld Vietnam and Yeah1. However, with Friendster aggressively entering the space, along with the influx of capital from other social networking platforms such as Yobanbe, TimnhanhCafe and Facebook-clones (Tamtay, Guongmat, FaceViet, Zoomban and I-pro.vn), the landscape is set to change radically in the next 18 months. Niche social networking groups are also coming into the picture, such as PhunuNet - tailored towards women presenting an opportunity for a more segment-oriented approach for brands.
Cluster 4: Follower Markets Indonesia, Thailand

INDONESIA Prevalence of Social Media Internet usage is projected to grow significantly to reach 32m users by 2010 (a four fold increase) much of it coming from the youth and female categories113. The key online motivation is for research as well as email and instant chat but still 94%114 of consumers turn to TV for breaking news. Though the infrastructure has improved significantly in large cities like Jakarta and Surabaya, the Governments continued caution over foreign investment limits115 in the internet broadband and telco area continue to hamper accelerated growth. Broadband penetration is virtually non-existent at just 0.4%116or 831k users though there are efforts to increase usage through more realistic pricing structures as well as greater accessibility with warnets or internet kiosks costing just US$0.3-0.5117 per hour.
112
THAILAND Prevalence of Social Media Internet in Thailand sits at 20.5% penetration with 13.4m126 users largely made up of working adults and students in the key cities. In parallel, social media is gathering pace in Thailand particularly around community and social networking functions. Broadband penetration is still a long way off delivering critical mass with around 1m subscribers127. Mobile on the other hand is well established with mobile penetration standing at 82%128 having grown in six years from 8m to 53m by 2007. Dependence on Social Media Community Discussion Research indicates that 55.3%129 of Thais in Bangkok use the internet to look for news related content breaking news, political discussion and current affairs. The mainstream portals are the key incubators for such discussion, in particular, Pantip.com/cafs 350k daily users130 and Ratchadamnern and Manager.co.ths buzzing news section. Closely linked is the success of citizen journalism addressing the demand for live news and the relative latency of traditional mainstream media. Big events such as the opposition coup in 2006131 have seen socio-political blogs transform into powerful news-sharing sources. Blogs are an increasingly important part of the social media landscape in Thailand with 84%132 of internet users claiming to write or participate in a blog making it a key channel for word of mouth. Twitter and Twitter-like micro-blogging services are yet to take off in Thailand though attempts are being made to elevate the profile particularly in the large cities with rumours of Twitter-clones emerging such as noknok.in.th. Aside from news, the volume of noise in Pantip, Sanook, Kapook, Manager and Mthai tends to come from the countless number of lifestyle blogs and bulletin boards addressing the passion platforms of travel, food, celebrity, IT, film, and sport among others. Social Networking Thai youth are very social (spending a reported 70% of mobile usage talking133) providing a hot market for social networking platforms and tools. With 2.4m registered members134 of which 78% are 18-34, and a base growing +20% per month, Hi-5 has tapped into this demand by providing young Thais with a tailored, social networking platform in Thai. Essentially, young Thais want to be accepted and recognized amongst their peer groups. Hi-5 makes it easy for them to express their identity to friends and acquaintances by posting pictures for comment as well as allowing them to modify the look and feel to make it truly personal. Facebook has become the de facto platform for English speaking and expatriate Thai residents providing a great way of keeping in touch with friends abroad. That said, its membership base circa 100k135 shows that its actually in decline (-18%) from January to May136 indicating that the novelty factor might be wearing thin. In an effort to take a slice of the social networking pie, Sanook.com with 460k137 daily visitors followed by kapook.com with 300k138 have evolved from basic email and news services to provide everything from search to a community channel with chat rooms, bulletin boards, photo storage, and connectivity tools such as instant messenger. Their sticky content and established base makes them consistently popular destinations for brands wanting to get into social media but still fail to offer the social networking capabilities provided by dedicated platforms. Unfulfilled Mobile Networking The basic mobile opportunity in Thailand continues to grow with mobile internet now available in key cities. A projected non voice communications market is set to expand by 40%139 this year in a market worth US$798m. A recent survey indicated that around 20% of respondents claimed they had used online chat services such as MSN or Googletalk, whilst 39% of those that hadnt indicated that they were interested in doing so. Though the appetite is there, the reality of delivering a mobile social networking platform is some way off.
