Facebook to reach the region.

Facebook and social media is definitely a great way to reach out regionally if you are in Asia.

Indonesia Facebook Users Exceed UK and Indonesia is now the #2 country with more than 28 million Facebook users.

Recently, Philippines surpasses 18 million Facebook users
Pinoy Facebook users 6th most in the world The Philippines only trails the US, Indonesia, the UK, Turkey, and France.

With these 2 countries with tremendous growth in Facebook and social media usage, it is no wonder many companies who are in Singapore want to get on Social Media.

Using social media, companies can reach out across borders with much less costs. The statement, "My market is not on Facebook" is less and less true as more people across different demographics are beginning to join in social media.

With the increasing popularity of 3G devices, iPads, Windows 7 Phones and other Android devices, users are no longer tied down to their notebooks and desktops. The can access their social network on the go, and you can see more people now updating on Gowalla or Foursquares, thanks to new technologies.

It is imperative to engage with your customers, know what they like, and have products they care about.

If there is any time to get on social media, the time is NOW.

-- Robin Low

Allow Photo-Tagging by Fans on Your Facebook Page

If you ever wanted to allow fans to tag themselves without asking for permissions or be your friends, here is how you can do it.

Go straightly to the app settings. Just replace ‘xxxxxxxx’ with your own Page ID inside the link below will do (2305272732 is the application ID for Photo app):

http://www.facebook.com/pages/edit/app_settings.php?id=xxxxxxxx&aid=2305272732

How to Locate Your Facebook Page ID?

If you have not created a vanity URL for your page, you can easily obtain the page ID from the default link – the number at the back as indicated:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/SocialHub/367955087041

Once you have claimed your business page username, the page ID is no where in sight. What you can do is hover over ‘Edit Page’ then look for your page ID underneath your browser. Copy that and insert the numbers into the link above.

To find your Page ID, click on EDIT PAGE (See Red arrow on above pic)

The string of numbers in the top URL is the page ID (See red arrow in picture above)



Next: Replace your page ID to xxxxxxxxx and enter the link.
e.g. http://www.facebook.com/pages/edit/app_settings.php?id=367955087041&aid=2305272732

When you get into the URL, you get to see the option to allow fans to edit your photo.

This is a little complex, but it works.

-- Robin Low

Understanding Social Media in Singapore

Prof Michael Netzley from SMU did a research on why we go online in Singapore.

The results clearly show that from the people surveyed, the #1 reason people go online nowadays in Singapore is for social interactions. Coming in Second, is News.

On 16 June 2010, "Orchard Road" became a trending topic on Twitter, and it was due to an unexpected flood that happened that flooded the tourist shopping district. This high volume of tweets coming from a small country like Singapore actually made it to the trending topic because there are actually about 930,000 Twitter users in Singapore, and since Twitter is growing fast in Singapore and people in Singapore like to interact socially and share news, it is no wonder, a surprising news and photos on the flood was well received and well shared.

In 2010, Twitter has emerged as a force inside Singapore. This finding would be consistent with Edelman's Digital Brand Index.

There is still a very low activity on online sales however, but with a population of 4.6 million, and the increasing investments of companies to go online, I believe this figure would slowly change and increase.

The thing is, Singapore's market is not that fast to embrace technology, and is a few years behind the US. A recent US report showed that there is still a growth in E-Commerce in the US.

Leading metrics firm, comScore, released its Q1 U.S E-Commerce Spending Report recently, finding that online retail spending approached $34 billion in Q1 2010, which represents a 10 percent boost compared to last year. The surge symbolizes the first time that growth rates hit double-digits since the second quarter of 2008.

Deals and promotions on Twitter is still well received.

There is also a growing trend on spending on Facebook.

Overall, there are also a lot of money spent on other services online:

An observation made by Brian Solis on his blog "Facebook and Twitter users spend 1.5x more online than the average Internet user" also shows that members of social networking sites spend 1.5x more online than the average Internet user.

Though you may think that online sales are not directly though Facebook and Twitter, these results show that engagement really does drive sales and increase revenue.

In the world of social media, where people are constantly engaging with one another, sharing news and information, having your presence felt, and engaging with the public is increasingly becoming important.

Learning to harness the power of social media to spread word of mouth is key, and failing to engage on social media may in time prove to be a very big mistake many companies cannot afford to pay.

-- Robin Low