Singapore's Politicians on Social Media

Social Media is used by several politicians in Singapore, some more than others.

While many still believe that Social Media is about having Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, some still think numbers matter.

With a drive to make Lee Kwan Yew the most popular politician on social media, he did not engage anyone and now Nicole Seah has more fans than him.

However, Chen Shao Mao seems to get the most people talking about it.

What matrices is most important?

What do you think?

-- Robin Low

Public Engagement through social media

There are a lot of difference between "likes", "comments" and actually getting people to take action.

The number of comments that you get when you share a post, and the sentiment is also very important.

It takes time to build followers, trust and affinity. And Public Engagement is a skill that one should not assume that one already knows in the new digital sphere.

Come find out more about social media, open your mind and learn more.

-- Robin Low


'Silent Majority is truly disturbing' -- Good read

"Take Workers' Party Chen Show Mao, for example.

He is beguiling, wide-eyed, charismatic, eloquent, effectively bilingual, selfless, determined and social media-savvy.

And when he speaks in Parliament, he has everyone eating out of his hands.

When he updates his status on Facebook, he creates a virtual stampede to see who can "Like" his post first.

Half the ladies on my Facebook friends list are saying they fantasise about the day they meet the Workers' Party MP in a dark, lonely alley.

So that they can have the chance to converse with him in their half-past six Mandarin without anyone within earshot and feeling embarrassed that they are only mastering the Chinese language now to communicate with this Taiwan-born maverick.

The other half, more or less, are quite convinced they want to have his babies.

It's safe to say if this trend carries on, it won't bode well for your party in the future."

iSlap

iSlap is invented.

Have you slapped anyone with your iPad lately?

Wonder if this video will go viral?

Its your fault -- NEW MEDIA

After the Arab spring, many countries have blamed their problems on New Media. "Information is spreading too fast. We can't stop all the rumors."

For many decades, the government in many countries have no transparency, and a state controlled media where information they do not wish to share is simply not reported. Controlling the media allows the government to craft their messages and share what information they deem is required.

New media had caused turmoil in the Arab world, where popular uprisings ousted the autocratic leaders of Egypt and Tunisia and brought the Libyan regime to its knees. In Singapore, new media sites are more influential than all the other newspapers with more engagement, discussions and reads.

Many governments want to "control the Internet", either by censoring or blocking sites or imposing fines on a certain code of conduct. Many government are unable to respond to critics when they roll out an unpopular law, and pledge "responsible expression" or a code of conduct on the Internet. In Singapore, the ministers call social media, "The Wild West" and condemn the use of many site which reports on their failings.

But what exactly has changed? What made these government fear or hate social media? In essence, nothing much have changed. People will always complain about bad policies or information that seems unjust. The only main difference is, the government gets real feedback from real people who feel the need to share. So why do the government fear the rise of social media?

1) Unfamiliarity causes fear. Most people in power are not Gen-Y and do not grow up using their gadgets. But just think about emails, 10 years ago, many of them will still be expecting mail, but now email is a standard form of communication.

2) Some may feel that they are too important to engage with the public on social media, or their privacy is threatened. The truth is, you are the one sharing data, and if the information does not put you in a good light, then you have the choice not to share.

3) People will give lots of negative feedback if you engage on social media. However, people will talk with or without you. With social media, you get informed on the negative feedback and it is not filtered from you.

4) People can form groups faster and create instability. On social media, it is true that people can form groups faster. But instead of complaining, large organizations like Red Cross and many other NGOs have used it to create more awareness and raised more funds for their causes. The government can also engage and influence to win more people on their policies.

5) Social media is a waste of time. Although social media may be a "time-suck", when use properly, it disseminates information faster than one-to-one communications. When you ask a question on your twitter account, all of your followers can read and may respond to you.


A good policy is important for successful social media engagement. Social media is here to stay and it is just another medium of communications. Don't blame social media. Instead on leverage and you can find the ease to reach more people and get real feedback.

-- Robin Low

The Indonesian Way: When in doubt, blame the New Media

Social Media Manager vs. Community Manager

I have been encouraging companies who are getting into social media to get a community manager, and even explaining the concept of the Community Manager, many people still do not get it. The person they tend to hire is a Social Media Manager, and there is a difference.

Social media manager

A social media manager takes the lead in managing the overall efforts of a company social media platform. He is responsible for creating content specific to a product or brand strategy across social networks. They monitor and create engagement to achieve goals of a specific campaign, and measure ROI.

Community manager

A community manager's role is mainly to monitor and engage the public for that community. After which, the community manager will feedback what is learned from the community to the company. I consider a community manager to be more detailed and involved in certain aspects of social media, whereas a social media manager can manage more of the bigger picture aspects of online marketing.


Do you believe they vary for a small business vs. an enterprise?

Usually, an enterprise would hire several social media managers, and they may not be even in charge of developing the strategy, however for small businesses, a social media manager would wear many hats and focus on one or 2 channels.

A community manager in a small business may actually take on the role of social media manager, having many responsibilities including creating content, however a community manager in a large enterprise may just be in charge of engagement on one or 2 channels.

With a good community manager and social media manager, a company or an enterprise can monitor brand and prevent social media crisis from happening.

-- Robin Low

Is New media still New to the government?

In 2006 when the government first attempted to ban internet electioneering. It did not work. Now The government is also using tools to monitor and restrict free speech online.

