Communication for the connected generation

Saturday September 19, 2009
Communication for the connected generation
COMMENT
By DAVID GIBSON

MALAYSIANS between the ages of 15 and 40 are now digitally-astute ‘netizens’. Many of them have become message creators, carriers, and communicators in a re-mix culture via social media.
The implications for marketers, are profound. No longer is the brand in control with one-to-many communications. The leading edge has shifted to many-to-many communications, putting the message consumer at the heart of message development.
The role of online communications is one of influencing and involving these ‘netizens’, where content solely created to proliferate a message, is increasingly being bypassed in favour of co-creation strategies.
Malaysian Internet users like Facebook, Myspace, and Friendster. They’re also connecting via Twitter, LindedIn and Plaxo, and eBlogger.
They use resources such as Slideshare, iTunes, Flickr, and YouTube.
Nine of the Top 20 websites in Malaysia are social networking sites, and the top 6 sites are Yahoo!, Facebook, Google.com.my, YouTube, Google.com, and Blogger.
Social media big in Malaysia
By 2010 there will be 17 million Internet users in Malaysia. 45% of Malaysians are between the ages of 15 and 40, 31% under the age of 15.
By 2016, 2.6 million younger Malaysians will be newly-active consumers.
They increasingly get their news online, they belong to a variety of social networks, they actively consume and adapt information, and they have a sense of global culture.
Some 100,000 Malaysians are joining Facebook every month, on top of the 1.4 million Malaysians who have already joined city, workplace, business, professional, and social groups on Facebook, to share information about themselves and the things they’re thinking and doing, to gather support for causes, to publicise affiliations and proliferate news and views – from photos, videos, information, games, contests, music, to promotions, events, issues, and awareness-raising.
Social media is huge, it’s trusted by users, it moulds perception, and it’s not going away. In Malaysia, 80% of affluent Malaysians (those with a household income above RM5,000) use social networking sites.
78% of people trust the recommendations of other consumers, while only 14% trust advertising.
Messaging via social sites is now more popular than email, and 32% trust bloggers’ opinions on products and services.
Communicating with Malaysian Netizens
Marketing to these netizens requires conversation, visual story-telling, intangibles, engagement of the imagination, participation and involvement, immediacy, authenticity, and manageable information options.
Messaging via online media is therefore now creating experiences beyond passive instruments like websites, online banners and search engines, to engage via social networking campaigns, user-generated content, blogging, ratings, tagging, bookmarking, and microblogging.
For communicators, there has never been a greater opportunity to engage consumers – for collaboration, promotions, customer service, stakeholder communications, support- and loyalty-building, and thought leadership.
It’s an environment where this year’s Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival award winner was a small tourist board who used social media to promote a destination by inviting people to apply for the ‘Best Job in the World’ – as the blogging caretaker of remote Hamilton Island in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
Using PR and word-of-mouth, the campaign generated 34,000 YouTube video applications from 200 countries, and 500,000 votes for applicants.
With smart PR using social media, the campaign tapped into the fact that 10% of social network users are active content creators. Their impact is vast, and they can become the secret weapon in your next campaign.
In Malaysia, subject matter enthusiasts are creating many new online communities on topics as varied as movies, books, food, parenting, holidays and travel, green communities, gaming, business networking, seminars and conferences, presenting new opportunities for mainstream marketers – through interest group creation, engagement, forums, participation, sponsorship, collaboration, public relations, advocacy, creative promotions, online video, customer service strategies, and other means.
Many new opportunities
There are many new opportunities to start researching, listening, polling, and engaging the public to tap into needs, wants and preferences in a more inclusive, positive and participatory manner than was ever possible via traditional outreach media.
This starts by finding appropriate influencers for any issue, topic, product, or interest. They can be subject matter experts, media or cultural elite, socially connected interest leaders and networkers; and include opinion leaders, decision makers, experts, analysts, critics, columnists, trendsetters, idea creators, idea starters and idea spreaders.
The next step is to energise creative messaging campaigns with them, by activating the most passionate influencers, sharing information with them, creatively including them in adapting and building the message and generating support to get them to embrace new ideas, offerings and products.
Measure the outcomes through polls, satisfaction indexes, new followers, subscribers and customers.

David Gibson is managing director of Inter.Asia Communications, a connected communications consultancy (
www.inter-asia.biz). This article was extracted from an executive talk given at INTAN on Tuesday.

http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/9/19/business/4739049&sec=business