113 participants turned up for the final Malay language E-Commerce Class organised by the Selangor Information Technology and E-Commerce Council (SITEC) for the year 2016. The session, on the topic of Facebook Marketing, saw two speakers sharing about their experiences in the social medium, as well as tips and tricks to maximise marketing done through Facebook.
The first speaker for the class was Avana business development executive Raja Tawfeeq. He went through a number of best practices for Facebook marketing, such as relating posts to the merchant’s products, making use of the proper hashtags, pinning posts, as well as making sure the copywriting is done properly, in a manner that speaks the language of the speaker.
He also stressed the importance of timing posts, as well as the focus of the posts. He suggested posting some form of advice or motivational piece in the morning, something fun in the afternoon, and a call-to-action at night.
“Facebook is the most popular social medium in Malaysia, with 500 million users in Asia alone. Merchants on Facebook have to know their target market, and we want to help these merchants sell to their target markets,” said Raja.
Avana, which Raja represents, allows for selling over multiple channels, and offers a means for Facebook merchants to manage their orders as well as their store page on Facebook. The dashboard generates links for the merchant to post on their Facebook, which directs the customers to the webstore.
He also offered a free Facebook store to all of the attendees of the class, and held a contest for the nicest webstore created by the end of the class, with the prize being a Premium webstore plan for the year. A discount of RM50 on the premium plan was also offered for the day.
The second speaker was Engku AnwarHilmi, co-founder of Media Online Malaysia, who spoke about building tribes and being tribe leaders in Facebook marketing. He continued the tribe analogy by speaking about building up the network of the tribe, and using it to extend the reach of the merchant’s marketing efforts.
“People like human interest stories, and people like to share them as well. Use this information and adjust your posts to your target audience,” shared Engku.
Engku then shared about building up the brand, and stressed that trust in the brand is very important. This, he noted, is how the tribe can help, as people believe the recommendations of their peers. Another method to increase trust would be through demonstration videos, which he notes is one of the more powerful strategies available, as the engagement between merchant and customer is important.
Continuing in the vein of people believing their peers, Engku suggested that Facebook merchants obtain testimonies from their customers.
“You could offer discounts as an incentive, considering how people love discounts. However, and I cannot stress this enough, do not create false testimonies. People will be able to identify those, and you will have lost all credibility,” said Engku.
He also suggested that merchants make simple posts, just for the sake of activity. This, he notes, shows people that the page is active, and if the posts are of behind-the-scenes action such as meeting people for business or images of a stack of the merchant’s parcels ready to be shipped, it shows people that work is actually being done.
During the Merchant Sharing Session, Bryan Lau of MICES Technology spoke shortly about how to improve the clickthrough rate on Facebook ads, pointing out that text is unappealing and that the audience likes real photos compared to stock photos, as it increases credibility, and that any marketing text should be kept to a minimum, yet be intriguing enough to get people to click through.
The second merchant to share during the session was Lee Wei Chee, the founder of CheQQMe (pronounced check-me). He shared about what CheQQMe does, and about how his company brings gamification to mobile marketing through games such as stamp cards, percentage completion games, surveys, and flash sales with limited stock. His company’s app can curate a campaign list by location, and can also list campaigns by a particular merchant. Clients can also build their own mobile app.
He offered a cheap rate for the day, and announced that his company would also be selecting 10 interested merchants to join for free for six months, with a digital marketing campaign thrown in. Among these 10, there was also the chance to co-market with TuneTalk with its 1.5 million subscribers.