With the massive efforts by the Government to transform Singapore into a Smart Nation’s latest 2024, many consumers and brands are going fully digital.
This gradual rise of digital media has dramatically impacted marketing aspects, primarily due to the increase of social media users in Singapore- 4.6 million active users precisely. This has brought a significant influx of influencers.
Influencer marketing is a marketing strategy that embraces leaders’ opinions and their massive influence on social media platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram to reach potential buyers.
For example, although there are various excellent social platforms in Singapore, Instagram seems to be the most preferred site by influencers, making it the real deal in influencer marketing.
Twitter takes the second slot among the most preferred social media platforms in Singapore, which means that it also has considerable potential in influencer marketing.
With a 100% urbanization rate and over 148% in mobile phone connection penetration, English as the most spoken language, and higher GPD per capita, it is not a wonder that most global marketers focusing on Asian have a great interest and plans in Singapore in particular.
Amazingly, most of the youths, i.e., the future generation in Singapore, aged 17 to 25 years, have shown confidence in what influential people support online, further strengthening the use of Instagram influencer marketing.
With regular updates, Instagram now allows its users to share stories, photos, and videos, further making the platform more engaging both in personal and commercial interactions.
This has further made the platform very effective at reaching a more comprehensive market target, thus becoming one of the most liked influencer platforms.
This post will learn about Singapore’s various influencer marketing concepts and their significance, especially local market share.
Singapore influencer marketing statistics
Here are some critical Statistics about influencer marketing in Singapore
- According to a Rakuten Insight survey done in October 2020 on social media influencers, about 52% of Singaporean participants said they had previously purchased a product or item due to endorsement by an authoritative influencer.
- The same survey established that most Singaporean respondents followed one or more influencers on social media.
- The number of active social media users growth rate is at 14% in Singapore alone, the highest in Asia-Pacific
- Instagram is the most used social media platform in Singapore, with about 65% of active consumers using it
- Reportedly 93% of Singaporean value influencer marketing as a very effective marketing strategy since they trust the endorsement of influencers, aka Key Opinion Leaders, more than other forms of commercial marketers
- 76% of the entire consumers in Singapore rely on endorsements from top influencers when making a buying decision
- The number of active social media in Singapore is 73%
- About 40% of the young generation in Singapore aged 15 to 26 years have their buying decision influenced by endorsement by online influencers and more substantial influence from TV adverts and newspapers.
Why influencer marketing in Singapore?
The influencer marketing concept is catching on quickly in Singapore, like wildfire.
Marketers have also noted a positive ROI (return on investment) from influencer marketers better than from other marketing media.
Today, businesses and brands collaborate with established influencers to engage audiences, create brand awareness, and increase conversion.
However, brands and businesses must enter the influencer industries to understand strategies embraced in this sector. Tree of such systems include:
Trend #1: Emphasis On Content Marketing
For the last three years, businesses and brands that embraced influencer marketing have experienced a positive impact on their marketing strategy.
However, a grave mistake made by big brands is overusing influencers, such as picking influencers with little or no information about a particular brand. Besides, posting irrelevant content that doesn’t bring any value to the audience.
Fortunately, Singaporean influencers are experienced in creating relevant, interactive, and engaging content that helps create a good image of the product or service, hence positive marketing outcomes.
Trend #2: People-Centric Influencer Marketing
It is not a wonder to note that some marketers and brands jump into the influencer marketing bandwagon without really understanding the logic behind these marketing efforts.
For instance, in a super-sensitive market like Singapore, brands and businesses will be compelled to focus more on their audience during marketing campaigns to give their brand an upper hand.
Trend #3: Singaporeans Becoming Risk-Adverse
Gradually, consumers are now relying more on word of mouth when making critical buying decisions. This is a clear indication that influencers impact Singaporeans.
This is an open opportunity that influencers should take to leverage their influence through online platforms. Therefore, it is the high time influencer marketing focus on young Singaporeans who rely on online endorsements and reviews to make their buying decision.
How To Get Started With Influencer Marketing?
Although there is no one-size-fits-all influencer marketing approach, every brand or business can benefit from research and proper planning. Here are some considerations when getting started in an influencer marketing program.
Should you do influencer marketing yourself, or engage an influencer marketing agency?
Probably, you’re convinced that you need to take your brand or business online. Still, the big question is, do you do it personally, or should you engage an influencer agency in Singapore to carry out influencer marketing on your behalf.
However, you have two options, brands to work with influencers personally or influencer marketing agencies.
While reaching out to the individual influencer due to easy reach out and relatively low cost, with thousands of influencers in Singapore each targeting a particular audience, the effectiveness of personal influencer marketing can be pretty challenging. Fortunately, influencer marketing agencies can be the real deal for effective marketing campaigns and better price negotiation.
Singapore’s Fastest Growing Influencer Marketing Agency
An influencer marketing agency enables brands and businesses to personalize effectively, run, manage and measure their digital advertising campaigns’ progress either on Instagram or any other platform they’re running their campaign.
A reliable influencer agency should empower your brand by creating a partnership and advertising active daily influencers, similar to search engine optimization or global social networks.
Target
Determine your targeted audience profile and characteristics while highlighting the most appropriate marketing campaign cost.
Identify
Find the most appropriate brand-aligned influencers who are very brand-specific and particular on a specific marketing category. Besides, they should have the right profile to showcase your marketing campaign.
Amplify
It’s time to activate and empower influencers to create brand customized content that can impact your targeted customers and engage your business or brand.
