Web2.0 is no longer a route to consumers only; it is a route to citizens too!

Singapore Police Force has a facebook page, so does CPF. Their aim is to engage and educate the public on what they know best. They took a more proactive approach of going straight to where people are rather than waiting for the people to ‘discover’ them.

MCYS has achieved a level higher than the above mentioned. More than just building awareness using words, MCYS is leveraging on the engaging characteristics of viral contest. Definitely, user-generated content is the way to go now. Traditional media such as TV ad and print ad are also used as complements.

However, agencies need to be careful to avoid making the mistake like Reach Singapore did last year. Instead of creating a Page, it set up itself a Profile, which actually violates Facebook terms of use. Understanding the web tools and careful planning are critical before any usage.

As the Chinese saying goes, 工欲善其事,必先利其器
One must sharpen their tools in order to achieve work done effectively and efficiently.

Through a quick search on the web, you would have realized MCYS had engaged external agency to run the campaign for them. This shows that to leverage on web2.0 successfully is not an easy feat. Online campaigns do not mean creating a facebook or twitter account. Creating a page doesn’t guarantee site traffic and/or visitor’s response. There’s a skill behind this, the same for all marketing campaigns, online of offline. It actually involves much thinking, planning and careful execution. Each step has to be painstakingly thought out. I guess this was why President Obama engaged Chris Hughes (co-founder of Facebook) to run his online campaign?!

Here at F5, we also understand the intricate knowledge behind a web2.0 campaigns. It’s a part of what we do! The concept of online campaigns is still relatively new in Singapore context but with the experience of our partner Eyeka in web community management, it definitely put the team at a relative advantage. With the on-going of several collaborated projects, I simply can’t wait to see the results!

We plan and organize all the time, meetings, parties, dinners, happy hours, family gatherings, hair cut or even manicure! Now, we need to organize our ‘online’ life too!

We are so overwhelmed with Blogspot, Wordpress, Friendster, Face Book, Youtube, Twitter, Yahoo News, RSS feeds, GoogleVideos, Flickr, MySpace, Friendfeed, etc… We tried to make things easier for ourselves.

First we try to remember password. Next, we bookmark the links. Even so, the need to open several tabs/windows to access all the sites at once irked me sometimes.

With all this hassle, ‘Applications Aggregator’ became the new tool to have. Currently, there are quite a number of such new breed of Web 2.0 services and applications available. One that I have downloaded recently is the Sobees. Still at its beta stage, Sobees is not available on MAC OS yet.

What differentiate Sobees with other aggregating tools is that it is a desktop application. All your social networking sites are consolidated into one page and 1 double click away. (If you have the shortcut icon on your desktop, of course) One good thing about this you close the interactive page when you have a 3000 words report to write and cannot afford any distractions =)

Almost everything from the panel layout, colors to the websites you want to integrate in. Sobees widgets are linked with each other and Sobees is synchronized to the Sobees server which allows convenient multiple setups (work/home, desktop/laptop, etc.). There are a variety of widgets in the Sobees system including a slick RSS reader, photo viewer, integrated browser, weather, stock, etc. I can link my facebook with Sobees facebook panel, so that updates at whichever site are sync real time. Sobees also let you to send items to your friends by dragging and dropping items on ‘them’ Nice =) Can’t wait to see what they are offering in the next few version releases!

I’m definitely elated and impressed by what a friend has done for my birthday this year. He got Disney to dedicate the entire Disneyland to me for a year! I’m not kidding, check out the video =)

Of course, you always get this after the whole hoo-ha ended.

But I was very very impressed. This is the first time I see a company using 1to1 as a form of celebration gestures. In 2 simple steps with minimal information input, sender can customized the content of the video for the recipient on a mock up site! Not only were the attractions site labeled with gregory, even goofy can say it aloud!

Senders can choose from a variety of occasion like birthdays, anniversaries and the html code of final video can be retrieved and embedded. This is in fact revolutionary. Traditional greeting cards, though sentimental, do not go beyond static message. Even online e-cards can be personalized; there is only so much you can personalize and they never move out of the same old ‘dear gregory’Furthermore, the greatest difference between ecard and this video viral is that recipient are targeted with a real offer.

Rarely we benefit from online greetings with products we really need. In this case, it is not the technology that is impressive, but the fact that it is implemented perfectly. Combination of Viral Video & Target marketing, how amazing and powerful! This is a perfect application of 1to1 CRM.

Although 1to1 approach has been in the air for some time, brands rarely do use them. For Walt Disney, it is perfectly integrated into the video using real screenshot, different fonts or message and even fireworks! Such technologies like xmpie software from FujiXerox allow you to do this.

Like all, the implementation is as critical as the tool itself. Brands will require a good strategist, a good database concept and designer together with perfect planning to come with such solution The greatest part of this viral video is that Walt Disney does not try to send it to you, our friends do. =)

Being a gamer and coming from a game marketing background, it’s easy to understand how simple it is to get hooked on a game, especially the MMOGs and Facebook which seems to be a rising trend nowadays.

I play World of Warcraft. When I first started some two years ago, I breathed, slept, and ate World of Warcraft (WoW for short). I could spend the whole day leveling my character, interacting with my guild members and in between activities, slip to the kitchen to cook some instant noodles. There were days when I only ate dinner. The amount of time spent in a game such as WoW is tremendous. Hardcore players spend at least five hours on raiding and about three hours doing other in-game activities – that’s about the same number of hours I spend working in the office! Which brings me to my main point – marketing through games is getting increasingly popular and may make up the bulk of the marketing landscape in future. 

An example of marketing through games is President Obama’s campaign through games like Burnout Paradise and Guitar Hero 3, both highly popular games. The choice of platform is also very strategic – Xbox360 currently dominates the online console gaming community and has been out in the market longer as well. The social aspect of MMOGs is particularly strong and the amount of time people spend in-game amounts to A LOT of exposure, thus I believe there will be more campaigns appearing in online games.

In my opinion, word of mouth is the best marketing as it has the best persuasion power. There is a sense of confidence instilled in whoever is listening and that person will be more likely to buy the product. What better way to do it than marketing in an MMOG where people talk all the time and players with influential power can move a mountain?

The best thing about doing a campaign in MMOGs is that it doesn’t even have to be big. You don’t have to place huge in-game billboards like Obama. Simple things like giving users a Coke costume to wear for a period of time can increase brand awareness. A simple questline consisting of about three quests revolving around environmental issues (tweaked to suit the game) with a reward that can make your character turn green can also raise awareness for the environment. Flash game apps in Facebook are also good mediums of marketing without seeming too forward and hard-sell.  

The concept of marketing is slowly shifting. It’s not about buying space, air time or holding events anymore, it’s about buying a community and shifting its views and preferences while getting them interested and involved in what you are doing.