The Lelong.my E-Commerce Fair 2011 and A Social Media Experiment

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September 1, 2011

The last couple of weeks has been nothing but busy, followed by a major downtime of my site caused by some rather irritating server problems but I’m glad that they are all sorted out now and I can finally go back to my blogging routine.

I recently launched an event for a client (Lelong.my) which is also Malaysia’s first E-Commerce Fair held at one of the busiest exhibition centres in Malaysia – the Mid Valley Exhibition Centre. The event lasted for 3 days over the weekend with the main objective to highlight the E-Commerce industry in Malaysia and to educate consumers on the convenience of E-Commerce.

Before you go about wondering why an event of such nature is required, consumers in Malaysia generally are not very comfortable with online purchases and the limitation of payment services makes things worse. However the E-Commerce scene in Malaysia is slowly picking up over the recent years which led to Lelong.my’s decision in bringing the online experience offline for all to see.

The event brought online retail businesses from electronics, books, gadgets, fashion apparels, home appliances and etc together along with various support industries such as payment gateway giant – PayPal, web hosting providers, shopping cart solutions and more. By doing so, consumers are now able to find out more about such services and get started right there and then, ultimately mass educating many who were clueless about e-commerce.

As a whole, the event attracted over 60,000 visitors throughout the 3-day event with over a million impressions online across various platforms including blogs, Facebook updates and tweets plus complementary press write-ups on several local newspapers.

A Social Experiment at the Event

Being myself, I thought it would be great to put to see if social media is effective for a corporate consumer event in Malaysia. A part from the usual online promotional campaigns using Facebook (which was well received), I tested the usage of Twitter and Foursquare, two platforms that aren’t as big as Facebook in Malaysia.

The experiment is simple and it comes in 2 different parts:

Part 1: Using Foursquare to target existing Foursquare users.

A new venue is created on Foursquare prior to the event (without any specials) just to test the popularity of checking in. The results?

It didn’t cook up a storm but the results are rather interesting. The newly created venue managed to bring in 24 check-ins (with a mayor crowned) and 1 tip from a visitor within the 3-days as compared to the venue’s other check-ins (Hall 1, Hall 2 and Hall 3) which have been created at least a year ago.

This suggests that visitors are more inclined to check-in to an event compared to a location (like the exhibition centre) even when there are no specials to be given away.

Part 2: Using Twitter’s location based search to target tweeps within the area.

We closely monitored users that were checking in to the Mid Valley Megamall and those that are tweeting within the vicinity of the venue and sent them an invitation to check out the e-commerce fair at the exhibition centre.

While the temporary Twitter handle only received a handful of followers, the invitation sparked conversations among interested tweeps and we were able to share the event with many others.

What does this mean for other corporate consumer events in Malaysia?

Facebook reaches the consumers at a larger scale in Malaysia as compared to other social platforms
Foursquare specials have the potential to be an attraction or incentive for visitors to come by (or just to check-in)
Twitter is a good tool to create conversations, create interest and responding to feedbacks
Twitter’s location based search allows you to capitalize on the crowd that is already in the vicinity. You just need to give them a reason to come by.
You should not rely on one social platform alone. Consider other platforms to reach out to other pockets of consumers as each tool have their individual strengths and audiences.

What are your thoughts on utilizing social media as part of an event’s marketing mix? Any ideas to spice things up?

Note that the experiments were done on an as-it-is basis with its conclusions drawn from a personal perspective only.

A Daily Race Against Time

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March 5, 2011

| Jan Wong

In case you’re wondering – this site also reveals part of my happenings in life, injecting a little bit more flavour to the site as a whole; something lighter than the usual information dosage, especially for the weekend :)

It has been a really busy week and it would seem that it will only get busier all year long! It has already been almost a month since I started lecturing part time and it has been fun thus far (except for the preparation of exam papers). Somehow attending classes as a student seemed like a drag but it is the other way round when given the opportunity to share – or maybe it’s just me – the opportunity to share with the students, future entrepreneurs, is really something :)

The project for the largest chocolate retailer in Malaysia just went full swing! We are now in the midst of compiling photos of yummy chocolates to first work on the website. The website is usually the first apparent change for a online positioning project after thorough investigation and discussions with the company’s stakeholders. Websites today should be compatible with all modern browsers, mobile devices and for a chocolate business – pictures, pictures and more pictures!

With over 300 different types of chocolate, it’s gonna take some time to have them all up. Fancy a Hot Chilli Dark Chocolate, anyone?

A couple of projects were also launched in the past week including the 2nd Malaysia’s Online Fashion Entrepreneurs’ Weekend! Going beyond last year’s success, MOFEW 2011 is gearing up for twice the size, twice the fun and twice the exposure – once again being the largest gathering of online fashion entrepreneurs in Malaysia to highlight the online fashion scene and the people behind the industry. Check out the promotional video:

To think of it, it is only the beginning of March – a whooping 9 more months to end 2011 with a big bang! It’s definitely a busy year with more projects in the pipeline but it’s gonna be great!

