The digital marketing industry is incredibly competitive, what makes some creative campaigns more effective than others? When it comes to introducing a new product in the market, effective social media strategies are crucial to increase visibility among the target audience, no matter how notable your brand already is. Simply put, an effective strategy is the right idea carried out by the right KOL.

In our recent collaboration with Subway Hong Kong, we’ve fostered a video production that generated some 516,000 video views, 11,000 reactions, 1,500 comments and 3,400 shares since 19 March, 2017. Originated from the U.S.A., Subway is a fast food franchise specialised in submarine sandwiches tailor-made from a variety of ingredients, sauces and bread options. As humdrum as it seems to the Americans, Subway’s ordering routine has become a talk of the town in Hong Kong for customers’ hesitation in pronouncing foreign ingredient names.

For the launch of the brand’s BBQ meatball sandwich, we worked with the young and restless Pomato to produce a hilarious video making fun of local customers placing orders by simply pointing at the food and uttering “This, this, this.”. The video generated empathy among a great deal of social media users.

In order to promote their newly-launched Beef Pastrami Sandwich, we’ve also invited Uncle Siu British English Club, a British English expert with a fan base of around 300,000 to produce a video on the correct pronunciation of Subway ingredients. It took on the momentum of the first video and generated even greater noise, resulting in outstanding marketing effect.

Every brand boasts a unique customer experience. And identifying it helps create engagement and further strengthens its brand-customer relationship. Feel free to contact us for your next viral online campaign.

While jewellers with a strong global presence are highly sought after in China, localising the brand’s marketing campaign to suit local tastes takes great understanding and expertise. Starting from 2017, New Digital Noise has been helping India’s premium diamond jewellery house Nirav Modi to explore both Hong Kong and China markets with very different approaches.

The jeweller has launched the EMBRACE Collection, a series of versatile, innovative and playful diamond jewels with a unique patented stretch mechanism. Based on their distinct market mentality, consumption patterns and usage of digital devices, the Hong Kong campaign focuses on driving an emotional experience and showcasing the collection’s innovative design; while the China campaign stresses luxury and femininity.

We make use of Facebook in Hong Kong to create empathy and engagement through the theme of Embracing Every Moment. With the popularity of live stream mobile applications in China, Nirav Modi’s promotion includes video marketing on YI live streams, which could help building a loyal fan base and bringing brand awareness.

Image and text, videos, native and location ads were used in Wechat to target the Mainland Chinese fan base; while in Hong Kong, the Facebook advertisements feature a visually-appealing and intriguing carousel with tips on creating exciting moments in life to stimulate excitement and pleasure.

The Nirav Modi campaign is a rewarding experience for our team to exercise our understanding of the ever-changing consumer landscapes in both Hong Kong and China markets. Feel free to contact us if you want to know more.

Since the launch of WeChat a little less than seven years ago, Weibo has been fighting a tough fight for users and exposure. But towards the end of 2017, the Chinese social media giant regained momentum and won back the hearts of users in the fast-evolving internet ecosystem. Optimistic figures of performance were recorded in the third quarter last year, with monthly active users amounted to 376 million, 27% more than the same quarter in 2016. The success of Weibo as a full-service digital ecosystem is by no means accidental.

Cao Zeng-hui, vice president of Weibo, attributed the achievement to the efforts Weibo put in video content, vertical segments and multi-channel networks (MCNs).

Videos

Riding on the explosive growth of short-form online videos in China, Weibo has strategically steered its content towards this multimedia format, fostering a staggering 175% consumption growth compared to the same quarter in 2016. Working closely with large television channels and content producers, including sports leagues like the NBA and NFL to keep its short videos topical and refined, the micro-blogging site also launched features such as Slideshow (光影秀) and Weibo Story (微博故事) in the first quarter last year to encourage user-generated content.

Weibo is the primary platform of abounding key opinion leaders (KOL), where they post videos and live video streams. Monetisation methods, paid content, advertising, and e-commerce has been rolled out to boost quality content creation.¹ Through these Chinese celebrities, Weibo is able to reach out to millions of fans, making it an ideal platform to build brand influence. According to Wang Gao-fei, CEO of Weibo, advertisers have made their move to shift ad budgets to video ads.¹ Ultimately, the company expects video to replace photos as the preferred visual medium for social sharing.²

Content Verticalisation

Weibo has been actively creating the presence of 55 vertical content segments, covering food, fashion, sports, pets, education and more. It instigates key opinion leaders and multi-channel networks to create in-depth, specialised content for that particular segment, thus allowing each segment to build stronger user loyalty and cultivate better endorsements. Critics described this business model as one that coupled top content creators and e-commerce to generate impressive growth in revenues.

