January 2020 – IH Digital is now able to support Toutiao and TikTok ads with our expanded digital advertising services. We are now an official sales partner of Bytedance in Southeast Asia, allowing us to support brands across the region for their online advertising campaigns.

Our new advertising capabilities will help regional clients to easily and quickly get started with advertising on ByteDance’s key platforms such as TikTok (Musical.ly), Douyin, Toutiao, XiGua, HuoShan, and NewsRepublic.

Who is ByteDance?

ByteDance is a Beijing-based internet technology company founded by Zhang Yiming in 2012. It offers many online products catering to a wide set of audiences from across the globe. Its core product is TouTiao – a news and information content platform and one of China’s largest mobile platforms for content creation, aggregation and distribution reinforced by machine learning techniques.

It also owns the short video app Douyin, which later became the Chinese version of TikTok when the Chinese social media giant acquired the lip-syncing app Musical.ly in Q4 2017.

Impact on the Digital Advertising Industry

ByteDance is reported to have 1.5 billion monthly active users (MAU) with 700 million daily active users (DAU) as of October 2019, which is an increase of 50% compared to its January 2018 user base. According to self-media account Kaiqi, its revenue reached around RMB 48 billion in Q1 2019, with RMB 20 billion from Douyin. The online company is seemingly closer to realise its 2019 revenue goal of RMB 100 billion considering its rapid user base growth.

Moreover, ByteDance-owned short video app TikTok has 1.65 billion downloads on iOS and Android in January 2020 – a significant growth from 663 million in 2018. Out of the total downloads, 190 million app installs (11.5%) are from Southeast Asia. The app’s download surge outdid Instagram’s 444 million downloads in 2018 and is catching up with Facebook’s 711 million in the same year, as CNET reports. This resulted in both Douyin and TikTok being the world’s second most downloaded apps in 2019.

More Advertising Opportunities for SEA Brands

With ByteDance’s rapid user base growth in mind, more digital marketers turn into advertising on its key products namely Douyin, TikTok and Toutiao to reach a wider set of audiences in Southeast Asia and Greater China. With this amplified partnership, IH Digital can now provide support to marketers exploring this opportunity.

Here is a list of ByteDance advertising platforms we now support as the official sales partner:

SEA Digital Marketing

1. TikTok – Available in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.
2. NewsRepublic – A news app powered by artificial intelligence that provides readers with the latest world and local news, viral headlines, trending videos, and articles directly to the user’s phone. Available in Taiwan only.

China Digital Marketing

1. Douyin (抖音) – More than half of its users are aged 30 years and below.
2. TouTiao (今日头条) – Over 70% of its users are aged between 25 to 45 years.
3. XiGua (西瓜视频) – A video recommendation platform that runs videos a couple of minutes longer than videos in Douyin. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) to suggest quality and related content based on the user’s interest. Over 70% of its users are aged 30 years and below.
4. Huoshan (火山小视频) – A video-shooting application where users can quickly get content, show themselves, and gain fans by recording videos for up to 15 seconds. More than 70% of its users are aged between 25 to 40 years.

Let us help you explore TikTok ads and more for your brand!

Get started with TikTok ads! IH Digital is a digital marketing agency headquartered in Singapore, with presence across multiple countries in Southeast Asia and Greater China. With our media partnerships, we have helped many regional companies ultimately boost their online advertising campaigns on many platforms. Know more about our digital advertising services by dropping us a message here.

IH Digital, IH Singapore, and Digital 38 are members of the IH Digital Group.

Petronas won Top 10 Enterprise at Weibo Starlight Awards

Congratulations to our client, Petronas Malaysia who won Top 10 Enterprise 2018 in Weibo Starlight Awards. Petronas working with IH Digital Marketing Agency has proven to be fruitful with its great success in engaging with a huge number of Chinese audiences through a combination of influencers and social video campaign they did on Weibo.

Case Study: Petronas’ Weibo marketing campaign

Weibo is the most popular Chinese social media platform with over 600 million users, which makes it one of the best ways to increase brand awareness in the Chinese market through social media marketing. IH Digital helped Petronas run two Weibo video campaigns with influencers engagement for Chinese New Year in 2018 and 2019.