What have you been up to? :)

The Week Before Christmas

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December 20, 2010

| Jan Wong

In case you’re wondering – this site also reveals part of my happenings in life, injecting a little bit more flavour to the site as a whole; something lighter than the usual information dosage, especially for the weekend :)

It’s the 2nd last Monday of the year and less than a week away to Christmas! I don’t know about you but things seem to be getting busier by the day. Is that happening to you, too? Oh, if you noticed, I’ve changed this site’s background to green in conjunction with Christmas.

mysimplifieds community meetup

Just 2 days ago I was given the opportunity to share to a bunch of eager entrepreneurs on how MOFEW can assist them in starting off their very own online fashion business at Teeq Brasserie, Lot 10 KL. It was a half day event with about 100 participants for them to learn, exchange business opportunities and network among like-minded people in a really casual environment – haven’t spoke in events like that for quite sometime.

The highlight was really a reminder to aspiring entrepreneurs to look beyond mere sales especially in these times where engagement is equally (or even, more) important than figures. With competition on the rise, customers today are also spoilt for choice and only those whom are dedicated and committed to DELIVER will remain competitive.

I shared 2 simple tips on how entrepreneurs can take their business to the next level:

#1: Build your network to increase your NET WORTH!

Every business regardless of it’s size, requires a network for it to survive whether it is a network of businesses, consumers or suppliers. Start-up entrepreneurs often think that since they are still ‘small’, they may not have what it takes to build a network – and that’s absolutely wrong! The smaller you think you are, the bigger the network you should have!

#2: Don’t wait for attention. DEMAND for attention!

Playing the waiting game often do not work no matter how extensive your business network is. Look / create opportunities to expose your brand to the consumers. Active participation plays an important role here. Sit back and relax and you’ll lose out. Use videos if your competitors are using photos, change your packaging, use social media tools, web layouts and etc. Do what it takes to stand out!

Speaking about social media and Christmas…

Here’s a video you definitely want to check out!

The MOFEW 2010 Experience

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September 9, 2010

| Jan Wong

Want to know what took place behind the scenes leading up towards MOFEW 2010?

If you haven’t heard, the first ever Malaysia’s Online Fashion Entrepreneurs’ Weekend 2010 has held from the 13th – 15th August 2010 at the Mid Valley Exhibition Center (Hall 3) with a 3-fold objective to highlight the online fashion scene in Malaysia, to encourage online entrepreneurship and to encourage entrepreneurs in giving back to the society, and the crowd was HUGE! We had almost 40,000 visitors and for us, the project team to see the entire event come to life, it was definitely awesome and has marked the beginning of an even more successful and exciting MOFEW in the future!

Of course, the project team is also aware of various comments and feedbacks made, and we apologize if we were unable to meet up to your expectations as we also have our limitations and setbacks for this debut. Nevertheless, thank you for your feedbacks as it will indeed help us further our plans to make things even more enjoyable than it is now :)

Alright, back to the topic! The MOFEW idea came about in September 2009 as a very simple event for Online Fashion Entrepreneurs to collaborate with an established fashion boutique to showcase their wares and goodies. Through the planning however, the project team found the idea to be just another ‘event’, without any edge at all as we agreed that MOFEW will not be an event without depth and scalability. The idea was then scrapped and revamped into what it is today, a high level platform for Online Fashion Entrepreneurs to stand out and to be made known to the mass public, educating them on the presence of the online fashion scene.

With the idea at hand, it was time to secure the venue – we needed a location that can drive traffic, convenient, and big enough for a first time event to make an impression: the KLCC, PWTC or the MVEC? Wanting to hit the shopping crowd, MVEC was selected due to it’s strategic location, located within the Mid Valley Megamall itself! As expected, it came with a hefty price tag, a 6 figure amount with construction, electricity and a list of miscellaneous charges e.g security guards, cleaners and etc.

Time to work the costings! Wanting to keep rental affordable for participants, we also needed corporate partners to drive the event alongside us. Not just any partner, but those having the same vision with MOFEW – to impact the online fashion scene in Malaysia. With the help of our partners, each booth was priced significantly lower than the normal exhibition rates – only RM390 / 490 compared to RM3k to RM10k in most exhibitions!

To turn things up a notch, we launched the MOFEW iPhone App on iTunes over 92 countries and subsequently, collaborated with I.M. Magazine and Malaysian Today to go around universities (i.e. roadshows) to spread the word about MOFEW and to give out 30,000 Mysterious Markers as an invitation for MOFEW 2010. It is also about then where we launched MOFEW: The Search, a competition among the Online Fashion Entrepreneurs to determine who is the best of them all, putting both their fashion and entrepreneurial skills to test!

Then came 12th August 2010, the day where we laboured and toiled to put the entire exhibition together. I’ll let the video below do the talking for this one, courtesy of HooHaa.my:

With the construction done, then began MOFEW 2010 on the 13th August 2010!

Thank you all for making MOFEW 2010 happen! The project team members @briansiew, @isaaccheah, @randytoo and @sarahtym; Official photographers @feeqsays, @JonYKT, @xiangcool, @azrinarizz and Shutter Blaster; Official videographers HooHaa.my; Partners, sponsors, exhibitors, friends and everyone else that has been an awesome support!

Thank YOU! :)