Multi-Channel Networks (MCNs)

As of November 2017, Weibo has collaborated with more than 1,200 multi-channel networks, offering them programming, funding, cross-promotion, audience development and other services to support their growth. MCNs are the reasons for Weibo’s expanding video database. A key player in Weibo’s efforts in content verticalisation, MCNs like papitube, Pear Video and Beauty Q partner with top content creators to create premium, content-rich materials for Weibo users that presents avenues to improved engagement.²

As a result of its strategic planning, Weibo is able to strike back and rebuild a presence in China’s competitive social media landscape. And its marketing potential to help your brand gain a foothold in the China market is not to be underestimated. Feel free to chat with us if there is anything we can help!

 

References:

1)http://technode.com/2017/02/23/video-saves-weibo-from-two-year-decline-best-year-2016-sina

²⁾ https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/08/29/3-quotes-that-tell-weibos-growth-story.aspx

³⁾ 微博用户发展报告

Are you wondering how social media marketing will change this year? Need some fresh ideas? This article might be able to help.

#1: Instagram

If you still haven’t jumped on the bandwagon, you really should. It is a good way to get brand awareness and grow followers. Across the globe, there are over 800 million Instagrammers — more than 500 million of whom use Instagram every single day, sharing more than 250 million pieces of content each day. If you have a good image and use the right hashtag, you will draw much attention and attract the people you want.

If you compare to Facebook, Instagram is still relatively cheaper to grow followers. We think that 2018 might be the last year where the overall cost to grow followers is still low.

#2: Facebook

Facebook is a good way to build community, but if your Facebook strategy is to chase Like, it is the wrong approach. What makes a page successful and keep attracting viewers is the quality of your content and its context. If they like your content, they will come back. Likes are expensive. It costs an average of HK$30 per Like.

Facebook is for mature audience, at least in Hong Kong. The average age of Facebook user is 35. People at this age or older refrain from Liking posts, while still logging in every day to see what is going on with their friends or see what their favourite brands are promoting. You will be wasting your effort chasing Likes when your target audience doesn’t like to leave trails on social media.

#3: Media Personalities

Call them KOLs, influencers or media personalities. If you don’t already know them, you should.

Akina Fong 方健儀 you will recognise her from TVB evening news a few years back. Akina is a very experienced journalist who worked for RTHK and TVB News. After six years with TVB News, she became the Senior Information Officer, News at the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). Now she does various freelance projects, ranging from event MC, writing column articles and creating online content with different media and brands. She is such a versatile personality that she can switch topics from geopolitics to lifestyle. Brands love to work with her because of her journalism background and professionalism.

Pomato 小薯茄 produces numerous funny short videos. They are a team of four who graduated from film studies and decided to set up their own production company. The four of them are usually the key characters in their videos, think early days James Corden, but younger with high local relevance. They have over 57,000 followers on Facebook.

WHIZOO has over 110,000 followers on Facebook. They are a media brand on Facebook; think the early days of 100毛, but more lifestyle-focused and without print. Every Friday night they do a one-hour Facebook Live show discussing different topics that are very relatable to the audience in their 20’s.

#4: Live Broadcast on Social Media

People love to go to live concerts or theatres. If tickets sold out or you cannot be there physically, would you be willing to pay to watch live broadcast online? We see that monetising live online broadcast or Facebook Live will be something entertainment sector might develop. Instead of watching for free, viewers will have to pay a fee, register or play a quick game so brands can build their database further, another way to connect with the target market.

#5: Payment Application

Small online stores that operate on Facebook or Instagram will find new payment applications like HSBC’s PayMe very useful. PayMe is designed for HSBC customers to pay their friends swiftly and hassle-free. Facebook has always wanted to launch a payment system but till now it is not available. Setting up online payment with credit card companies is not cheap. PayMe is easy to use and it can transfer money to different banks and most credit cards, it has potential to be big. If popularity continues to grow, HSBC can monetise it through placing ads in the application. PayMe is an application worth paying attention to since many bank with HSBC in Hong Kong.

