Companies warm up to social media

• Even SMEs are catching on to social media marketing
• Three tips to build a smart social media marketing campaign
• Actual budget allocated to social marketing is still in nascent stage.

Hong Kong - As ad budgets come under pressure, companies are increasingly more receptive to giving social media a go, and IP Global, a property investment company, has launched a real estate investment video podcast series aimed at prospective investors.

Douglas White (pictured), founder of social media marketing agency Prosperity Research observed that the small and medium businesses are getting it.

He has been busy signing several contracts a week to help companies launch social marketing campaigns that include clients such as IP Global, Harbour City, Servcorp as well as a large legal and financial information company.

White pointed out that marketers are facing more difficult-to-reach customers and they need to be cost effective and efficient in doing so.

He said social media spaces are the largest platforms for conversation right now.

"If you want to get your message out, you need to get to the social media space," he said.

With the traditional ad budget shrinking, marketers are under pressure to justify ROI  and social media is affordable, effectively targets key audiences, and provides immediate feedback on effectiveness. Moreover, White said marketers launching a social media campaign could pull out easily if it is not working or rework the campaign on the fly.

On a basic level, social media marketing is to come up with a concept that you believe will add value and is interesting to customers.

He said it's not advertising. "It's about social conversations with people."

White said social media marketing is getting to know your customers and for customers to know you to create better products and build trust, loyalty and foster relationships.

His three tips to build a smart social media marketing campaign are:

• Keep it simple
• Don't make the campaign bigger than what you can manage
• Prepare to be there for the long term

Pushkar Sane, chief digital officer for North & South Asia and global head of social marketing practice for Starcom MediaVest Group said clients are more willing to experiment or drive social media campaigns but it is too early to start looking at the actual percentage of budget allocated to social marketing.

He said more money is shifting from traditional to digital so social marketing is gaining budgets too but it is still not on the same scale as display or search advertising.

Sane said the industry is still figuring out in terms of the allocation of marketing dollars on social media marketing campaigns.

He said Hong Kong marketers are slow to embrace digital compared to other markets and relatively slow even to embrace social media.

Sane observed China is taking the lead in this area as clients are looking at it seriously and are expressing an interest to invest.