3/22/12 A Marketer's Look at Social Media in Vietnam circa 2011 - Digital Influence Mapping Project

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June 13, 2011
A Murketer's Look ut Sociul Mediu in Vietnum circu o11

I met up with Thu An Nguyen Ha at our Hong Kong Summit. She leads strategy for clients out of from our
Vietnam 360 Digital Influence team. I was struck from her by how fast social media is being adopted in
Vietnam. Combine that with the economic enthusiasm in the country and I would guess we will see big leaps
forward there.
I asked her about what is hot and happening there now in relation to brands and social media.

Q: Whut woold yoo suy ure 1- deIining churucteristics oI the sociul mediu world in Vietnum
toduy?
A: The social media world in Vietnam today is going through an experimental phrase for all those who
embrace it: users, developers, and brands. Adaptation from successful global entities kicks off with some
interesting platforms like social network ZingMe (facebook inspired), linkhay microblog equivalent of twitter,
two.vn answer to foursquare, and recently in the last 6 months we saw an aggressive development of group
buying sites such as nhommua (similar to groupon).
Vietnamese social media users are loyal to their platforms. This might sound obvious as were community
creatures but this basically means individual blogs, bloggers and influencers dont exist or stand out without
being attached to a mass and popular community. And yes its true, to be fair, Facebook has replaced the
Yahoo!360 phenomenon and 'facebookers,' anyone really, who has more than 2,000 fans can be considered
an influencer.
Social media in the eyes of brands and marketers in Vietnam today is starting to be noticed with the same
mentality of discovering what platforms can bring to their integrated digital communication plan. Theres a
feeling of almost testing the water and trying out different ways to engage in social media effectively.
The majority of social media pro brands are the FMCGs or consumer goods companies such as Unilever, Dell
(technology & communication industry), Coca-cola, etc. All the development seem to be in-sync together:
platforms are setting up while brands are also still figuring out which are the best and where audiences and
3/22/12 A Marketer's Look at Social Media in Vietnam circa 2011 - Digital Influence Mapping Project
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users are also choosing to base their own social graphs. Although I must admit Facebook in most cases still
wins over the mentality of the current best preferable platform. If we didnt suffer the limited access, I have
total confidence that Facebook would have grown well beyond the current limited 1.4mill users.
Q: More und more brunds ure experimenting with sociul mediu Ior murcom porposes. Ior u
typicul BC murketer whut woold yoor top three recommendutions be?
A: I can't stress enough the importance of developing a strategic approach to social media. Some brands
consider its just production, an add on to their digital communication plan. Most dont have a clue what the
role of their Facebook page should be, while others can't think of anything else but creating a Facebook page.
The normal pattern we see would be brands jumping straight onto the social media wave without
understanding the nature of it. So I would say think hard on a strategy and the objectives that would help a
brand drive their total brand goals or communication goals.
Secondly, content. Brands, by large, are still thinking of one-way communication and not really thinking
from a consumer perspective. The standard behavior of wanting to push out messages, campaign and
programs without having a good story or asking the basic questions like how can I involve my audiences,
what value do I bring to them, and how can I be a part of my consumers' conversations. Conversations in
social media require solid, interesting, relevant and almost unique type of communication where content is
at the core of everything. Develop a social media conversation/content plan to tie in with your audience's
behavior and preferences and then marry these with your branded content. Alternatively, create content
uniquely for social media as those are actually quite cost effective.
Be Brave I would say. Brands should at least start to realize and take up the belief that social media is
changing the way theyre operating, do business and communicate with their audiences and customers.
Companies who are already doing digital work, especially great work, need to move fast into the area of
social media, get a good advisor/agency and embark on the social media path.
Typically PR managers who would normally view digital as a brand manager or marketer job, should have
the courage to do social. The social territory might seem vague and mysterious, probably due to the fact
that PR managers are not familiar with the possibility of having proper, effective measurement for social
media programs. In addition, brand managers can start to venture into the area of applying social media to
drive business impact that goes beyond brand awareness.

Q: Which brund{s) is doing something interesting in sociul mediu in Vietnum und why?
A: I would say Coca-cola (Coke). Instead of using the globally aligned Facebook platform, Coke in Vietnam
has identified its target audience locally: targeting a younger crowd, focus on a teen to the first-jobbers
market that is also the biggest internet users segment in Vietnam.
Coke connected with the young spirit of online users and most of the population who loved to be entertained,
via the most popular SNS platform ZingMe. Using the already massive user database and network, Coke built
a site that sits within the community. With the new direction of ZingMe going less gaming and moving into
more communication, it would be interesting to see how the Coke community within ZingMe grows.
A few international brands in Vietnam have started to plug-in their global/regional program of establishing
Facebook counts despite the difficulty in access. We see Dell, Adidas, HTC, Ford, Vietnam Airlines etc
operating here. Hence the question very soon would be which brands have the successful Facebook cases
and doing great things in this platform.
Q: Any new technology[plutIorm thut excites yoo?
A: To be fair, ZingMe development kinda excites me a bit as they will be growing more towards the direction
of communication rather than just games. ZingMe has a perceived perception as a very young, teen-like
platform where nothing serious is going on there, this will soon change. We already see a few big brands
3/22/12 A Marketer's Look at Social Media in Vietnam circa 2011 - Digital Influence Mapping Project
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taking the interest in building brand presence within the community and I would be keen to see.
Geo-location based is another one that I keep my eyes on. Since Foursquare we now see services that mimic
this global trend being adopted here. Brands have not been brave enough to invest in this, but Vietnamese
users favor location & activities sharing and the mobile communications, and this will push these platforms
forward. I do hope to see great mobile campaigns!

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