Dependence on Social Media Social Networking Friendster dominates the Indonesian social networking youth market with 9m118 registered users versus Facebooks 95k119 catering to a more mature, English speaking audience. Around 40% of Indonesias internet users are between 20-24 and they are among the first to start participating in social networks. Female usage is reportedly on the rise representing a valuable insight. Their desire to go online for news, window shopping, job search, parenting, blogging and to join mailing lists demonstrates the importance of social media to access and consume knowledge privately and anonymously. Despite broadband constraints, there appears to be a pent up demand for entertainment. Popular local shows like Empat Mata, Indonesian Idol, Wisata Kuliner Trans TV and Extravaganza Trans TV are shared by fans on YouTube.com. The reality of local video content is inevitably limited by dial-up services and penalties for misuse. Though social networking is visible amongst the youth segment, public forums discussing important topics120 such as technology, current affairs and religion are also present. Personal blog platforms such as blogger.com are starting to be used as a means for Indonesians to express themselves. However, their potential should be cautioned since recent government legislation (March 08) prescribes severe penalties for slander121. Socially Mobile Despite 90m mobile subscribers (41%122 penetration), mobile usage is limited to basic SMS and voice calls. Brands have been trying to tap into this vast audience with SMS broadcasting and pull campaigns, with only those that have provided strong consumer benefits or broad passion platforms such as the English Premiership League123 football updates having any success. Unfortunately consumers cannot be targeted easily so most of these campaigns are seen as a nuisance and spam.
124 The scepticism of the opportunity for exploiting mobile maybe about to change. The recent launch in July of Friendsters mobile platform in Indonesia - m.friendster.com - as a free service enabling mobile internet users to sign up and retrieve updates on their friends' activities, check messages, browse and upload photos and post bulletins could be the turning point for young Indonesians. However, with data still being charged to local telcos, the success of this platform will likely be determined by affordability. However, with a reported 60%125 of mobile internet traffic going to social media platforms, one of the first victors in this richer service is likely to be the mobile social networks. Watch this space.
Social Media dynamics: What does this mean to brands targeting consumers in Asia?
Before embarking on a social media strategy, brands need to have a grasp of the underlying dynamics. Social media is all about managing 'influencers'. Therefore, the task of the marketer when leveraging social media is to devise a strategy that creates a dialogue with the brands most important influencers as a more effective and powerful way to get the brands consumers to listen. This is built on the premise that if you speak to the right influencers, they can spread the word for you. We call this the Multiplier Effect [see Figure 4], and means that for every brand there are a number of people that are most likely to be able to influence your target consumers than you are and spread the word. This will vary greatly by brand, product and role of social media in the consumer journey, and provides the foundation for the digital influencer management strategy.
The challenge for most brands in formulating their strategy is being very clear who they are trying to influence. The secret to cutting through is identifying the characteristics of the right sort of anchor influencers for your brand and exploring innovative ways to find them. The model in Figure 5 illustrates how some people are more likely to promote their brand than others. In much the same way, brands define their most valuable customers, in a social media context, its about defining their most valuable influencers. The opportunity for social media is to approach the channel strategically by filtering out those influencers from the social media universe whether bloggers, customers or employees - and develop a relationship with them.
Level of Influence
Profile Influencers
Conversation Starters: high social/professional network reach with credibility in brand category. Social Connectors: will pick up and group with comment/ point of view. Observers: open to new ideas and information in category that inform. May pass on or share. Ignorers: most sceptical or cautious of what other people have to say. Seldom participate.
Most likely to influence target consumers. Propensity to influence and spread the word but unlikely to start the conversation. Likely to be influenced by new conversations but will seldom distribute content. Low likelihood to be influenced by word of mouth.
Active Engagers distribute good category content to peer
Active Listeners
Passive Listeners
OgilvyOne 2008
Figure 5: The Social Media Influencer Model
Figure 4: The Multiplier Effect
The way people filter their interest is to listen to what other people have to say. Their friends, their family, teachers and so on. So we need to take advantage of that filtering mechanism. One way to do that is to make sure that the people whose opinions you listen to, that tell you what movies to watch, what books to read, what products to buy, know about my brand. How do I go about doing that? Well one way to do is the traditional way of somehow plastering your logo in every way you possibly can. But thats a shotgun. The interesting thing to do is to get your brand in front of someone who has some authority and interest in the products and services related to that brand. So that person now becomes an anchor and whose opinions now count in his or her circle of friends. So we need to identify which people are the opinion makers in these various social groupings. Vinton Cerf Vice President & Chief Internet Evangelist, Google Inc.