Track
Monitor and evaluate your influencer marketing achievements by measuring your ROI. The cost is directly proportional to the desired results.
How To Choose Your Influencer Marketing Goals and KPIs
Indeed, various KPIs perform various purposes for each element of your marketing strategy. For example, when it comes to influencer marketing, one would attempt to focus on reach and awareness, conversion rates, clicks, and engagement.
The Most Common Influencer Marketing Campaign Goals
When it comes to influencer marketing strategy, only the goal-oriented influencer can achieve substantial success. This is because a goal is measurable and time-sensitive. Some of the essential marketing goals include;
- Establishing and building brand awareness and strengthening brand image in public.
- Increasing the brand’s social interactions and engagements
- Increasing brand conversions such as free trial sign-ups, newsletter subscriptions, and purchases
- Gaining audience insights about the brand
The Most Common Influencer Marketing Campaign KPIs
Here are some of the most common influencer marketing campaign KPIs include: reach and awareness, conversion rates, click and engagement
Reach
You can tell how many followers your influencer has. Although not that very valuable, you can easily measure
Clicks
Not only easily quantifiable but also good performance metric-based engagement.
Engagement
It involves social actions such as audience comments, sharing, and liking and can be achieved by using particular words and links.
Conversion
It involves things like downloads, form completions, sign-ups, and purchases.
How To Choose Your Influencer Types
When considering the influencer to pick, consider first vetting their audience.
You want to be sure your audience matches their target market. You also want to ascertain that their audience is real. This can be achieved by checking things like the Pyramid of Influence, Spectrum of Influencers such as Mega influencers, Macro influencers, Micro-influencers, and Brand influencers.
The Pyramid of Influence
The Pyramid of Influence involves shifting the influence of existing bloggers and influencers to the top of the pyramid.
It shifts the impact of influencers to a large mass of influencers while bloggers influence influencers.
For example, influencers with large audiences, such as celebrities and brand leaders, are positioned at the pyramid top. In contrast, influencers with higher relevance yet lover reach, such as brand advocates, are placed at the pyramid bottom.
An example of this is Micro-influencers since most of their material influence relies on their excellent understanding of the brand and the audience’s mutual trust.
Spectrum of Influencers
The spectrum of influencers tries to define who has the most social influence and the impact that they generate. Influencers, in this case, try to describe celebrities and elite social media. Under this category, influencers can fall under three categories:
Social Media Influencer Landscape in Singapore
Mega-influencers. These include artists, actors, social media start with over 1M followers and actors. They command the highest reach on the influence spectrum.
Macro-influencers. Includes bloggers, executives, and journalists with over 10kto 1M followers and can command 5 to 25 engagements in a post.
Micro-influencers. The regular consumers or brand promoters with 500 to 10,000 followers. Can command 25 % to 50% engagement in a post
Brand Advocates. These are loyal consumers who are very willing and passionate about sharing their experience with a brand but have very little influence.
How To Choose Your Influencer Marketing Content Types
How do you and your client determine what runs in real-time? What metrics are you going to use when measuring success rate?
Before you initiate your marketing moves, you need to consider how you’ll measure an increase in brand exposure, engagement, and overall interaction or sales in general.
Plan Your Content Type Before Activating The Influencers
When planning your content type, consider brand-generated, Co-developed, and influence developed.
Brand Generated
In this case, the brand owners come up with the content that influencers are assigned the role of engaging in their social networks.
Influencers share what is presented, with no customization of the content. It is less impactful due to a lack of creativity and brand personalization.
Co-Developed
Here, the brand marketers work together with influencers in creating unique content according to its purpose. E.g., sharing a beautiful picture in a 5-star hotel in Singapore. It has moderate influence potential despite being a mild risk strategy.
Influencer Generated
Influencers purely create content according to their experiences and creativity. Although it is very impactful, the brand might lose its generic direction.
How To Choose the Right Incentive for Your Influencer
Certainly, influencers want to feel their efforts appreciated for creating unique and interactive content for your brand on their social network.
You can reward your influencers in different ways, such as cash rewards, VIP treatment, and recognition. You need to understand the influencer’s point of view, experience, and expectations.
Plan Your Incentives Before Activating The Influencers
Remember, there are several factors you need to consider when deciding the kind of incentive that best suits your influencer. These are:
- Exclusivity, i.e., the incentive to be entirely exclusive to your influencer to motivate them even more
- Brand type. For instance, the luxury brand generally doesn’t offer discounts or incentives, so VIP treatment and other experimental rewards can apply.
- Influence quality, did the influencer increase the influence? Then reward them progressively.
Types of Incentives
You can reward your influencers in different ways, such as cash rewards, VIP treatment, and recognition. You need to understand the influencer’s point of view, experience, and expectations.
Cash
Experienced and semi-professional influencers will prefer cash payment for incentives.
VIP Treatment
When working with non-professional influencers, an exclusive experience incentive is the best since this makes the influencer more passionate about the brand.
Recognition
Brand’s recognition is the best when an influencer feels more than happy for monetary rewards. This may include features on the brand websites or live covering.
Branded Reward
It is the commonly used form of incentive. The influencer is awarded an exclusive benefit such as a product giveaway, gift card, free trial, or discount.
Common Incentives Ideas
- Experience Box
- Health and wellness
- Limited Product Sample
- Bonuses and raises
- Recognition and rewards
- Contest Entries
- Professional development
- Discounts
- Early Access
- Referral programs
- Exclusive Event
- Profit-sharing
- Fun gifts