The video campaign ran in 2018 has garnered 5.87 million views in 20 days. We have engaged with 3 Chinese influencers with a large fan base and got over 2.5 million impressions. This year, we have garnered 7.5 million views as of 15 March 2019 and engaged with more influencers such as car vlogger, 车少话车 which garnered over 4.7 million impressions.

With the huge success, Petronas has won Top 10 Enterprise Award at the Starlight Awards ceremony held by Weibo. We are honoured to receive the award on behalf of Petronas. Many famous stars in Asia have attended the ceremony, including Hong Kong singer Joey Yung, Hong Kong actress Charmaine Sheh and Nancy Wu, K-pop star Mark from GOT7, Thai singer Mike Angelo and Malaysian singer Shila Amzah.

Enhance Your Social Media Marketing Campaign in China with IH Digital

IH Digital has been appointed as the Official Southeast Asia Partner of Weibo and has presence in SG, MY, TH, VN, and PH. We can provide advertising solutions and Weibo account verification services; work directly with Weibo and influencer agencies to provide planning and buying services that cater to your diverse digital needs, to help you reach out to the Chinese audience.

In this era of social media, traveling is another way to share great photos, give travel tips, or review hotels where you stay. For hotel owners, getting reviews from renowned social media influencers is an advantage to generate more audience and potential customers.

Read up on this article to know more about how can hotel partners and influencers stay connected and get a win-win benefit with Asia Travel Club!

Asia Travel Club Is the New Social Commerce Phenomenon

Asia Travel Club is a web social commerce platform established to bring influencer marketing to a new level! It aims to connect hotel partners and social media influencers. With great hotel catalogues, social influencers can choose from different hotels across Asia and get a free night stay! The same goes for hotel partners who can accept free reviews from these influencers.

Benefits of Asia Travel Club to Hotel Partners

Social media is a powerful tool for businesses to connect with their audience who can turn out to be a customer as well. Allowing jet-setters to give a review will increase their brand credibility and brand awareness with likes, comments, and shares. These influencers create good representations of the hotel with their reviews.

Translation:

#KualaLumpur #TraveltoMalaysia

Checked-in at Le Apple Boutique Hotel for this trip. The hotel is near the KLCC MRT station, and it’s only 100 meters to Petronas Twin Towers. It’s also surrounded by various business districts, night markets, and parks, and is five stations away from KL Central which has the city’s largest bus interchange centre where you can ride to any interesting place in Kuala Lumpur. Le Apple Boutique Hotel is a comfortable place, just like staying at The Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai, but the price is only about 200 RMB per night.

Translation:

#SpringTravel #TraveltoMalaysia #TraveltoMalacca

You can feel more Chinese elements from Kuala Lumpur to Malacca. Zheng has docked here six times during his voyages to the western seas, and many Chinese relics are still preserved today.

At Treasures Hotel & Suites, you can find not only Chinese signs, but will also be accompanied by Chinese speaking staff and boss. Chinese decorations create a feeling of belonging in a foreign country. You don’t have to worry about the language barrier and getting lost because they will give a map for your guidance.

P.S.  The 9th picture shows the boss of the hotel. The coffee shops and attractions from his recommendation are very good.

Benefits of Asia Travel Club to Social Media Influencers

Everybody loves freebies! Social media influencers can enjoy a free night stay at the hotel they choose to review. Asia Travel Club offers various hotels across ASEAN countries on their catalogue. This makes traveling more exciting for influencers especially when they receive free night stay sponsorship from these great hotels!

How to Sign Up?

Join the ATC family with these simple steps:

Video produced by Asia Travel Club | Facebook

Ready to Create A Powerful Platform for Your Brand?

IH Digital will help you plan, create, and execute online marketing strategies for your brand with 360 digital marketing services. Contact us today to know more!

Social media marketing has a lot of functions to businesses nowadays. You can use it to create brand awareness, launch a product, announce promotions, conduct a contest, and the most interesting part is you can have the biggest stars and influencers promote the product or share their review!

With this kind of online marketing, your brand or product can surely reach different types of audience and influencers. Sanitarium Singapore recently announced a product promotion on their Facebook page.

Level Up Your Social Media Marketing Strategy!