You know there will be people who are detractors of your brand but there are people who will equally love your brand. And these are the people whom you should engage. ...Social media is about conversation. Its about having a dialogue with your customers. In the past, when you talk about the brand, its always one way, it always seems to be the brand talking to customers. You got away with it because of the very nature of the medium you are using to communicate with your brand... but now you have social media in play and dialogue can happen. Lee Kin Mun Founder & Blogger, Mrbrown.com
Social Media planning: How should brands plan their social media activity?
There are a series of hoops that marketers need to go through in order to develop a social media strategy and avoid common pitfalls. On many occasions marketers make the mistake of asking their agency partner to create a social media application, buy a banner in Friendster or create a viral video for YouTube without actually understanding that social media success lies in the brands ability to identify, reach and build a trusted dialogue with the right influencers for its brand, not just develop content. The characteristics and criteria that constitutes an influencer for your brand is an important part of planning. There are two dimensions to consider: Dimension 1: Credentials Knowing which credentials your target audience will accept helps you filter the type of influencers you need to identify. For example, a 30 year old, married mother of two in Malaysia will listen to someone very different if they are looking for cosmetics than when theyre looking for childrens healthcare products e.g. beautician advice for cosmetics vs other mothers or their paediatrician for childrens healthcare products. The same can be said of a 25 year old male business Executive in Korea whos looking to purchase a car, or wanting to know which restaurant he should go to with his colleagues. A car might be an inspired choice from aspirational influencers and a restaurant might come from an online restaurant guide. Having an aggregated point of view on influencer credentials helps avoid generic definition of the influencers characteristics. Dimension 2: Absorption Mode Another dimension that will inform a social media strategy is to better understand the way in which your target audience absorbs social media in your category which will either be passive or active. This will depend on many factors such as involvement with the brand category, purchasing lead time and potential investment. For example, a consumer is far more likely to be active when hes seeking opinions on a high involvement, high cost item with a long lead time such as hardware for their business than purchasing a book. Absorption modes have a significant impact on the role of social media, and therefore how to plan.
The sMedia Planning Process [Figure 6] provides a 5-step framework for marketers to develop and execute a social media strategy that looks to identify the right influencers and promotes them into genuine brand evangelists using creativity and innovation. It also recognises the need to continuously monitor and optimise the dialogue to ensure the relationship stays alive. In many ways, managing a relationship with an influencer uses the same principles as retaining your most valuable consumers.
Map
Against brand & business objectives, map how the brand is being talked about and identify gaps What are the brand objectives? What conversations are going on (good & bad)? Where are the conversations happening? Who is leading them? Why? Who are your loyal customers? Who will your target audience listen to?
Expose
Expose target influencer segment insights
Develop
Develop 360 Digital Influencer plan to reach & engage with identified target influencer segments How do we reach these influencers? What is the influencer journey? What is the basis for a conversation? How will we stage/ structure the conversation? Which channels will we use? What do we need to develop-tools, content, assets, negative influence plan? What is the budget allocation? Relationship Management Journey Planning GlobalBeat digital development methodology
Implement
Implement the plan
Analyse
Analyse, monitor, measure & optimise dialogues/ responses and uptake What conversations are going on? Which components in the mix are working or need to be modified? Which influencers & channels are performing? What are the key learnings? When is the next conversation feed?
Task
Questions
Who are the influencers we should speak to? Where are they? What are they interested in? What is going to make the influencers talk?
Are the influencers willing to listen/ talk? Do the engagement components appear to work? Have we activated all channels? Are we prepared to address negative influencers? Is the tracking in place?
Listening Posts conversation mapping tool suite Customer Database analysis SAS, SPSS
Various tracking tools (solution dependent and in combination) e.g. Radian6 & Google Analytics OgilvyOne 2008
Figure 6: sMedia 5-Step Planning Process
I think brand marketers for various reasons are reluctant to adopt social media because theres not a clear cut path of how to do it.... Putting banner ads on Facebook or MySpace doesnt mean youre doing social media. Actually, I kind of see this as a bugbear for me that people actually say Oh, were doing social media, we have a banner ad in Friendster. No, youre doing banner ads on Friendster. Thats not actually the same as having a profile page and being part of the community. Ken Mandel Regional Managing Director, Yahoo! SEA
Support
Measurement: How do we measure Social Media?

