Social Media in South Korea, Interview with Ogilvy's Howard Han (Part 2 of 2)
Part Two: Howard gives us some tips to manage Crisis Communication, identifies key changes in social media in South Korea and advices on how businesses can more effectively penetrate the market.
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1. In a case of crisis communication, how should companies utilize digital media to communicate with its stakeholders?
Three main recommendations that I would give to my clients:
1) Set up a listening post to carefully monitor social conversations about your brand
2) Develop a strategy after carefully accessing and evaluating the ongoing conversations
3) Choose the right platform to engage and convey the brand message. This could be Twitter, Facebook or a blog or even through traditional media.
It's better to have an online social presence and platform than none at all. As this gives you a platform to direct and allow your consumers to create conversations, if you need to engage in a conversation with consumers, you can do so.
2. How do you see the digital media landscape developing in South Korea over the next 5 years? How can companies in Korea best prepare for such changes?
Next 5 years is a very long time, because social media changes very quickly. But social media is rapidly evolving and the battle for a piece of the social media landscape has just begun. It's going to get more competitive and more interesting. And it's going to make my life busier.
People will increasingly value overall social media strategies, the quality of content in communication and the actual management of these social brands and social platforms. As such, brands need to manage these three factors well to compete with the best in the market.
Rise of small and boutique agencies. And as the social media landscape or market evolves, there will an increase in boutique social media agencies in the market. We will see them come and go, but there will be a general rise in these agencies to meet the growing demand for social media expertise.
Global platform and global campaigns are going to be more adapted to the local environment. Global agencies will probably gain a more competitive edge as they have these multi-offices with different campaigns and global clients that can plan and execute in a number of different campaigns.
Competition between domestic and global social networking sites will be more intensive. Naver and CyWorld have announced they are the largest and most competitive Internet providers in Korea, so it’ll be interesting to see how they will vie for the market. Additionally, it will be interesting to see how CyWorld is going to make a comeback, people are paying less attention despite the fact that they are doing a lot of things. Global platforms such as Facebook and Twitter is also going to get bigger and more locally adapted so more people can use them. So the manner in which Facebook and Twitter are going to adapt to Korean environment and whether they meet the needs of the market is something to watch out for in the coming years.
3. Based on your working experience with digital media in South Korea, what advice would you give to clients who wish to penetrate this market?
Firstly, the business needs a long-term plan. A lot of global MNCs mostly conduct short project stints, however this is short sighted in a market with constant influx of information - people will not remember you for long.
Secondly, businesses need to define a specific objective. Is it going to be a promotion platform, CRM platform, listening platform or informative platform, what is the objective? Companies need to be specific objectives when using social media. Social media is not a magic wand and an effective social media campaign requires specific objectives. Is the platform going to be a listening post and a source of information, or is it a promotional or used for the purposes of Customer Relationship Management (CRM?)
Thirdly, Don't be afraid to change. I tell this to both global and domestic clients. Many companies are concerned that social media will hurt their businesses. They need to be more confident. Take the ride and see how things go.
Forth, to penetrate the market companies need to build corporate character. If you are going to play in a social battlefield, you need to have a character; you need to have an identity. So we recommend clients to build their social character and their identity. So it's not about blowing money on events and giving them free goods, but it's about building your character that others can identify with. So that has to be considered when you are going into Korea and want to be successful.
Lastly, train your staff. For better management and long-term cost savings, you definitely need to train your staff. Often social media is outsourced to an agency like us. We are grateful for this but it's not good for the company in the long run. They will need to train their staff so that they can actually manage on their own and rely on agencies for more for the strategic and developmental aspect of social media. I think South Korean companies are still very heavily reliant on agencies for social media management, more so than other companies in other parts of the world. So training their staff would not only be cost effective, but help them make quick decisions and really shape their companies’ social character.
Additional Questions
How much can social media help a company?
That question actually doesn't have an answer because it all varies by the objectives and the nature of the company as you have said. Maybe some companies or some brands, products or services rely upon social media. Some brands are not. Let's say we talk about construction, B2B, B2C. Social media may or may not be helpful or useful to them. So it all depends on the actual offerings of what the brands are and it depends on the target audience. Right now, social media in Korea is very much used for consumer products and corporate PR from a promotion and marketing perspective.
We are trying to do a lot of B2B, social campaigns and stuff like that but it is still rather entry-level. And in the near future, we will definitely see more B2C and other small market segments applying social media to their business. But right now, it's mostly consumer and corporate business that are applying social media to their business.
Case Study: Hanjin.
We asked Howard Han about the Hanjin protests by Kim Jin Suk on Crane #85. If the company had taken a more proactive approach to engage its stakeholders on social media, would we see a different outcome? Why was Hanjin not doing it?
In such an issue, first thing the company needs to decide is whether to be proactive or reactive towards the situation. The typical conception of Koreans is that when a company engages in active conversation, they are trying to hide or conceal something. As such, for most Korean companies, the common stance is to be reactive and adopt a “wait and see approach”.
Hanjin is actually doing something with their Twitter, #HanjinHeavy, which is their Twitter handle that they have and they are using that to respond to the critiques of their naysayers. What I believe is that that both parties are saying what they want to say, but they are not listening to each other. The lesson to learn for this incident is the manner in which South Koreans are engaging with Social Media. Through social media, netizens are able to communicate their thoughts more widely and more rapidly with the broader public. From a societal perspective, social media is definitely shaping the communication and conversation style within South Korea.
