Social Media Breakfast | Singapore

This is a belated post but following the generous donations at Social Media Breakfast | Singapore 8 (and indeed the whole year), we’ve finally broken even and money that has come out of our own pockets from 2008 for the domain name and catering have been repaid (with a little $1.30 self-donation to round the numbers off).

Thank you everyone who contributed to the fund to keep SMB going for the community and we really hope everyone has benefited from SMB in one way or another in the last two years.

We’re going to take some time off for the first few months of 2010 to re-organise and all that, but when we’re ready to start the year with Social Media Breakfast | Singapore 9, you’ll be the first to know.

Til then, the best way of keeping current is by subscribing to this blog via RSS, or joining our Facebook Fan Page.

Thanks for a great 2009 and here’s wishing you an even better 2010!

Just wanted to give a big shoutout to all those who braved the torrential rains this morning to come for SMBSG 7 – just look at the crowd… Absolutely psyched to know that the local social media community is taking off (we have more people outside the borders of this photo!)

Props also to Lenovo for sponsoring the great brunch/their place.. and the peeps from Text 100, Express in Music, Waggener, Brandtology, Ammado and #bthon.

If you were there, we’d love to hear your feedback -> Here’s where you can do your thing!

http://bit.ly/smbsg7feedback

Till the next SMB, stay tuned!

pssst.. we have a spankin’ new Fanpage up at http://bit.ly/smbsgfanpage

Its been awhile since we last met! No, we’ve not forgotten nor are we going to let SMB just die a natural death. We have been in planning and talks and the next SMB is taking place in September!

To prep us all for the upcoming session, we would like to invite you to help decide on which topic should be brought up for discussion at the next session. We’ve shortlisted a few that we felt are interesting and worth debating discussing. And here you get to vote for your most desired topic. The one that gets the highest rating from now till we announce the next SMB will be discussed.

Do feel free to suggest topics for discussions too in the comments section. Also do suggest suitable panelists or moderators which you deem fit for the topics you’re in favor for.

Let’s make the next SMB a more fruitful and interactive one! We’re taking baby steps still, and we hope you will take these steps with us and grow together.

Updated on 23 August 2009
Go on, vote for your topics now… Voting of topics is now close. Below is the result of your votes…

1. Social media campaigns – sharing of case studies from Singapore with total score of 216
2. Where is all these social media talks going? What’s next? with total score of 194
3. What is the face/nature of Singapore’s social media scene? And should there be changes? with total score of 185
4. Should social media in Singapore be put to more societal causes? Or are there too many already? with total score of 152
5. Is the rising popularity of social media a self-defeating one? with total score of 148
6. Should social media be taught in school? with total score of 145

There were total of 65 responses for the vote.

Now for us to compile and find case studies to share at the next SMB in September. If you have good case study to share, please let us know.

This is the data collected from the feedback form. Note that sample size is very small (n=15), so take what you read with a pinch of salt…

First up, most people did feel that the discussion was geared towards beginner social media users, and no one felt it was aimed at experienced social media users. So at least in terms of fulfilling that goal, we were on track.

SMB6 Feedback: Demographics

Another thing that was clear? People didn’t like SMB6 quite as much:

SMB6 Feedback: Rating

Some ones, some twos, lots of threes, no fours or fives. Average rating of 2.13.

On what the audience thought was good (note: I did try to categorise them as conveniently as possible):

SMB6 Feedback: Positive

Interestingly enough, people liked the networking/socialising, which was how SMB1 and SMB2 were structured (ie without a panel and/or formal discussion). Does this mean anything?

And on what people didn’t like (again, same thing with the categorisation):

SMB6 Feedback: Negative

I don’t think this is really surprising feedback. Well actually “too crowded” is interesting feedback cos obviously more people could be interpreted as a plus too.

Here’s where things get interesting. Looking at some verbatim quotes, I’m beginning to see hints of why people who liked the 2008 SMBs and people who didn’t like the 2008 SMBs are pretty much split down the middle.

Positive

• Good food
• Can see you made the effort to diversify your panel
• Ideas tossed out. They were hard questions too. Getting valuable insight from the panelists.

Negative

• The food was bad
• Topics were not in-depth enough and not thoroughly discussed
• Content was too shallow

It seems there really are two sides to the SMB coin.

I guess moving forward, the things we can easily fix are the space and sound, and hopefully with those two restrictions out of the way, we can work on the other stuff as well.

I’m sure content is an iffy subject. It does tend to be hard for us to come up with discussion topics because who knows what the audience wants? Certainly from this feedback it seems different segments want different things.

So as always, we’re open to suggestions for discussion topics from the community (though we rarely get any). If you felt the discussion this time round wasn’t very good, what topic would be more relevant? That said, do keep in mind we still want to keep SMB beginner-friendly.

Thoughts on the data?

Hello everyone,

SMB6 is at Tang’s Island Cafe and is just about starting now! Dorothy here and I’ll be kicking off tonight’s live blogging.