Many marketers fall into the trap of measuring social media success based on generic measures such as the number of hits, number of referrals and level of engagement. Though they may be relevant, success should really be measured in the context of the task in hand - the ability to reach, identify and convert influencers as well as the effectiveness of the influencer to spread the word to the desired consumers. The Media Measurement Framework [Figure 7], seeks to structure these objectives in three sequential areas: 1. Influencer Reach: the ability to target, engage and convert the right influencers for the brand. For example, if you identify 20 influencers, what percentage of those influencers were willing to engage with you and talk about your brand. This can be measured through cold calls, email responses, conversations and development of an influencer database. 2. Influencer Activity: the ability of influencers to generate positive word of mouth for your brand. This sets out to measure the quality and volume of the buzz and tries to draw a link back to the influencers. This also helps in identifying which influencers to focus the effort on moving forward. 3. Brand Impact: ability to move the dial on the brands social media objectives. This includes the business metrics that digital marketers have set e.g. incremental revenue, acquisition, engagement and loyalty.
2. Influencer Activity: ability to generate positive word of mouth 1. Influencer Reach: ability to target & identify the right influencers
# Target influencers & active engagers % Influencer/ active engager conversion rate # Size of influencer database # of discussions Quality of discussions: +ve/ -ve Visibility: search key words Most important influencers/ active engagers (#)
Today the physics of the web are that you can have lots of money, but it doesnt mean you can get lots of audience. And thats scary for marketers... So theres more risk but I think theres also more reward for those who do it well because what it also means is that the effectivemess isnt just a function of whats spent, its actually a function much more of creativity and innovation. Kent Wertime President, OgilvyOne Asia
3. Brand Impact: ability to move the dial on the brands social media objectives*
Equity: pre/ post recall Acquisition: # fans Revenue: incremental $ Engagement: duration; frequency Loyalty/ affinity: activity, brand promoter index
*Brand dependent
Figure 7: sMedia Measurement Framework
OgilvyOne 2008
Tips for success: How can brands increase their chances of success in Social Media?
There are a number of considerations that could increase your chance of brand success: Management Support letting go of the brand is a reality of social media and its critical that the brands senior management fully understand the implications, and are willing to take the risk as well as commit resource. This means identifying an overall gatekeeper for social media as well as one or more contributors who are empowered to speak out and contribute to the discussion, liaise with influencers as well as listen in and monitor whats being said and done. Social media isnt something that brands can dip in and out of. They have to be committed for the long term, and be prepared to take the good with the bad. Brand Integrity social media success has to be embedded in honesty and trust by playing to the brands core values and ideals. No falsifications. Pretending to be one of the punters in the discussion room, commenting on a blog without saying who you are, or misleading influencers is a no-no. You will be sniffed out. Brands that disclose conflicts of interest, are responsive to questions, and permit negative as well as positive discussion are most likely to get accepted. In many ways, participation in social media is a personification of the brand, and any involvement should be human and real. Brands like humans are infallible after all. The truer you are, the better you are likely to be. Brand Contribution brands need to be willing to contribute to be accepted in social media. Even to go as far as contributing unconditionally. Traditionally, marketers have been trained to barter e.g. Ill give you a free trial if you give me your email address, or forward this to a friend to win a chance to. Brands take and consumers give. This model is being challenged in the social media universe. A philanthropic undertone comes through in so much social media as people invest time in sharing information. Understanding this, and contributing as a good social media citizen is a hallmark of understanding the media. Brands need to consider how they can do this. Offering new ideas, facilitating the discussion, giving free content or creating exclusive footage are all ways of driving goodwill amongst influencers and the target audience. An example of this is MTV Asia who uploaded their extensive research findings on youth in Asia to slideshare.com so other companies, even competitors could see it, or IBMs World Community Grid which lets PC users channel that wasted energy from PC downtime e.g. during a lunch break to power super computers to help address critical environmental and research issues. Taking the higher ground will inspire respect and adoration. What they (marketers) can do though is to try and develop a strategy which enables them to find an authentic voice, a credible voice and a commitment to contributing to the discussion online and trying to address the problems of the users. Jeremy Wagstaff Technology Commentator, BBC, WSJ, Loosewireblog.com Social media is scary. Its not a well scripted scenario. Youre out there in the middle of a social network and comments good or bad will flow. You have to be prepared to accept that but a lot of brands want control. Ken Mandel Regional Managing Director, Yahoo! SEA
Brands need to play a careful role. They are a participant like you or me- but if its forced, contrived or not relevant, they will fail. Consumers are open to accepting a brand in the social media environment if they play by the social media rules. You need to be prepared to give when you enter social media. Ken Mandel Regional Managing Director, Yahoo! SEA
Case Studies: So whos doing Social Media well in Asia?

