Marketing Insights: SoLoMo

In the age of digital, what we call SoLoMo (social, location and mobile) marketing is a very useful strategy to capture the IWWIWWIWI (I Want What I Want When I Want It) generation, if executed correctly. The IWWIWWIWI generation, who are attached to multi-screens with a huge desire to participate in social media, represents a strongly connected digital-based society that opens up a bundle of opportunities for marketers to seize upon for better customer engagement.“Social media has started a revolution in how people connect, learn and communicate; and its effects cannot be undone,” Simon Tye, executive director at Ipsos Hong Kong, said at the Marketing Insights: SoLoMo event at The Mira Hong Kong.Last year, Ipsos conducted an internet behaviour study across 20 countries to show how important the internet is to the new generation, showing 82% of respondents in China cannot imagine life without the internet, while 60% say their conversations are conducted online.At a time with free access to a greater amount of information, particularly instance information, than ever before on the internet, 78% of Chinese respondents admit they constantly look at screens these days.Noticeably, only 24% of interviewees in China have shared advertisements they have found with friends or colleagues; and merely 34% of which have been to a company or a brand’s website after seeing its advertising.Meanwhile, less than half shared views about a company or brand via any media, blogs or social media.As cross-screen usage has sprouted up, the relationship between screens cannot be monogamous, Tye said. And he said that brands and companies needed to be better at using these screens to communicate with customers.One unstoppable trend on social media and mobile, particularly in Asia, is the emergence of the selfie, a phenomenon that has become a form of communication in the digital space. Jordan Sun, creative director of Madcradle, said the selfie craze was a great opportunity for marketers.“The selfie is designed for sharing on social media. It’s not something needed to be created, but something part of our life.”He noted that smart brands would apply selfie marketing in a subtle way.“Branded hashtags usually won’t work as users usually don’t want to help promote brands.”Ben Woo, director at Pixo Punch, agreed the iPhone craze formulated the digital community, and marketers should bear in mind the three Cs of social media marketing – content, community, and, ultimately, commerce.“Visual power drives commerce value and only if we filter appropriate content will they stick to our brands,” Woo said.While content on social media is as intangible as it is, location and place bring social networking back to reality.“Location-based marketing and communication have smoothened the way marketers capture data that reflects users’ behaviour; it leads to buying actions and revisiting.“Valuable location data can help refine marketing strategies and make marketing plans more accurate and potent.”With free access to information greater on the internet than ever before, information on social media, mobile and location may lead to a big data glut. Identifying the right data is therefore essential. “Big data is not about quantity, but quality,” said Andy Ann, chief marketing officer at Social Media Broadcasts.The key to valuable data is to understand and leverage on the uniqueness of different social media platforms, Ann said.For example, Facebook is a social media hub which possesses the highest coverage and penetration. Marketers should centralise and aggregate social media activities on Facebook with linkages to other social media platforms, such as one-to-one direct communications channels (LINE and WeChat); engagement channels (Twitter and Sina); professional networks such as LinkedIn; or lifestyle channels such as Pinterest, via Facebook Apps and hashtags. There’s no algorithm to tell you what’s significant about your data or what it means, said Ann. “It’s all about data correlation, interpretations and imagination.”To achieve a successful SoLoMo campaign, Cody Chan, head of sales at Performance Media Group, addressed the importance of extracting relevant information that mattered the most to the target audience from a trusted source.While social networks continue to grow at an uncontrollable pace, delivering the right ad in the right medium at the right time is the key to gain sustainable ROI.The Marketing Insights: SoLoMo event was attended by more than 100 marketing experts at The Mira Hong Kong in Tsim Sha Tsui.[gallery link="file" ids="71450,71451,71452,71454,71455,71456,71457,71458,71459"]