SINGAPORE, 28 OCTOBER 2009 - Singapore netizens love all things technology so much that there is a mention of a major technology brand every two minutes, according to a study called Digital Brand Index (DBI).
The DBI, developed by media consultancy Edelman with data tools from services firm Brandtology, tracked nearly 75,000 online conversations pertaining to 58 large technology brands, monitored between July and September this year.
The text mining platform from Brandtology tracked, for instance, comments in blogs and forums as well as mentions in news sites. Even platforms such as Facebook and Twitter were looked at.
The index is offered as an industry benchmark for marketers to use to measure the impact of their online engagement strategy.
SingTel, Google and StarHub topped the brand rankings by the volume of conversations. Events such as launches and promotions can help jack up the numbers for these vendors. In the case of SingTel, the recent launch of the iPhone 3GS helped push up the number of mentions about the Singapore telco online.
The DBI provides an indicative gauge of advocacy by measuring the average comments per unique person who talks about a brand. Japanese vendor Canon topped this list thanks to the popularity of its cameras.
The index also tracked the most popular online channels in Singapore. Interestingly, nine out of the top 10 mediums are forums. And these are sub forums where members chat on specific interest areas. For instance, there are two that focus on photography, one on notebook and one on Samsung.
Engaging bloggers
While marketers tend to engage bloggers for their campaigns, “it is amazing to see 91.8 per cent of the conversations on technology brands happening on forums”, said Sanjay Nair, director for the technology practice, Edelman Southeast Asia, on one of the opportunities that marketers can tap into.
One of the few brands to engage the forums is Microsoft. During the launch of its new operating system Windows 7, the vendor organised Q&A sessions for forum members where queries were answered in person and previews given out to attendees.
However, the top 10 technology brands in terms of mentions are dominated by consumer vendors. Even for companies such as Microsoft and Google which have enterprise businesses, it is their consumer offerings that had Singapore netizens talking.
The highest-placed pure enterprise players, such as IBM, SAP and CSC, are based in the 20th mark onwards. One solution to push them higher, suggested Nair, is for these brands to engage netizens on niche sub-forums that focus only on specialised enterprise-related discussions.