There are a lot of brands that think they are doing social media in the region but in fact are just creating content and assets within the social media space. In all the weeks of research spent investigating cases, we have identified just a handful of brands that have stood out as truly delivering a winning social media strategy. What are the brand success stories?
Case Study 1 Brand : Market : Target : Links : e27 South East Asia Start-ups, technologists, entrepreneurs and investors www.e27.sg www.entrepreneur27singapore.wikispaces.com
Background Modelled on e27 in Silicon Valley, with no marketing budget, two young ambitious guys Justin Lee and Bjorn Lee used social media to turn e27 in 12 months from a social enterprise idea to a leading community for digital entrepreneurs in South East Asia. The secret to the teams success was its ability to successfully identify, engage and build trust with the right influencers for its brand. Its formula was simple. Using face to face events, it identified potential key influencers and actively engaged with them one-to-one through email, Twitter and Instant Messenger sharing insights, observations and contacts about the entrepreneurial space. This worked to turn these acquaintances from passive participants to powerful brand evangelists resulting in positive discussion in the blogosphere. To maintain the dialogue with its influencers and the broader member base, e27 used its dedicated wikispace and website as the virtual place to connect with and share ideas. By giving total control to its members, it provided a refreshing change from other contolled communities.
Every brand has a social network they could be a part of... I think too much focus is just on B2C. Ken Mandel Regional Managing Director, Yahoo! SEA
How well did it do? 1. Influencer Reach: e27 has managed to identify 3 pillar evangelist groups bloggers, industry observers and tech-watchers. 2. Influencer Activity: These influencers have been able to create credibility and visibility amongst their own audiences as well as elevating e27 amongst the start-up community. Each by invitation event provides a new conversation for a spur of blog postings using photography, video and discussion to hook people in. 3. Brand Impact: Acquisition: e27 has developed a permission-based database of a 1,000 highly valuable members and continues to generate interest by reaching out to application developers and entrepreneurs using social network groups. Engagement: With zero marketing budget, from a modest first event with 30 attendees they have grown to host events that average 400 attendees. These events are now endorsed by influential organizations and government agencies including Google, Microsoft, Information Development Association and Media Development Authority of Singapore. Brand Equity: e27 is the first Singapore blog to get a mention on the respected OpenWeb Asia Workgroup [www.openweb.asia] which is a network of premium blogs focusing on the Asia web industry. Overall Conclusion Young, nimble start ups are often the first and most successful to leverage social media. Creative, daring thinking combined with a well constructed viral model that singles out anchor influencers makes a great social media success story amongst their target audience. Their story evolves.
Case Study 2 Brand : Motorola Market : China Links : http://motomp3.tom.com www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mkrHv886G8 Target : Chinese youth market (12 - 20 years old)
Background How do you reach out to Chinese youth with your latest cell phones? For Motorola, using social influencers was the way in. Tapping on the popularity of the Back Dorm Boys (Win Win and Huang Yi Xin) and their lip sync videos, Motorola sought to engage the duo to help them promote their latest line of entry level handsets designed for Chinese Youth. After rounds of discussions with their initially-apprehensive manager (Wei Weis mum), they were finally persuaded to produce a video which featured the duo lip-syncing to the song Radio in my Head in typical over-the-top fashion with the Motorola C381 phone as a part of the performance.
How well did it do? 1. Influencer Reach: All the influencers (all two of them) were successfully identified, reached and engaged behind this campaign with total success. 2. Influencer Activity: Initially seeded on Motorolas campaign website, the video spread at a viral pace through peer-to-peer channels with more than 60 million views recorded. 3. Brand Impact: By the end of the campaign, sales for Motorolas four low-price tier phones had increased by over 270%, moving more than 200,000 units in a month. Overall Conclusion Large brands that move fast and are willing to take risks are far more likely to reap the rewards. Motorolas deep understanding of social media in China combined with what was current at the time for their target audience, made this campaign such a great success. Ironically, if it was run again today, it would unlikely have the same level of impact in China. They caught the moment!
Case Study 3 Brand : Marmite Market : Global (25 - 35 years old) Links : www.marmite.com en.wikipedia.org/wiki/marmite www.spurgeon.org/phil/marmite.htm www.ilovemarmite.com/