Daryl is starting us off with a little introduction to SMB. We’d like to be the “introduction” to the social media scene in Singapore, if you will, so everyone can feel comfortable at our events, regardless of your expertise with social media.

Things the peeps can look forward to at this SMB:

The unveiling of Virtual Tangs, on Second Life and the consumer panel so the audience will be able to ask any burning questions that they have!

Consumer Panel:

Right now, the question being asked of the consumer panel is – Do you trust marketing? From the replies, we are getting a healthy level of skepticism so characteristic of Gen Y. Yes, they will view the marketing, advertisements and so forth, but they will definitely verify the information with other sources, namely other consumers and their blogs. Marketing, still, is perceived to be mostly informational, rather than conversational. Yet, we are seeing that consumers seem to prefer a more conversational, bi-directional style when it comes to introducing them to new products and services.

Loyalty programs? Do they work?
Nicole is saying that if she is already a fan of the brand, she does not mind signing up. Other loyalty programs, she signs up mainly for the discounts and incentives offered, and she does not feel particularly for the brand. Don, on the other hand, has expressed that he does like loyalty cards, as long as he derives benefits.

Daniel still believes that loyalty cards still work in drawing repeat visits, an added value to keep people going back to the store. An “advertisement that is kinda stuck in your wallet,” is how he portrays it.

Facebook Groups v.s Facebook Fan pages?

It seems that the general sentiment about groups is that they are not very effective, and largely run by IT staff instead of the editorial team, or the people really in the position to engage in genuine dialouge about the brand, service or product.

Yin is telling us that it seems that you just need to start a group, and then it would be ideal if then the “members” take over, and start generating conversations of their own. A FB group goes two ways, you could upload content, and hope that members will start talking about it, or you could simply create the group, and hope that the dialouge takes on a life of its own.

Another flaw is spamming members of a group with email blasts with content that could be found on the pages or websites. Summarizing content, or adding new content is definitely going to be more ideal. Daniel is bringing us back to some content that was discussed in SMB 4 that he liked, that FB groups works for some people, and for other corporations, it may not. Social media tools are a dime a dozen, but one should not adopt all the tools just because they exists. It would be more effective to select the tools that can accomplish what you need to get done.

Grilling time! The floor is open to the audience.

Q1. How negative is it for brands to be on FB, but not engage consumers? It’s so easy to set up a page, but without further follow through, how will this impact the brand?

Don aka Booonster:: You have to update regularly to capture your audience, if not what is the point of setting up the group in the first place. Is FB the right platform to engage your audience? Perhaps another avenue or channel might be more apt to reach them.

Daniel: It really depends on what the purpose of the group is. If no conversations are happening in the group, it is going to be forgotten by the consumers. This is alright if the brand might be lower profile, but if you are a prominent brand, you may still have a loyal following on the group. This raises the question of frequency and quality of posting. A truly high profile CEO post, by the likes of Steve Jobs, might be really positive for the brand, regardless of the frequency of updates in the group.

Kris: It is pretty hard to attend to all the wall posts when there is a lot of conversation going on, so the page must definitely be maintained, so you are aware of what content is being posted by the people.

Yin: Before any brand creates a FB group, perhaps the question could be, is this the best platform? Is there a need for this page/group? A million eyeballs might be on FB, but if none of them are interested in your group/page, this will not translate to any positive results.

Q2. On one hand, people want genuine conversations with brands. On the other hand, it feels like there is a lack of trust between consumers and brands anyway? How can this be reconciled? And what about pages that are created by fans, but are not from the brand itself?

Daniel: Let’s talk about the FB group created about SIA, which was not continued, but as long as people do not start pretending that they are FROM SIA, there is potential for this to generate some positive sentiments towards the brands.

Willy is also talking about other brands that may want to monitor what is being said on fan pages. One way to circumvent this issue is to ask fans to place a note or link at the bottom, where viewers can be referred to the official brand if they have additional questions.

Nicole and Don: As long as the message is not too pushy, sincerly delivered, it will go down better with consumers. The brands may not be telling you reasons why you shouldn’t buy their product, but at least they could be truthful and forthright.

Daniel: My wish, as a consumer, is that companies will make meaning and not money. If corporations could take the approach of “I’m here today to create a product that will improve your life”, rather than just focusing on the money, it would make a big difference. Opening up avenues for feedback or complaints also helps consumers to perceive that you are genuine about engaging your consumers.

Q3. The new facebook redesign is so cluttered. How can brands break through the noise to get through to people?

Kris: Frankly, after the new FB redesign, I haven’t been logging in so frequently. I just stick to my RSS feeds and such. However, other sites have reported an increase in traffic from the new redesign, so I guess it really depends.

Virtual Tangs

And now we’re having a little preview of Virtual Tangs! It’s basically Tangs in Second Life, down to the facade and interiors. And the best part? Virtual purchases in Tangs can translate to real life savings if you print out the vouchers

After this, we’re going to go into the Earth Hour segment…. so… things are probably going to be quiet (and black) here from now!

P.S Were you at SMB 6? We’d love to hear from you!