Our most recent blog post was responsible for a 957% spike in unique visitors to our website and reached an audience of almost 40,000 people on Facebook alone, with 1500+ people visiting our site to read the story, and 539 liking, sharing or commenting.
Below I am going to discuss why the post was so successful, and provide you with some ideas that you can relate to your own content and social media marketing in Bangkok.
Content Creation and Copywriting
While we write on topical news stories to claim the zeitgeist for our clients, we have tended to produce more evergreen content on our own site. However, at a recent team meeting, our Senior Thai Specialist told us the story of a scandal that was engulfing the micro-community of Thai translators: a leading Thai movie translator was suspected of outsourcing the translation of the Hollywood blockbuster, The Martian. The story seemed to be a perfect confluence of pop culture (who doesn’t enjoy a good scandal?), cultural miscommunication, and political concerns (with the AEC just around the corner).
The article was destined to be popular from the start, although the topic wasn’t an obvious fit for any of our clients. We’ve consciously been quiet on our blog recently as we work behind the scenes to finalize our offering for January, but we decided to break our silence and publish the article ourselves with the objective of driving engagement and reaching a new audience. You can see the original post here.
While we work with our clients to deliver ROI on our digital marketing services in Bangkok, this is the first time we’ve set up a campaign on our own site with the objective of driving mass engagement. Our policy up to this point has been to produce evergreen (rather than contemporary) content on our own blog, with the objective of defining ourselves and our offering. While these blog posts are generally followed by a spike in traffic, they were designed with the objective of mass engagement; therefore, it was pleasing to see the kind of stats on our own site that we usually achieve for our clients.
While SEO is an ever-changing science with a large number of factors to consider, the production of fresh, optimized content is always going to be a successful formula with Google. Social proof provides insight into the contemporary relevance of content, and Google rewards fresh content that is being read, shared and linked to. With these elements in place, you just need to make sure you are reaching a big enough audience.
Conclusions and Further Applicability
We engaged with a whole new audience with this campaign, and you can do the same, whatever your industry. You’re an expert in your field already, so think about how you can share some of your expertise with your target clients. Interesting content will always get you an audience, whether you are selling jellybeans, furniture, serviced apartments or tax services.
One piece of content can travel far and be re-purposed for different audiences and platforms. We have already translated The Martian article into Thai here and reached a whole different audience (again based on our targeted contacts list). The Martian is also providing content for the analysis you’re reading now, which will be appreciated by a whole different kind of audience. We will also include the post in our newsletter and upcoming brochure.
Social media marketing is a highly-effective and affordable way for companies in Thailand to differentiate from the competition, as well as to build engagement and awareness, while driving sales and increasing website traffic. The key is to consider your audience and objectives before getting started and produce quality content with ROI at the forefront of your mind
We shared the post across our social media channels, and while LinkedIn is a better source of B2B connections, Facebook is proven to be the best SMM platform for marketers as it allows very specific demographics to be targeted.
The post was sponsored on Facebook to give it extra reach, and targeted at our desired audience profiles. We reached almost 40,000 people (who otherwise probably wouldn’t have seen our name) and saw excellent engagement stats, including almost 1800 clicks on the post and 539 likes, clicks and shares, as well as 50 new likes on our page (and another 50 likes for the Thai version of the article).
The comments received were generally complimentary as people shared their own comical stories of getting lost in translation around the world, and we were even graced with observations by a Thai diplomat, who assured us that translation issues won’t be causing war between the AEC members any time soon.
Facebook is an essential channel for modern businesses as it allows companies small and large to build brand recognition, and engage with old and new customers alike, while garnering social proof along the way. Major corporations are investing heavily in SMM, and a recent survey found that 70% of marketers are looking to increase their budget for social media advertising, as more companies shift revenue away from traditional marketing platforms.
Advertising on Facebook is relatively cheap, and lots of data is provided, meaning that you can make each campaign more precise and effective than the last. Of course, you must first decide on your ROI objectives (reach, likes, shares, clicks, downloads, etc.) before getting started, in order to determine the type of campaign you should put together. With over a billion regular users, there’s an excellent chance that your target clients are just waiting to hear from you.
Website Traffic and Google Ranks (SEO)
Our objectives were reach and engagement, which we achieved on Facebook; however, the campaign was also responsible for an increase in our Google results for terms relating to translation, which you can see below.
About the Author
David Norcross is an award-winning B2B marketing expert with over 15 years of experience in the industry. He’s the founder and CEO of Lexicon as well as the Chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce in Thailand Digital Marketing Committee.
Lexicon is an award-winning brand storytelling agency focusing on telling impactful stories for clients based in Thailand and South East Asia.
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