Let IH Digital help you win the right audience and connect you to renowned influencers. IH Digital is a rockstar digital marketing agency that provides your social media and digital marketing needs. Interested to know more? Contact us today! 

Global e-commerce is growing at breakneck speed. According to a report, global e-commerce sales are expected to hit $4.5 trillion by 2021. With that, is your business riding the social media e-commerce wave? If building your own e-commerce website is not in your immediate digital marketing strategy, there’s no need to look far for other options because you can easily turn to social media powerhouse Facebook’s Shop Section for support.

ADVANTAGES OF A FACEBOOK SHOP

If the bulk of your social media marketing efforts is on Facebook, setting up a Facebook store gives your customers the ability to stay within Facebook while learning more about your product. It also lends a helping hand in your content marketing efforts. Products can be tagged on a visual post or promoted on its own when you set up Facebook Shop. It’s also beneficial at capturing impulse buyers who purchase products as soon as they see them.

For brands with a multi-platform approach to e-commerce, you can also link Facebook Shop to a marketplace such as Lazada. Such is the case for Suisai Singapore, a skincare brand known for their powder facial cleansers. Customers viewing a product on their Facebook Shop can check out via their Lazada store.

Facebook Shop also doesn’t discriminate from small businesses who do not have a third-party e-commerce store such as Lazada yet. During the setup process, businesses can opt for two check-out settings: check out on a website or send a message. The latter is what De’Longhi Philippines utilizes, allowing customers to show their interest in a product via private message. For this method, businesses still have the ability to continue the purchase process by getting in touch with customers directly.

LET AN EXPERIENCED DIGITAL MARKETING AGENCY SET UP YOUR FACEBOOK SHOP

With 2.27 active billions of users on Facebook globally, businesses enjoy increased exposure and extra visibility via the platform. Moreover, it doesn’t cost anything to set up a Facebook Shop.

Are you ready to include a Facebook shop or an e-commerce website in your digital marketing strategy? IH Digital is a digital marketing agency in Singapore that can help your business. Get in touch with us today and let us help you win the digital marketing game.

Another year with the ever-changing nature of SEO, new ranking factors and SEO trends are brought to light with the search engines’ new improvements. Stay on top of the game! Here are the top SEO trends of 2018 to get you geared up in your digital marketing initiatives.

1. Voice Search

This year is no different from the previous one, voice search is still considered to be a big factor in ranking your website in internet searches. With that, making use of a more conversational tone for answering daily queries is a way to go to give your website a boost in rankings. Voice search is one of the mainstream SEO trends this year since we are approaching an era of assistant devices.

2. Mobile-friendliness

Of course, the immense growth of voice-activated searches goes hand in hand with the growing usage of mobile devices. And as the use of smartphones for everyday inquiries continues to dominate web browsing, it is a no-brainer that having a mobile-friendly website is another factor in determining ranking. Also, faster and mobile-responsive websites are proven to be ranking higher in search results.

3. Site Speed

Slow websites are so last year as users need results fast. But don’t fret! SEO Tools like Google PageSpeed Tools has you covered. Faster website speeds have always been a big component in the ranking factor, but it seems to be given more importance now in 2018 since Google has officially announced that website response should be within 3 seconds in order to score higher ranks in search results.

4. Link-less Backlinks

While links served as a ranking signal, most SEO consultants believe that search engines can distinguish link-less mentions of brands and has a great impact in ranking high in search results. Moreover, this trend was confirmed to be used in Bing and some experts say that Google may have been using it too.

5. Relevance of Content

You can never go wrong with prioritizing your content, which is an essential ranking factor and is a great strategy for content marketing. This 2018, it is pivotal for search engines that your content has relevance to the requested searches. Google, for example, uses Latent Semantic Indexing to determine if the content of your website is “comprehensive”.

6. Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) Features

Getting the top rank in the search results in SEO ranking isn’t a guarantee to gain you more online traffic. Now, SERP features give you greater chances to ‘steal’ visitors’ attention and will be a massive advantage to businesses’ online marketing plans.

7. Continuously Personalizing SERP

Now, search engines are utilizing SERPs to be more personal based on the user’s online activities. SERPs are personalized to the user’s interest and search history. Also, SERPs will give more opportunities for websites that have been visited by the user to appear in the user’s search results in the future.

