With a stellar cast of speakers, The Nanyang Business School Alumni Association (NBSAA) held its inaugural Breakfast Talk in the heart of Orchard Road, at Lawry's The Prime Ribs Singapore located on the fourth floor of Mandarin Gallery. This sold-out event was organized by NBSAA, in partnership with Nanyang MBA Alumni Association (MBAAA) and exclusive sponsorship by SAS.
Hosted by NBSAA's 2nd Vice-President, Mr Andrew Tan Yong Chuan (B Bus, 2001), owner of atomi private limited, the event kicked off with the participants enjoying the breakfast spread of scrumptious pastries, sandwiches, fruits and coffee as early as 8am. After an hour of networking over breakfast, Andrew started the session by welcoming the President of NBSAA, Mr Sarjit Singh who set the tone by sharing some interesting statistics of the social media platform. Next in line is the sponsor, SAS' Managing Director, Mr Bill Lee who shared about how consumers' daily spending patterns and trends are processed and analyzed by both the public and private sectors to understand consumers' behaviour and ultimately predict the buying patterns in the future.
The first speaker is Mr Peter Lim, Writer and Media Consultant of Plim HL, Singapore. A former Editor-in-Chief of Singapore Press Holdings, he is also the helmsman of the book Chronicle of Singapore, which was recently launched in Singapore. His 33-year in The Straits Times Press / Singapore Press Holdings certainly provided insights on how certain campaigns went well and why some didn't. Most importantly, he emphasized that feelings and connection must be established between the marketer and the targeted audiences. He also went on to share how the traditional medium can keep up with technology and embrace social medium platform to stay relevant. This set the stage nicely for the technology guru from SAS, Mr Luke Soon to take over the baton.
Luke, Principal (Customer Intelligence) of SAS Asia Pacific, shared about how data and analytics can be utilized to plan, test and execute marketing campaigns, thereby empowering marketers to create and deliver the right campaign at the right time to the right group of audience and target markets. Many interesting examples were shared, including how the choice of key words will have different meanings and reactions, depending on which 'camp' one belongs to.
With the technology and emotional transition from printed to digital being addressed, the next speaker jolted the audience with his eye-catching header titled "No, I cannot create a social media strategy for you". Mr Shalu Wasu, Associate Director (Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence) of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. His rationale for such a title? The social media platform is so fluid given today's climate that fast-moving online interactivities offer businesses different angles and issues to be addressed daily. Thus it is almost impossible to develop a static strategy to address operational and tactical yet targeted messaging aimed at influencing customer buying decisions. Thus his advice is to develop a nimble approach to incorporate social media across the company's strategic mission and vision, integrating it into its daily action plans and operational strategies.
Last but not the least, Ms Nagalakshmi V., Account Manager of Google AdWords Singapore, touched on the personal side of social media. She shared how individuals can tap on the social media platform by developing their blogs, websites and facebook accounts to reach out to audiences from all over the globe. Using a blog, she relates about developing her own contents and sharing it with their followers, friends and readers, with the useful tools from Google, she can find out within a few clicks, how many views she had in a day, where are the visitors from and even how did they find out about her site. Such tools are no longer limited to companies, but individuals like you and I can now track all these information by ourselves.
Following the engaging presentations, the session adjourned to a Q&A session moderated by Mr Jon Chin, Managing Director and Head (Digital Strategy) of ClickMedia. A wide range of questions were raised and answered, ranging from how social media platform can be utilized in the healthcare industry while taking legal obligations into consideration; how both the ruling party and the opposite parties tap on social media platform to reach out to the voters in the coming general elections in Singapore; etc. There is certainly no lack of questions from the audiences given the high level of interests shown, with the event fully subscribed within minutes upon announcement on the website, as well as via emails among our alumni and sponsor.
After an interactive 30-minute of Q&A, the breakfast talk ended with the presentation of token of appreciations to our sponsor, speakers and moderator by both the Presidents of NBSAA and MBAAA, Mr Sarjit Singh and Mr Dennis Wong respectively.
To sum it up, social media offers businesses an efficient marketing tool to supplement traditional, targeted messaging aimed at influencing customer buying decisions. However, users will enjoy more freedom to air their views about their experiences online. Thus, well executed campaigns will achieve sales growth, increased brand awareness but on the flip side, if not managed well, the social media platforms can just as easily deliver a knockout blow to a business or individuals.
- Write-up contributed by Mr Andrew Tan Yong Chuan (B Bus, 2001), 2nd Vice-President of The Nanyang Business School Alumni Association, Owner of atomi private limited