Background Marmite, for those who do not know, is a salty yeast based spread made in England. Unsurprisingly opinion is divided as to whether or not it actually tastes good. Basically you either love it or you hate it. Marmite has run many campaigns over the years drawing on this insight as have the avid fans in continuing the conversation online. Its foray into social media draws from its latest contention campaign for squeezy marmite (the product has moved from glass jar to tube). The official Marmite website and Facebook page provides fun content, is open to heated debate about the taste of the new squeezy version, and invites members to share stories from their childhood about the spread. Marmites main targets were not typical big celebrities or influential figures. Their online brand influencers were Marmite babies who grew up eating Marmite and simply loving it. The sheer presence of Marmite on Facebook brought reminiscence to Marmite lovers identifying with the iconic black bottle logo as it appeared in their newsfeeds, and intriguing them into this passionate community putting this low involvement brand front of mind. In parallel, unofficial fan sites have emerged telling you anything and everything you need to know about this brand. Take Seamus Waldrons ilovemarmite.com site, and the commentary by Phil Johnson in www.spurgeon.org/phil/marmite. How well did it do? 1. Influencer Reach: Marmites presence on Facebook started through seeding amongst the Marmite generation of 25-35 year olds, and through the mechanics of Facebook attracted 149k (and growing) fan sign ups. 2. Influencer Activity: With little encouragement, the fan base uploaded pictures and videos to remind users how much they love Marmite, and triggered discussion (both good and bad) about their new product. New updates to the Facebook community created a spur of conversations (3.9k wall posts and 193 discussion topics). Some expressed their food loves while others shared their good old days eating Marmite tapping happy childhood memories. And 149 fans even went to the extent of sharing their experiences with Marmite by posting obscure photos and engaging with their resident sarniologist, George.
3. Brand Impact: Apart from the obvious fan base, a short test of mentions of Marmite against its main competitor Vegemite on the walls of Facebook yielded far stronger results, and Marmite searches on Google pulled up 3 of the top 7 sites as those created and originated by fans. Overall Conclusion Marmite is a great example of how a low involvement category can leverage social media by adhering to the social media rules. Straight talking. The Marmite Group sets out to share the joy of Marmite - eating and make it available to all those with excellent taste; and using triggers - squeezy vs glass bottle discussion - to stimulate debate. Amplified through unofficial website conversations, Marmite has created a low risk and low cost relationship platform through Facebook Groups that can engage with a significant group of passionates anywhere in the world.
Case Study 4 Brand : Lenovo Market : Olympic fans globally Links : http://summergames.lenovo.com, http://www.tinyurl.com/beijingflickr; http://www.twitter.com/Ienovo2008; http://lenovo.zumobi.com; http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com
Background For any die-hard Olympic enthusiasts (particularly in Asia), getting a real view of the Olympics other than the official footage, medal tallies, TV analysis and melodrama stories is actually quite hard. With an ambition to reach out to fans around the world in Web2.0 style, Lenovo decided to activate their sponsorship of the Beijing Olympics beyond the Olympic Torch Relay and Olympic Village by powering athletes to share their real, unfiltered experiences up to and during the Games to deliver a truly Olympic 2.0 experience. Branded The Voices of the Olympic Games, this platform offered fresh, diverse and personal stories directly from the athletes, with Lenovo providing the glue. How well did it do? 1. Influencer Reach: This ambitious program saw Lenovo use online forums, postings and PR to target and recruit over 100 Olympians playing to their personal motivations of recognition, support, sponsorship and satisfaction. With these influencers on board representing more than 25 countries, 30 sports and 8 languages, Lenovo donated a new IdeaPad laptop which with little persuasion inspired them to start blogging their personal stories. 2. Influencer Activity: Lenovo used a range of social media platforms to distribute the content from the host site http://summergames.lenovo.com including a Live Twitter feed, Flickr photogallery, del.ici.ous, a Facebook application and even an iPhone application. Through these activities, Lenovo was able to facilitate and aggregate the true voices of the games to inspire fans and other aspiring young athletes with a reported 10 million impressions across social media and traditional media. The tangibility of these stories were undisputable and captured the moment. Amazing stories included Indias first ever Olympic Solo Shooting winner, Abhinav Bindra who amidst his glory started conversation around the problems plaguing Indian sport, and Cyclist Josiah Ng from Malaysias commentary on his collarbone operation inspiring responses from concerned fans. For other athletes the blog made it easy to connect and receive well wishes from friends, family and fans who werent present in Beijing.
3. Brand Impact: In addition to the high volume of impressions, Lenovo stood out as an innovator of the Games with its campaigns being featured in USA Today, New York Times and many local media channels let alone online blog referrals including www.Mashable.com, www.theinfluentialmarketingblog.com and www.theiphoneblog.com Visibility through brand placement of the IdeaPad needs no mention, and the halo effect of this publicity on Lenovos brand equity as a truly global brand (not Chinese) is a great bi-product. But the story continues with a 100 happy athletes able to leave the Olympic Games not just with great memories but with a Lenovo IdeaPad Laptop endorsing the brand. Overall Conclusion Lenovo orchestrated (and pulled off) one of the most ambitious and challenging social media campaigns to date which many similar brands would find too daring. To mitigate their exposure, they partnered with a professional agency with deep experience in social media and opted to keep the infrastructure relatively simple (using off the shelf social media tools and applications) rather than create them from scratch. This enabled the teams to focus on the heart of the experience inspired content by channeling energies on reaching, inspiring and supporting the athletes themselves.
How to get started

