Brands in Singapore and Asia Pacific are placing social media at the heart of their strategy, as they strive towards 360^o customer engagement, according to a study released by global insights consultancy, TNS.

The results from TNS’ second annual Marketing Monitor study across Asia Pacific highlighted the centrality of social media for marketers – it ranked as the top element guiding the planning process as well as the top metric used to measure the performance of campaigns.

According to the study, businesses are using a variety of sources to inform their marketing strategy. However insights gathered through social media monitoring have finally overtaken more traditional metrics such as market share data and brand tracking to become the most popular component used by marketers.

Top five metrics informing planning:

1. Social media monitoring
2. Market share data
3. Brand tracking
4. What the competition is doing
5. Information from media agencies

These findings echoed the changes happening in consumer behaviour across the country. As people become more connected via digital channels, brands are focusing on how they can communicate with their customers in the online spaces where they are already spending time – ‘social’.

Zoë Lawrence, Digital Director, APAC for TNS said: “It’s no secret that ‘social’ has become an intrinsic part of our daily lives – 96% of connected consumers in Singapore use social networks, switching between Facebook, Instagram and Twitter as the top three channels.”

“This mass adoption of social media provides marketers with an array of sources when it comes to developing strategies and evaluating the effectiveness of their marketing activity. As the digital ecosystem evolves, we will continue to identify new ways to build insights. However, whatever the metric used, it’s important to ensure marketers are monitoring the indicators that contribute to sales.”

The study also highlighted the top priority for marketing departments this year – customer relationship management. The Marketing Monitor findings revealed that marketers’ sphere of activity has now broadened, as they concentrate on how to deliver the best overall customer experience, ahead of the traditional aim of increasing brand awareness.

To achieve this, businesses are using social media across a range of disciplines. For example, 53% of marketers are using social media for brand communications but in addition, 40% are using it to provide customer service. Social media appeared to be a big part of e-commerce strategy, with 42% using social media advertising and one in three (32%) using social media buy buttons.

Despite this approach to using social to support a variety of marketing goals, the results showed that businesses are not working as collaboratively as they could be, with only 39% of marketers partnering with customer service teams, one in three (30%) working with the digital team and a mere 16% working with the insights department.

Zoë Lawrence said: “With marketers using social for a range of marketing objectives, it is important that they are offering a consistent, coherent experience to the customer. Brands need to strive to break down the silos in their organisations to ensure that they are realising the potential positive impact that an aligned, well-executed social strategy can deliver.”

The Marketing Monitor study was carried out in July 2016 across 11 countries in Asia Pacific, comprising Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand.

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