Over the past few years, brands and marketers have transformed how they manage their communications and marketing. While it remains important to identify target channels through relevant media, publications and formats – brands and marketers have taken it up a notch, to direct their attention to a multitude of potential key opinion leaders (KOLs) and sources, seeking them out to leverage on their following of fans and readers.

The idea using KOLs to influence demand and enhance targeted communication is not a new concept, but in the digital age of information-saturation – consumers increasingly look to reviews, endorsements and validation of trusted experts or public figures, that are non-celebrities, to help filter through the clutter in their decision making process.

We have seen the rise and successes of columnists, socialites, bloggers, and popular Twitter personalities successfully grow an audience of followers within the digital realm, with Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and personal Blogs (or all platforms) – giving them a level of influence perhaps greater than the mass media, on a wide range of topics.

Developing an effective and scalable KOL engagement strategy is increasingly important to expand the reach of communications; connect to a targeted segment of consumers based on demographics, psychographics and lifestyle choices; differentiating your business form the competitors; stretch your marketing dollar without splashing it out on celebrity endorsements and most significantly, to create trust with different segments of consumers using the enhanced influencer validation, to reduce barriers to sales and conversion.

In our post, we will examine the ways in which brands and marketers can engage KOLs, and how KOL Marketing can work alongside to support other core marketing tools and channels such as Social Media, SEO and Digital Advertising and PR.

Working with key opinion leaders needs to contribute to your overall marketing communications strategic framework.  It is important to plan and develop an approach to identify relevant KOLs and understand their needs, interests and audiences to create a sustainable long-term relationship that creates value for both parties. Developing your KOL engagement strategy in this will help resonate with individual influencers, their own unique personalities, brands – which in turn will improve the success rates of your activity and KOL efforts.

Identify who you want to build relationships with and ensure there is a good fit between your brand or messages and the personal brand, audience and area of influence of the people your are targeting. While its is important to look to the number of followers or fan base of KOLs as indicators, the qualitative aspect is also critical, as it will strongly impact on the type and profiles of audience, and how you can build brand loyalty and conversions over time.

Identifying the right KOLs is an ongoing process and as you build networks of industry influencers, you will meet and connect with more over time. After you have developed your initial list of KOLs, evaluate and refine who will be right for your brand, and monitor KOLs already in your network or those mentioning your brand, and plan a content strategy to share and   engage with them and their audiences.

Key Opinion Leaders are influential and have reach because they have built an audience and community of followers that enjoys reading their opinions, or shares similar interests. KOLs generally play multiple roles as bloggers, editor and critiques on a subject matter, and are increasingly more compelling than traditional journalists.

KOLs need to keep their audiences happy and are more discerning towards the interests of their followers, than promoting your brand. Rather than using push tactics to sell your brand and products/services, support the KOLS in finding engaging ways to help them better connect with their audience. This will dramatically improve your success rate and quality of relationships with your target KOLs.

Like PR, KOL marketing is about building reach, rather than paying through marketing dollars – but that doesn’t mean success comes for free. Creating compelling content, with useful information, and engaging with audience with experiences and events are critical to keeping the relationship alive.

Brand and marketers often forget that like any other relationships in life, engaging with KOLs should be an ongoing process. Be sincere in your approach in nurturing and supporting them regularly with interesting content and experiences, rather than only contacting them when you have a campaign or product/service to ‘push’. All ongoing relationships are reciprocal so make an effort to focus on your KOLs’ unique passions, interests, personalities and audience.

KOL marketing requires a focused strategy, creativity, and investment on an ongoing basis. It is important to keep in mind that KOL marketing ultimately about creating and exchanging value between your brand and the people you to connect to within the KOLs’ audiences and networks.

We believe that these are some KOL Marketing approaches to help you get started to support your marketing plan and improve your chances of success. We have worked with global and local brands with highly influential KOLs using Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Bloggers in the healthcare, beauty, fashion and luxury sectors for KOL Marketing and if you would like to learn more about working with KOLs, do contact us info@ndn.com.hk or call us at +852 2831 1888 today for a consultation.