A man in Singapore is facing charges of incitement of violence due to comments made on Facebook about the Government’s preparations for last month’s Summer Youth Olympic Games.

Abdul Malik, a 27-year-old project officer in a construction company, was a a member of the Facebook page “I hate the Youth Olympics Games’ Organising Committee”, an on-line dedicated to criticising the Government’s preparations for the Games and the cost of them. On the Facebook site, Abdul called for “us to burn Vivian Balakrishnan”, Singapore’s Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports the head of the organising committee.

Malik claimed meant the statement as a metaphor – to vote out the ruling People’s Action Party, of which Balakrishnan is a member.

Temasek Review, a site critical about the government is also taken down.(quietly)

“The government has, over the last few years in particular, referred to the new media in largely pejorative terms – the Prime Minister has previously referred to it as the “wild west” and more recently, as a “cowboy town”. But the reality is this – the new media is here to stay, and it will continue to eat into the mindshare of the mainstream media, no matter what the government chooses to call it. Temasek Review may have gone offline, but it is not going to be too difficult or technically challenging to bring 10 new incarnations of Temasek Review online overnight.”
-MP for Aljinied GRC, Pritam Singh

Many of the world's media have evolved into a more open and engaging media. News have became more social than ever before with the internet, yet many news broadcasters have this believe.

To come up with innovative ways to engage viewers, public broadcasters will have to refine and improve our story-telling techniques.

Isn't this public diplomacy? This concept should not be new to any broadcasting network that is not in a monopolistic domain. This role differs in many ways from traditional public relations or public affairs, which despite a recent influx of new technologies still mainly involves “providing information for the public” at its core. Corporate public diplomacy, on the other hand, involves actively shaping the communications environment within which corporate activities are performed, and reducing the degree to which misperceptions complicate relations between the company and its customers. In my view, this complex mission is conducted using what I call innovative social engagement.

We are told stories and rhetoric all our lives, and we get engaged in a story that we can relate to. News and information are all experiences which can be told in a form of a perspective or story. However, the story needs to be believable and balanced as well as savvy readers can see a spin.

The problem with a controlled media system is that the view are very much one sided and for other views, readers will go on blogs and other "non-traditional" media for their daily reads. When the other outlets have a differing opinion, the government gets upset as they have lost control over controlling the medium.

In the Internet age, I feel strongly that controlling the media is not a cost effective and efficient way to public engagement. The more restrictive the views are, the more interesting differing opinions will be. (And more people will read)

How do you market an unpopular cause? There are no easy models or quick fixes for a people seeking to establish a legitimate identity or share their experiences and feelings. And an over focus on media and message dissemination (should we have a Facebook page? How many radio stations?) while important, is no replacement for the deeper work of developing a identity story that resonates with the people.

There is a lot of articles online sharing the state of media in Singapore. This one is very interesting. "Impending crunch on New Media?"

New media is not new to the government, they have ignored it much in the past, and tried to control the messages, and today, they are still trying to do so. I feel that the media landscape have changed with the times. To engage people today, the keyword is trust and transparency. Information gets around very quickly and the more "secret" the leaked information is, the more easy it gets viral.

I feel that if the government really wants to engage the public in discussions and move together forward into the future, the media should be more transparent and less controlled. The attempts of their very own "Astro-turfing" has to end and people should be allowed to air their views -- both positive and negative -- in a constructive manner which encourages discussion.

There is a lot of progress as shown by the MPs having Facebook pages, but there should be more willingness to open up, especially to allow feedback (A lot of feedback channels are still blocked on social media.) Addressing the feedback on the channels transparently will also create a positive effect as it show that the government is acting and listening to the public.

It is time for the nation to have a better representation of the people in parliament, after all it is a democracy, and not ALL Singaporeans are scholars (like the majority of the MPs) The ministers do not need so much qualification to run the government, but what they need is empathy, to listen and feel the challenges the public is facing. The multimillion salary also puts the minsters in gap above the average citizen that it is hard to understand their needs and one can only assume as a $15k or $4MM salary means you do not need to take even the efficient public transportation anymore.

New media is not new. The public sentiments are all there to search for, and I'm sure the government does have all the keywords the 80 - 85% who say negative things about them online. Now is the time to act and show you are here to change for a better future of Singapore -- all with the help of social media.

-- Robin Low

Need for social media in Singapore

I've always advocated the need for social media to be in house in Singapore.

Not only social media is important, corporate wide training is essential.

Here in Singapore, pressure groups have employed social media to protest against Resorts World Sentosa's dolphin issues. Most recently, we witnessed how Wildlife Reserves Singapore was flamed on social media as a result of its sudden cancellation of the Halloween Horrors event.

Crisis often comes with internal staff training as well, KFC Malaysia had staff shown a video on them playing with food, and it attracted a lot of attention and negative publicity.

Social Media training is very important as it prepares the whole corporation to engage with the public in a transparent and natural way. Empowering the staff, most staff will not take the opportunity to destroy the company's reputation. With trained staff, enlightened empowerment can indeed allow the business to react to queries faster, and attend to feedback before a disaster occurs.

Monitoring social media does not need to be a one department job.

-- Robin Low

More info: Read.
http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC111004-0000106/Why-businesses-need-in-house-social-media-teams