Singaporeans are not the only kiasu people around. While we can boast of the Bubble Tea phenomena, the Hello Kitty queues and the Donut craze (among others), the herd mentality as a result of “kiasuism” seems to also be present across the world.
Within the last few years, the Facebook explosion and $1.65b buyout of YouTube have gotten everyone crazy about social media. This is no different in Singapore, with the greater use by and coverage of social media news through media companies giving it exposure to the average citizen. Organizations too, have began jumping on board, evident through the increase demand for Social Media consultancy, and the many organizations that pitched with a Facebook Application idea in an attempt to get developers to work on them.
Big Problem though: Social Media is NOT for everyone!
As such, I took some time to compile 7 of the most important things an organization should know before wanting to get onto Social Media (or get a Facebook App for that matter).
1. Focus on Channels with your Audience
Social media is just a MEDIA. Similar to traditional campaigns, pick and choose the media where the target audience can be found and USE THAT MEDIA. There is no point being on Facebook, MySpace, YouTube & Flickr at the same time – there is no such thing as diversification of “risks” by being on all these media.
2. Tribes vs. Eyeballs
There is a need to choose if a campaign is to get as many eyeballs within a short period of time or to build a community around products and services. Having a cool application or social network or YouTube video is nice, but what is the business objective? To have a tribe of fans around products (e.g. Macrumors.com)? Or perhaps just to create buzz around that product?
3. It’s not about what you want
Social Media is not about pounding advertisements down people’s throats, and there is no way to “force” a community to develop. In order to meet the desired social media objective, value must be provided to the community that the organization intends to reach out to.
4. Social Media might not be Cheaper Whopper Sacrifice might have been cheaper to do than a whole page advertisement on Wall Street Journal, but how many failed Internet campaigns have you seen? In addition, once a community is built around a product, how much future money is to be spent maintaining the community?
5. Get an Expert & Leave it to them
Similar to how campaigns are left to PR and Marketing Consultancies (unless you have the expertise), it may make more sense to leave social media work to the experts. These are the people with the latest Social media news, religiously check Twitter, and love contributing to online communities. Spend time doing what you’re world’s best in, give a direct on where you want to go with social media, and let these people work their magic.
If one has all these thought out properly and still want to pitch about a Social Media idea, then I have great news for you. Through the experience thus far from the CS3216 module, all you need is a Good Developer with Passion for the idea, and the idea can be done on ANY platform. Be it on Facebook, OpenSocial or any other platform, magic can be done within 3 short weeks!!
First, my thank you speech: “I am most honoured to win this prize. It has been my lifelong dream to appear in everyone’s presentation!” Seriously, thank you everyone for using me in your presentations. I’ve never felt so loved in NUS ever.
Next, I’m really worried about the predicament of being friends with people in the class, with groups intending to sell you and sacrifice you. What happened to the scared bond of friendship under the influence of Facebook?! Still, I am inclined to provide commentary about these applications given that I have wasted hours on one and was disappointed that the other wasn’t available in Singapore.
Friends For Sale Key Viewpoints by the Team: (my immediate comments in brackets)
1. Simple UI & Easy to use (seems that FFS stopped crashing after I quit)
2. Good for interaction & Ice-breaking (when trying to chat up a pretty girl… but is she really a girl?)
3. Involves strategic thinking & is a competitive environment
4. Facilitates communication – creative interactions (but isn’t that done with Superpoke?), unique relationships (your friend is your pet.. hmm..), 2.3m active users (used to be 5m++ at one point I think)
5. An excellent platform for advertisers – Could improve by having sponsorship to get sponsored chores/gifts (e.g. BK Burger)
6. Could Improve by – Add animations to chores & gift giving
It was a fun presentation and I agree with Points 1, 5 and 6, but having spent hours “researching the economics of FFS”, I must say that there is a fundamental flaw in the game that is not being addressed. Inflation in the game is THROUGH THE ROOF! For the sake of those who have never used FFS before, let me explain. Let X denote a pretty girl, and A & B be 2 guys wanting to buy her as a pet. Each time A & B buy X from each other, her “value” increases in a compounded manner (10% of previous value). From $500, X’s price could possibly go up to $50m in a day, and just by trading X, A & B’s cash holdings could each increase by millions! (“The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest” – Einstein)
From a game player’s stand point, all one does is to find the “rising stock” (popular pet) and chase it all the way till the pet’s price goes out of your buying range, and do this regardless whether you really want the person as your pet. This is flawed on so many levels! For new users, you can never catch up with an experienced user unless you spend all your time on FFS riding all these “rising stocks” (and you need to be beside your computer all the time in order to ride that stock). Only then can you possibly have enough $ to buy the pretty girl (or handsome guy) that you have been looking to take in as a pet. This “barrier to entry” turns people off quickly and one might not get the opportunity to interact with the people he/she wants to.
For the conduct of its Commercial Activities, the hyper-inflation makes it hard for sustainable revenue for FFS as well. With its advertising being run by MyOfferPal, one of the most popular ad service on Facebook, users using multiple apps began choosing to earn points for the other apps (performing the same activity) when they realize that the points earned in FFS are not as useful in achieving the desired goals.
FFS did re-adjust the “economy” recently by changing the value of the new user to $100k, but the problem is only going to come up again unless the rules of the game are changed. Maybe a recession might help
Whopper Sacrifice
It wasn’t in my intentions to comment on the application presentation actually, but given that the Whopper the group Sacrificed me for was given to me, it was only right to leave some comments.
Firstly, Crispin Porter + Bogusky is brilliant. Just go to their site and take a look at the stuff they have done for various companies. Not such a big fan of their work with Microsoft though – most seem too reactionary to Apple’s ads. Next, the team that presented it was on the cutting edge of FB Apps. The App was only up for a week or so before being banned on 14th January. Great job people!
The key point that might be of interest, is whether this phenomenon can be repeated. i.e. Can an advertiser gain that kind of publicity enjoyed by BK by repeating the “sacrifice your friend” campaign? My thoughts on it? No, it will get eyeballs, but it will not be as successful as this first attempt. Buzz Aldrin was never as famous as Neil Armstrong, attempts at a sex-focused drama is unlikely to be as well-received as Sex and the City. You get the point. Despite the possibility of using bots to delete friends, I seriously doubt the effectiveness if this were to be repeated exactly for another company. Any ideas for auxiliary features/marketing gimmicks to augment the delete friends feature?
Now all that’s said and done, the final thing I need to do, is to complete the rest of the song and post it onto YouTube. That’s-What-Friends-are-For-2.0
Singaporeans are not the only kiasu people around. While we can boast of the Bubble Tea phenomena, the Hello Kitty queues and the Donut craze (among others), the herd mentality as a result of “kiasuism” seems to also be present across the world.
Seriously, thank you everyone for using me in your presentations. I’ve never felt so loved in NUS ever.