Considering to utilize these SEO Trends this year? Message IH Digital now, our reliable specialists are waiting to asses and suggest which strategy will work best for your business. Contact us here.

I’m thrilled to announce that IH Digital is opening a new office located in Guangzhou, China.

The Guangzhou office serves as IH Digital China digital marketing center. We offer diverse China digital marketing service that cater to your digital needs.

Given that Consumers in China are very much different in terms of their local culture, language and behaviour, businesses outside China should have a specialized team to support their china digital marketing strategy. With more local Chinese employees, IH Digital team members comprise of local talent with knowledge and insight of the Chinese market, and the specific skill sets to tackle China’s unique social and digital landscape.

IH Digital has been appointed as the official agency for Weibo, Baidu and Meituan-Dianping, help you to reach out to the Chinese audience. All of them are the social media platform with large user base in China. Weibo is the backbone of China’s social media landscape with over 600 million users. We are appointed as the official Southeast Asia Partner of Weibo, can provide advertising solutions and Weibo account verification services. We are authorized Baidu reseller since 2014, allowing us to resell Baidu advertising throughout Southeast Asia.

New office location

ROOM A15, WEPLUS COWORK, 3RD FLOOR, YINBAO BUIDLING,

289, ART AND CREATIVE GARDEN, GUANG ZHOU DA DAO ZHONG, YUEXIU QU,

GUANGZHOU SHI, GUANGDONG SHENG, CHINA 510620

Learn more: www.ihdigital.cn

About IH Digital

IH Digital is Asia’s Leading Digital Marketing Agency with a strong presence in Southeast Asia and Greater China. IH Digital provides a strategic and synchronized 360-degree approach, focusing on creating, distributing and amplifying meaningful and consistent content to a clearly-defined audience. Founded in 2006, there are 80+ digital marketing specialists across Asia that cater to your diverse digital needs. IH Digital has been appointed as the official agency for Google, Baidu, Sina Weibo and Meituan-Dianping.

Internet has changed our everyday life. People enjoy online shopping because they can buy what they want at home and the products will be delivered to their home. Therefore, more and more companies set up their website to start e-Commerce (electronic commerce). Here are the three online marketing benefits to enjoy by using e-Commerce:

1. REDUCE COST

With e-Commerce, you can save money on shop rental and upkeep. Also, Website and online marketing are cheap and immediate marketing channels that help you reduce marketing cost. When there are discounts or new products to launch, you can update website information immediately. And send the latest information to customers through e-mail and social media platforms like Facebook.

2. OPEN 24/7

Some potential customers cannot access to your physical store because of location and opening hours. But your online store can overcome geographical barriers, open 24 hours and every day. It brings convenience for customers as they can buy your products anytime and from anywhere. e-Commerce helps you open new markets and expand customer base, especially when you are looking for customers around the world.

3. INCREASE EXPOSURE

e-Commerce is not bound by physical limitations like shelf space, you can show all of your products with details online. You can also do cross-selling easily in the website. During online shopping, people are usually attracted by “Related product”, “Customers who bought this item also bought” and “You may also like” suggestions. Showing additional or related items to customers who are viewing a product or have already added it to shopping cart, is an extremely effective way to generate more sales.

Want to try e-Commerce?

Develop a website is the first step to start e-Commerce. However, managing the website is also important. For example, with good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can drive more free traffic to the website. IH Digital, a digital marketing agency in Singapore, provides search marketing, website development and management service. Contact us now to learn more.

If you’ve been following digital marketing trends, it’s no surprise that video is shifting and shaping the world of marketing. Video marketing is becoming the most popular and influential strategy of digital marketing to grab audience’s attention and present more content. You can find more and more videos in Facebook now.

LET’S LOOK AT 3 VIDEO MARKETING TRENDS FOR FACEBOOK!

1. Cover video

Cover video is not a new function in Facebook. When people enter your Facebook Page, the cover photo or video will be showed on the top. By replacing cover photo to cover video, you can show content between 20 and 90 seconds. A creative and attractive cover video can give a good first impression for audience and introduce your brand.

Travel 141, a travel blog platform, has uploaded its cover video and showing many beautiful views for traveler.

