The Rise of Various Social Media Platforms & What They Offer

Affiliate Marketing

As more and more Malaysian are using social media (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube) from 43% rise to 89% (As of January 2022) penetration rate, more and more brands see huge opportunities in putting their brands up on these platforms, collaborating with influencers to educate the audience and eventually sell it to them.

Due to the country’s population of around 32 million people, there are about 26 million active users who are digitally savvy, translating to more than 8 in 10 Malaysians using social media for product and service recommendations and reviews. This gives Malaysia one of the world’s top markets for social commerce adoption, given its social media penetration rate of 89%, with a high likelihood of social media users converting into paying customers.

Over the decade, both influencer and marketing have helped e-commerce and social commerce brands earn millions in sales and generate more conversions as compared to traditional advertising (radio, TV). But the question here is, which approach is right for your brand?

Affiliate marketing is used (with/without the involvement of influencers) to drive traffic to a brand’s website to complete a transaction. The Affiliate only gets paid when they help the brand to make a sale, which they will need to constantly work on and be motivated to boost their conversion rate. As for influencer marketing, brands are able to establish longer-term KPIs (User-Generated Content and Clickthrough Rates), with the direction of collaborating with the brands for brand promotions and partnering with their own content for better credibility and authenticity. In terms of remuneration, influencers are charging the brands flat fees and commissions.

To dive deeper into Affiliate marketing, there are 3 main players: The Merchant (Brand), The Affiliate Marketer, and the Consumers. In Malaysia, Affiliate Marketers can come in the form of YouTubers, Influencers, or even anyone who is interested in earning extra income digitally. They help brands to advertise products and services to generate sales and earn the commission per sale, or per click, providing there is an affiliate link that directs the consumers to the product or service of the intended sale.

How can brands strategize a plan for festive season affiliate marketing?

1. Always invest in SEO

SEO is important for brands to gain organic traffic from search engines, and help to increase the possibility for more affiliate marketers, by turning editorial content into a numbers game. As a brand, you can source backlinks from local retailers to boost your search volume and overall search presence. From there, you can continue earning features until a top-tier outlet gets wind of your brand. At that point, you’ll have proven your legitimacy with a verifiable record in the search engines.

2. Pay Good Commission

A good percentage of Affiliate Marketing agreements should be a 50:50 benefit for the affiliate marketer and the brand. This is also to motivate them to help sell the brand’s products that are priced higher or that have high conversion rates, in order for them to make a good deal of commissions and money.

3. Work with Publishers to unlock more features

By working with a Media Publisher who has contacts with experienced journalists and e-commerce editors to write about your brand’s products, they will find ways to expose your brands and land you in the well-known content portal: World of Buzz, Oh Bulan, Viralcham (depending the category of the brand’s product is), with the insertion of the brand affiliate link in the content piece. In terms of the content, we need to ensure that the publicist that the brand is working with is aligned with the company’s business goals, and able to ensure the brand is seen by the right set of target audiences.

TikTok Shop

With millions of loyal users globally, it’s becoming more challenging for marketers to ignore the popularity and influence TikTok has bought us today. TikTok Shop, the newest e-commerce solution from TikTok, has now reached Malaysian shores, bringing together online sellers, buyers & creators under one roof through its unique shoppertainment approach. We Malaysians love shopping, and now the platform offers a whole new shopping experience of discovering and buying new products rather than mall visits. All of this benefits brands to help increase orders, sales performance & brand awareness.

With the festive seasons of Christmas around the corner, lining up together with Chinese New Year to Hari Raya celebrations, TikTok’s taking to make in-stream shopping a bigger focus could be a big step for brands. It is currently trending well as the “new Shopee in town”, leveraging the power of its in-stream shopping where it has set off as a key discovery platform for younger audiences, be it impulse buying products or even research-oriented products e.g fashion, beauty, household products, etc in the app, as opposed to switching Google for such.

What’s more, if only marketers can marry the behavioral shift on TikTok and engage with the influencer community, that could be a gold mine for brands to reach younger audiences and increase brand awareness in a highly playful environment. But of course, succeeding on the platform relies on creating exciting content with the power of short-form video – so let’s put on our creative hat, gather our craft supplies, channel the secret milliner in our soul and make ourselves a hat.

Lemon8

Is Lemon8 the next big social media platform? What’s all the hype about? If you’ve been spending much time on social media lately you’re probably seeing online buzz about the emerging new social audio platform Lemon8, featuring community social and lifestyle recommendations that have a strong influence on our lives and our buying decisions. We appreciate the platform for providing the largest library of consumer word-of-mouth, but we do also wish our wallets come with free refills (sobs)!

Some say Lemon8 ultimate form is similar to Instagram or older generations would call it a product similar to the American lifestyle-sharing platform Pinterest. In all honestly, we don’t see any differences from Pinterest as the platform model encourages users to explore content other than what they already follow. The interface of the platform is more conducive to the exposure of high-quality content and user interaction.

For brands, so how do you (marketers/ brands) get your slice of the lemon? You might be wondering where Lemon8 fits into the market with the upcoming Christmas and holiday seasons. Well, first and foremost, influencers are absolutely key to gaining traction on Lemon8 and are arguably the most powerful form of advertising the platform has to offer. Putting the festive seasons-themed marketing approach with potential influencers hand-in-hand would strike the right balance between the two.

As Lemon8 positioned itself as a place for young creatives to share a diversity of content from fashion, makeup, food, and travel, to homewares, pets, and anything else you can imagine – and so success on the platform will be determined by how well brands can target this demographic. To do so, let’s break down the three main points to consider when hopping onto Lemon8: –

Creative content direction, with a similar style to what Lemon8 has to offer
The potential KOLs you collaborate with
The products you promote and sell on your account

Marketing on Lemon8, putting these at the core of your content marketing strategy for the platform is a must. On a note, Lemon8 is still at an early stage of development and it may be too early to be defined but well, you don’t know if you don’t try!

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