How western brands and agencies can make their social strategies work in Asia
As today's Man About Asia episode explains, the social media boom in Asia presents enormous opportunities for marketers. But simply duplicating social strategies that have worked in Europe or the US in Asia will probably lead to failure.
While the likes of Facebook and Twitter do have a presence in Asia, the region is not the exclusive preserve of the western social giants. As Wayne Arnold, Lowe Profero CEO and chair of the Marketing Society southeast Asia, puts it: "For every Silicon Valley [network], there's a Silicon Dragon – a local equivalent often doing it faster, quicker and smarter than the big Silicon Valley players."
So with social so heavily engrained in Asia's culture, how can marketers in the west take the first steps to develop social strategies that translate in Asia?
Continuing our series of vox pops with local experts, we put that question to social specialists familiar with the region to find out what they recommend.
Jeremy Webb, national director of Social@Ogilvy, China
The first watch out is that there's no such thing as an 'Asia social strategy' per se. Asian countries differ from each other as much as they do with countries in the West. User behaviours and attitudes in Japan differ wildly to those in Myanmar, for example; China has none of the platforms you'd consider for most of the other markets.
If you can afford to do so, be rigorous in researching consumer and platform insights on a country by country basis. In my experience, it's better to get a couple of your most important markets right than to do a mediocre job in all of them.
Having said that, there are some economies of scale that can be achieved when working on multiple markets. We work on a major airline, hubbing a five-market solution from Beijing. For sure, we run campaigns and content that begin, on a market level, with market-specific insights, but in some cases, especially when it's 'brand/product/service-first', we're able to create this on a regional or global level, and will only need translations for the relevant languages. Working in this way generates significant cost savings for our client.
Chloe McKenna, social media strategist, Oban Digital
There is no doubt that Asia presents a massive (and still growing) opportunity to marketers. China alone has more active social media users than Facebook has globally, but many marketers are at a loss when it comes to launching within this lucrative market.
With Facebook and Twitter out of the equation for some Asian markets such as China, even basic decisions such as choosing which platforms to focus on requires thought and planning. It is never a great idea to simply translate a campaign which was successful on Facebook in a European market, migrate it to a platform such as Sina Weibo and hope for the best; the cultural expectations and behaviours of Asian users are distinct and you need to think these through before any activity begins.
You really need to conduct thorough local-market discovery research to ascertain exactly what your target audience looks like as an essential first step. This will provide invaluable understanding of who your intended customers really are, how they use social media to interact with brands and what messaging will actually resonate with them.
In-depth research and planning will not only mean the difference between success and failure in terms of your social KPIs, but will also mitigate the risk of offending and ultimately alienating your intended audience.
Read more advice on marketing in Asia:
What you need to know about Asia: Three marketers share their inside knowledge
How should marketers decide where to base themselves in Asia?
What marketers need to know about China's unique and challenging homegrown media landscape
Social skills: what can the west can learn from Asia's social media subculture?