If you have thought of this, allow me to explain further…
I believe you have heard of the popular idiom “Elephant in the Room” which can be translated into an obvious truth that is being ignored or unaddressed. The idiomatic expression also applies to an obvious problem or risk no one wants to discuss. This phrase is based on the idea that an elephant in a room would be impossible to be overlooked; thus, people in the room would pretend the elephant is “invisible”- what a weird choice! They chose to concern with themselves rather than dealing with the big issue that is way ahead and in need of a solution!
Issue faced with brands is the classic case of the pink elephant – everyone can see it in the room, but nobody knows what to do with it. Brands are becoming more familiar with social media but the scenario is similar to the case of the pink elephant. In Malaysia, multinational and local brands could be a lot more engaging with the rise of social media.
Social media is free and this is to a certain extent, but everyone will need to invest more to keep up and to use it more effectively. Companies will need to be brave enough to allow social media channels to be their point of contact with customers.
How to get the most out of the customer experience with the brand?
I found the answer in a quote by Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, who recently said: “We are building towards a Web where the default is Social.”
Hence, social media is the latest “in” trend to mirror the demographics of your organizations’ customers. In my opinion, I assume that social media is the transformed version of “Word of Mouth” in today’s digital world. “Word of Mouth” is past tense already while “Word of Mouth Marketing” is new term coined these days.
In fact, “Word of Mouth Marketing” is a planned series of things you do using social media to get people talking. For example, I posted a tweet yesterday, “I love to tweet! Tweet! Tweet! Tweet-ie!” and the next thing you know is that your connections will start to comment on your post. For those who do not know about “tweet”, they will rely on the search engine to reveal to them the word! Thus it creates a string of happenings among our connections which is the new “Word of Mouth” through the choice of words to get the magic out of the wand!
Back to the case of the pink elephant, Malaysia’s adoption of social media is on rise as the No. 1 activity on the Web. There are almost six million Facebook users in Malaysia and we are ranked the 4th country in Asia-Pacific for social media users.
However, many corporations are unaware of its importance which can be compared to the case of the pink elephant. Therefore, there is a need for all organizations from all over Malaysia and APAC to learn successful case studies in digital marketing from top brands like Virgin Airlines, Digi, Intel, Microsoft, DELL, Maybank, RHB, JobStreet, LinkedIn, Text 100, Alt Media, NSTP and Vocanic.
Check out the event webpage
Michelle Lee
Marketing Manager
Top Link Conference & Event Management
T: 607 2267352 ext 121
michelle.lee@toplink-asia.com