2. Hold contest or giveaway

Run a Facebook contest or giveaway to reward fans is a good way to increase engagement. Using video, you can ask fans to enter the contest easily by screen-capturing a scene and posting the image. Or you can ask a simple question that fans can find the answer in the video. It is interactive while encouraging your audience to watch the whole video to find the scene or answer.

IH Digital hold a contest by animation video for PUB, Singapore’s National Water Agency. We asked fans to count the number of blue canoes passing by the #ABCWaters site and stand a chance to win the prize.

3. Professional Live Video

Live video will continue to be a trend in 2018. Using professional live video can introduce your products in detail. The biggest advantage is that you can connect with your audience through real-time communication. For example, when they have questions, they can comment and ask, and you can answer their questions immediately through live video.

START PLANNING YOUR VIDEO MARKETING STRATEGY!

After looking at different video marketing trends for Facebook, think about which style you would adopt for your video production today!

IH Digital, a digital marketing agency in Singapore, has digital marketing services that could cater to your brand’s needs. With our digital marketing agency’s vast experience in producing social videos, we will expand your outreach and increase your fan engagement on Facebook. Drop us a message and learn more of our services.

As Facebook rolls out the integration of Live Photos, the feature has become a more interesting way for your business’ Facebook page to pop. It is also a great way to create amazing Facebook content such as “behind the reveal” posts that will help you surprise and grab Facebook users’ attention.

CREATE INTERACTIVE POSTS

Posting Live Photos in Facebook can create unique and interactive content, which is “Press and Hold Facebook Post.” You can ask people to physically press and hold the image to see what you have inside. Think of all the surprise and fun customers can have with this! This function can make your Facebook videos or images come alive on the newsfeed, pique people’s curiosity and stand out from others.

Recently, we made an impact using Facebook Live Photo for LANEIGE Singapore. Here, fans are encouraged to press and hold the ‘Accept Call’ button in the Live Photo. Then, they can use smartphone to hear a message from their new ambassador, South Korean actress Kim You Jung.

To experience this Facebook ­Live Photo, follow this link on your smartphone: https://goo.gl/7zpnDH

PROVIDE MORE INFORMATION

A photo ad can deliver your brand’s message but with Facebook Live Photo, you get the best of both worlds – a still picture and a video, all presented in a manner that engages the fan. Facebook’s Live Photos can show a video up to 30 seconds long. With this unique content, you are able to incorporate more brand and product information.

HOW TO MAKE A LIVE PHOTO POST?

The easiest way to take live photos is through an Apple iPhone, but it can only record 1.5 seconds before and after the photos are taken. Another way to do this is to use an app called “intoLive,” which lets you reveal a video up to 30 seconds or select up to 30 photos to create a slideshow.

One catch to Facebook’s Live Photos is that it can only be viewed on the Facebook app. In addition, Live Photos are measured as static images. You won’t see video metrics such as engagement or watch time.

WANT TO TRY FACEBOOK LIVE PHOTOS FOR YOUR DIGITAL MARKETING CAMPAIGN?

IH Digital, a digital marketing agency in Singapore, provides content marketing services that can cater to any of your digital needs. From video marketing to social media marketing, contact us now to learn more.

Sina Weibo has appointed IH Digital as its official agency in Southeast Asia. —
SINGAPORE, June 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/

The partnership allows IH Digital, Asia’s 360 Digital Marketing Agency, to provide Sina Weibo advertising solutions and Weibo account verification services to businesses outside China; in the capacity of Sina Weibo’s official agency. These services will be provided via IH’s offices located throughout Southeast Asia, including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and The Philippines.

Sina Weibo: The Chinese Twitter x Facebook hybrid

With over 600 million users as of 2017, Sina Weibo is one of China’s largest social media platforms where users create, share, and discover Chinese-language content.

Evolving from what was initially a microblogging platform akin to Twitter, Sina Weibo has since developed into a fully-integrated platform for content aggregation and distribution – not unlike the Chinese Facebook – with long-form content, multi-media and video streaming features; the latter’s addition securing Sina Weibo’s place as the leading social media platform in China due to its unparalleled use by Chinese celebrities and KOL (key opinion leader) users.