If youve read this far, youve probably got a good idea what social media is about and an appetite to go on and do something. There are some basic things that you can start doing immediately: 1. Open the conversation: if you are managing a website, go and review it again to see whether it invites suggestions, comments and participation. Creating a dialogue is a starting point and your existing customers are the most important place to start. They need a channel to you, so make it easy for them. 2. Start listening: before you start entering into social media, start to get a feel of what conversations are already going on about your brand. Listen in, monitor and identify where the buzz is. Use search engines as a starting point and look at listings on the second and third pages. You might get a nice surprise that there are some positive things already being said about your brand. 3. Sign up to a social networking and social bookmarking site: go online and try it out. The closer you are to understanding what your consumers are doing and how theyre doing it, the higher the chance that you will be able to provide a practical grounded strategy that is relevant and topical. 4. Develop and learn from young social media users: there are lots of people around you that understand social media better than you. Go and speak with a friend, the office intern or even sign up to a blog. Start to immerse yourself into understanding how social media is impacting lives. Use these informers as a human barometer on whats hot and whats not. 5. Talk to an expert that understands social media: speak to your agency or sign up to online communities around the medium as well as check out useful reading material, guides and blogs online. As a starter, try http://digitalwatch.ogilvy.com.cn/en/ or www.openweb.asia. 6. Try it: start testing. You cant wait until social networking hits a tipping point and all your competitors are doing it. Give it a go, get some key learnings, see what works and what doesnt work, and dont stay out of it.
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Text, Rich media (video, photo, music, games, voice) Nielsen Online Global Consumer Study April 2007 Top 10 markets who claimed that they relied most on recommendations from consumers- Hong Kong (93%), Taiwan (91%), Indonesia (89%), India (87%), South Korea (87%), Philippines (86%), Ireland (84%), Mexico (84%), UAE (84%) and New Zealand (83%). Y-Generation 1977-94 US Today China Internet Network Information Center July 2008 China Internet Network Information Center July 2008 China Internet Network Information Center July 2008 TNS/CNNIS China Internet Network Information Center July 2008 readwriteweb.com.archives/bbs_china readwriteweb.com.archives/bbs_china http://www.melcherruwart.com/2008/05/04/its-all-aboutthe-bbs/ China Internet Network Information Center July 2008 www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/ 9th January, 2008 China Internet Network Information Centre 25Apr08 China Internet Network Information Centre 25Apr08 Kaiser Kuo blogger & Digital Consultant May08 www.newsweek.com/id/78112 www.marbridgeconsulting.com/marbridgedaily/ 2008-07-01/ Internet World Stats derivations June 2008 Technorati & Edelman 2007 Technorati Japan, accessed Jan 4th, 2008 Source: http://www.twitterlocal.net/stats Infinita Mar 2007 Analytica1st.com, Feb 29 2008 Infinita Mar 2007 Source: Gree press release, July 2007 Source: Infinita Inc (Mar 08) GMID South Korea Country Pulse 2007 US News article Sep 06 Koreanclick/ Korean National Statistical Office Jun08 Koreanclick Jun08 Digital Korea CNN.com 2007 Inside Cyworld Plus 8 Star Limited 2007 Koreanclick Jun08 Koreanclick Jun08 Edelman Korea (Kaist Research 2007) OgilvyOne Korea (Jul08) Digital Korea Video Report CNN.com 2007 Digital Korea Video Report CNN.com 2007 GMID South Korea Country Pulse 2007 Census and Statistics Department of Hong Kong, and Office of the Telecommunications Authority Census and Statistics Department of Hong Kong, and Office of the Telecommunications Authority McCann Ericsson report (Mar 08) Comscore data referenced in article Facebook Platform, 6 waves Making Waves in Hong KongJun08 Xanga (Feb07) Key Insights on Youth in Shanghai, Hong Kong and the United States Revealed in Harris Interactive 2007 U.S. / China YouthPulseComparison Study Business Wire, Dec 19, 2007 from Harris Interactive Report: 91% 15-21 year olds in Hong Kong say they spent time instant messaging yesterday OFTA, Apr08 AC Nielsen - 2006 Marketing charts.com/ The Nielsen Company McCann Ericsson report (Mar 08) HitWise Hong Kong report Social Network and Forums (Apr 08) Alexa Top 100 sites Alexa Top 100 Sites South China Morning Post: New kids on the blog. By Carrie Chan 22Aug05 (http://zonaeuropa.com/20050822_3.htm) Key Insights on Youth in Shanghai, Hong Kong and the United States Revealed in Harris Interactive 2007 U.S. / China YouthPulseComparison Study Business Wire, Dec 19, 2007 from Harris Interactive Report: 91% 15-21 year olds in Hong Kong say they spent time instant messaging yesterday OgilvyOne Estimates based on Internetworldstats.com Jun08 eMarketer Report Jun 07 Indiatimes.com Aug07 International Telco Union 2007 http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml? articleID=209901456 JuxtConsult 2007 Nautanki.tv (Jul08 Information Development Authority Singapore 2008 IDA Singapore News & Events Jan07 IDA Singapore News & Events Jan07 Blogging Asia: A windows live report (2006) Alexas Top 100 most visited sites for Singapore Hitwise Press Release (Mar08) Hitwise Singapore - Top 20 Websites - July, 2008 ComScore Singapore, Jan, Feb & Apr 2008, Aged 15+ ComScore Singapore, Jan, Feb & Apr 2008, Aged 15+ Hitwise Top 5 Social media sites (Mar08) Synovate Young Asians Survey 2008 Hitwise (Jun08)
