By Clara Liu
The Hoffman Agency, Hong Kong
As communications professionals, we’re brimming with opinions and industry insights. Typically, we might speak to marketers, PR news journals or bloggers about our take on the industry, but what about the mainstream business press? We’re always on the lookout for top-tier opportunities to demonstrate our clients’ thought leadership, but what about demonstrating our own thought leadership?
At a time when social media is important not just to communications professionals, but to all businesses, big and small, we decided to target the mainstream business press in Hong Kong with an opinion piece on this hot topic.
Our general manager, Jenny Chan, contributed a column to Capital Weekly – one of Hong Kong’s leading business magazines – entitled “Embracing Social Media to Build Clients’ Brands.”
Without a doubt, social media certainly has had an impact on all businesses today, from startups to well-established enterprises. In particular, our article highlighted strategies that PR and marketing professionals can use to help build and strengthen brands in Hong Kong and beyond.
To demonstrate the power of social media, we discussed the Google+ “hangouts on air” campaign that The Hoffman Agency ran earlier this year. As part of this campaign, we streamed a live music concert featuring the Hong Kong pop girl group, Robynn & Kendy.
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Thousands connected to the gig socially using Google+. By combining social media with traditional PR tools, such as a press conference, the campaign proved to be a big success, which helped to advance the Google+ brand in Hong Kong.
We’ve pasted a more detailed synopsis of the coverage below, and we look forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments section.
Embracing Social Media to Build Clients’ Brands
Due to technological advancements and the impact of globalization, the Hong Kong communications industry has faced tremendous changes in recent years. The popularity of social networking as a way to connect with people and brands has continued to grow.
In December 2011, 43.7 percent of all social media visits were to Facebook alone, while the term “Facebook” ranked top among all search terms in all categories in Hong Kong. Among the top three social networking sites in Hong Kong, YouTube is the only website with a continuous increase in market share for visits in 2011, compared to Facebook and Discuss (a local online forum).
With the rise of social media, the fine line between PR, digital, marketing and other communications channels has become increasingly blurred. In order to help clients build or fortify their brands, agencies and communicators need to find a way to integrate social media with traditional PR; distilling complex IT knowledge into convincing local stories. In our experience as a multinational PR consultancy, when compelling storytelling happens, clients truly win.