Adopted by businesses for social media marketing since 2011, Sina Weibo allows enterprises to promote their brands, products, and services to the platform’s large base of Chinese social media users. Sina Weibo offers a wide variety of advertising and marketing solutions, ranging from social display ads, promoted feeds, to event-based ad and activity solutions.

Reaching out to Chinese Tourists on Sina Weibo

Preliminary estimates by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) show that Chinese tourist arrivals and spending in South East Asia hit record highs in 2016. Chinese tourists were the biggest spenders for the second year in a row, contributing a total of S$1.9 billion just last year alone.

“Singapore experiences an influx of 250,000 Chinese tourists on a monthly basis. Lately, there has been a surge in the number of Chinese Free and Independent Travellers (FIT) using digital platforms as their main sources of travel information. We believe that attracting them via Sina Weibo is the most effective method,” says Mr. George Foo, Chief Operating Officer for IH Digital.

“While WeChat and Weixin (the WeChat version available to mainland Chinese – restricted to businesses with operations in China) allow enterprises to offer highly personalized services to individual stakeholders; Sina Weibo excels for businesses seeking to drive awareness, engagement, and leads amongst Chinese consumers. In particular for businesses who do not have established operations in China, but are looking to reach Chinese consumers; Sina Weibo is the best Chinese social media platform for them to build awareness and credibility.”

Given that China’s digital landscape is unique, Foo emphasized that businesses outside China should have a specialised team to support their advertising campaigns on Sina Weibo.

“We are a multinational team. The local talents are armed with the necessary expertise to tackle both the Chinese and Southeast Asia markets. As such, we are able to support advertisers who are interested in reaching out to the Chinese outbound travellers.”

The new partnership follows IH Digital’s partnerships with other Chinese digital giants, such as Baidu and Meituan-Dianping.

About IH Digital, Sina Weibo’s Official Agency

IH Digital is Asia’s 360 Digital Marketing Agency with a strong presence in Southeast Asia and Greater China. IH Digital provides a strategic and synchronised 360-degree approach, focusing on creating, distributing and amplifying meaningful and consistent content to a clearly-defined audience. Founded in 2006, there are 100+ digital marketing specialists across Asia that cater to your diverse digital needs. IH Digital is currently serving as the official agency for Google, Baidu, Sina Weibo and Meituan-Dianping.

• Read more at: www.ihdigital.com & www.ihdigitalchina.com
• Contact Us: weibo@ihdigital.com

Videos are tearing up the online marketing field for its significant role in content marketing of brands this year. Marketing and advertising opportunities increase as video platform’s growth in terms of views and engagement continue to rise. It is no wonder well-thought video marketing content is occupying social media and search that we have never seen before. This changes the game in online marketing as more businesses focus their attention to new digital marketing actions to rake in more sales and enhance brand awareness.

Our social media agency in Singapore, IH Digital Singapore, has created digital video content and video marketing campaigns for partner brands. With our video marketing services, we will help brands in their content strategies using the video platform, from conceptualization, video production, and distribution to amplification to make sure you reach and take the best share of the market. Seeing corporate video production as an excellent choice to create more marketing breaks, we have incorporated video streaming platforms such as YouTube to thrust our partner brands to the limelight. The video trend won’t die out soon and it will only grow in the coming years as shown by Cisco.

Whereas YouTube still takes the crown as the biggest video marketing platform, Facebook video is not far behind. According to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook video acquired more than 8 billion views each day. As a social media platform, Facebook video became a favoured platform by many brands to reach their target audience. Below are some of the video campaigns and video materials we created to support our partner brands’ campaigns.

In addition, IH Digital supports several languages across Asia to give you quality marketing content that is localised to capture your target audience. By subscribing to our video marketing package, we will ensure that your corporate videos are uploaded on popular channel easily accessible by the vast majority of your target market. Your audience will only be exposed to quality branded content that is easily consumable. Because these channels allow advertising on their pages, we can make them more visible to viewers using their targeting tools. At the end of the day, the competition will be determined by your targeting precision, video quality and delivery of the message.

Our effective implementation of video marketing campaigns using digital media can make your brand stand out from the competition. Contact IH Digital Singapore here to know more and we will be in touch with you shortly.