Asia Pacific Digital Marketing Yearbook 2008 International Telecommunication Union http://www.internetworldstats.com/asia2.htm OgilvyOne Estimates based on Internetworldstats.com Jun08 http://www.edelmanapac.com/edelman/blog?month=4 &day=19&year=2007 80 Universal McCann, March 2008 81 National Communications Commission 82 www.tnic.net 83 Nielsen (2008) 84 OgilvyOne Estimates based on Internetworldstats.com Jun08 85 www.monstorandcritics.com/news/asiapacific/features/ articles/1412199.php/malaysian_politicians_hop_onto_the_ blogging_bandwagon 86 Design News May08 www.designtaxi.com 87 Design News May08 www.designtaxi.com 88 AsiaOne digital: story/ 89 Adoimagazine.com 2008 90 Adoimagazine.com 2008 91 Comscore segment metrix (mar 08) 15+ from home and work PCs 92 Yahoo 93 OgilvyOne Estimates based on Internetworldstats.com Jun08 94 Xinhuanet, Jan 2008 95 Manila Times Jan08 96 Alexa Top 100 Sites 97 http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/07multiplv-big-in-thephilippines-lands-ad-deal/ 98 http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/ 20080622-144061/Filipinos-are-prolific-and-Multiply 99 Social media and PR in Asia by Singapore Management University Wiki (2008) 100 http://delfindjmontano.blogspot.com Brian Gorrell includes on his blog a list of links to mainstream media pickups. 101 Internet World Stats (IWS) 30 Sep 2007 102 Internet World Stats Dec 2007 103 Internet World Stats Dec 2007 104 Wireless Asia 2007 105 http://english.vietnamnet.vn/tech/2008/08/801025/ 106 http://www.internetworldstats.com/asia/vn.htm 107 http://harryd844.wordpress.com 108 Intellasia 2008 109 http://harryd844.wordpress.com 110 Tamtay.vn, yobanbe.vn 2007 111 AC Nielsen Uses of the Internet in HCMC and Hanoi (2007) 112 Hot Telecom (Mar 08) 113 Transcript from Merlynas public lecture as part of the association of Internet researchers Conference, Australia 27-30 Sep 2007 114 Synovate 2007 ADMA report 2007 115 2007 Asia - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband in Indonesia and Timor Leste by Paul Budde (Sep 07) 116 April 2008 - Hot Telecom Market Statistics and Forecast 117 OgilvyOne Jakarta (Jun08) 118 Antara news 2Jul08: Article: Friendster mobile site now available in Indonesian 119 http://inlogicalbearer.blogspot.com/2008/01/facebookstatistics-slow-down-in-north.html 120 Budi Patra journalist and blogger (2007) 121 http://indonesiafirst.com/2008/04/indonesia-bans-youtubemyspace/ 122 2008 Asia - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband in Indonesia and Timor Leste by Paul Budde & Hot Telecm Market Statistics a&Forecast Report (Apr08) 123 I-Pop EVP, Colin Miles (Mar08) 124 Antara news 2Jul08: Article: Friendster mobile site now available in Indonesian 125 Antara news 2Jul08: Article: Friendster mobile site now available in Indonesian 126 http://internet.nectec.or.th/webstats/home.iir?Sec=home 127 Thailands Mobile Market Reached 53 Million Subscribers by End-2007: Business Wire, May 23, 2008/ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2008_May _23/ai_n25452529?tag=rel.res5 128 Thailands Mobile Market Reached 53 Million Subscribers by End-2007: Business Wire, May 23, 2008/ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2008_May _23/ai_n25452529?tag=rel.res5 129 ADMA 2007 Report: Extract from Synovate Media Atlas: Bangkok Residents (2007) 130 Nectec government research as referenced by ADMA ASPAC Yearbook Report - 2008 131 Bangkok Post, Mar06: Citizen journalism in action: Interestingly named, The Media Slut is a new medium covering Thailands political unrest 132 Microsoft survey on blogging (Aug-Sep 2006) 133 Universal McCann Report (Mar08) 134 Hi-5 Presentation Top Space Feb08 135 Facebook Advertising Centre: Facebook subscribers from Jan to Jun 08 136 Facebook Advertising Centre: Facebook subscribers from Jan to Jun 08 137 Truehits.net-Jun 2008 138 Truehits.net-Jun 2008 139 Bangkok Post ADMA Report 2007
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Acknowledgements
This paper has involved a lot of people so thanks to you all for your time, effort and passion for this thriving medium you know who you are. An extra special thanks goes to our social media gurus who inspired us to think of social media as a practical and very real discipline: E27 Google Loosewireblog.com MTV Asia Mr Brown.com OgilvyOne Asia OgilvyPR USA Wego.com Yahoo! SEA : : : : : : : : : Justin Lee & Bjorn Lee, Joint Founders Vinton Cerf, VP and Chief Internet Evangelist Jeremy Wagstaff, BBC, Asia WSJ and Technology Commentator Ian Stewart, Senior Vice President Lee Kin Mun, Founder & Blogger Kent Wertime, President Rohit Bhargava, Senior Vice President 360 Digital Influencer Miguel Bernas, Marketing Director Ken Mandel Vice President & Regional MD
All the content featured in this study is the opinion of OgilvyOne gleaned from a wide range of independent sources. Whilst eve ry precaution has been taken in the preparation of this document, OgilvyOne assumes no responsibility for errors, omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information herein. Products or corporate names may be trademarks of other companies and are used only for the explanation and to the owners benefit, without intent to infringe. All content herein may be reproduced and used provided that credit is given to OgilvyOne Asia Pacific and www.ogilvy.com

Asia Social Media Report 2008 - Can Brands Have A Social Life

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INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL FROM OGILVYONE WORLDWIDE

CAN BRANDS HAVE A SOCIAL LIFE?

Asia Pacific Offices

Join the conversation blog at www.the-open-room.com

CONSULTANCY SERVICES FROM

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What is Social Media?

Figure 1: Asia Social Media Landscape

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The Social Media evolution

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Why should brands in Asia care?

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Asia Market Analysis: The size of the pie

Asia Social Media Market Analysis

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Figure 3: Asia Social Media Cluster Grid

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Cluster 1: Leader Markets China, Korea, Japan

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Cluster 2: Developing Markets Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, India

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Cluster 3: Developing Markets Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam

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Cluster 4: Follower Markets Indonesia, Thailand

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Active Engagers distribute good category content to peer

Figure 5: The Social Media Influencer Model

Figure 4: The Multiplier Effect

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Figure 6: sMedia 5-Step Planning Process

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Measurement: How do we measure Social Media?

Figure 7: sMedia Measurement Framework

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Case Studies: So whos doing Social Media well in Asia?

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