Early of the year, we quoted a report from Razorfish about Social Influence Marketing (Marketing using Social Networks). Every mid-year, the company will release a mid year report in the prediction made early of the year. They have just released the new solid report for Social Influence Marketing. Read the full report here. Below are the summary of the content quoted from Dave Knox Brand Management Blog.

• Brands must socialize with consumers: It won’t be enough for brands to craft powerful messages and push them through different media channels. They will need to participate directly in conversations with consumers and provide more meaningful value exchanges.
• Brands must develop a credible social voice: Brands will need to focus on developing credible voices for SIM. These voices will need to be more engaging, personal, humble, authentic and participatory than traditional advertising messages.
• Brands must provide a return on emotion to their consumers: Social media is a great tool for building symmetrical brand relation- ships, in which both the brand and the consumer reap equal returns from their relationship.
• Brands must know the effect of influencers throughout the marketing funnel: It is essential to know how influence changes in each stage of the marketing funnel. That information should drive when to focus on which influencers and how to surface content from those influencers on corporate-owned digital properties.
• Brands lack significant credibility in the digital realm and on social platforms: Brands should explore new ways of marketing on the social platforms that help build trust and credibility first and foremost. It is no use devoting significant marketing efforts to this space unless you’ve already figured out how to serve as a trusted brand. The social platforms require a new marketing language - one that mustn’t be overlooked.

But the question is how about Malaysian consumer?

Does Social Influence Marketing works in Malaysian?

Ascent Solution marketing consultants has been searching for proves & data to link to the Razorfish research and the answer is astoundingly YES. Although we didn’t do any extensive surveys and research on it but we found a few success stories inside our own Social Network (everyday.com.my).

On February 2009, we featured a promotion from Fireman BBQ in our portal. The responds on the promotion is very limited with a few consumer trying it. On May, Mr Lee, COO from Fireman BBQ realize the potential of social networks and he decided to participate in the conversation. The result, the traffic double and the sales conversion also increased.

Mr Lee from Fireman BBQ also uses our social networking platform to seek ideas & feedbacks from the customer. From there Mr Lee are also able to identify Fireman BBQ influencers.

Fireman BBQ Report : Fireman BBQ Restaurant BBQ Buffet Promotion

Malaysian consumer are maturing fast with the help of Internet. Nowadays, most big & small companies are using social networking to engage with their customers. May it be facebook, twitter, everyday.com.my or blogs, companies must participate at the medium where the consumers is.