Malaysia - Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen has slammed Opposition politician Anthony Loke, over comments made about the contentious Facebook tourism spending.
DAP Member of Parliament Loke claimed "six-year-olds could develop the ministry's Facebook properties", which the Tourism Minister has responded angrily to.
"For DAP to say this, I laugh and feel so sad for them, they use their DAP platform to compare our professional and globally run well-monitored social network," she said, speaking to reporters after announcing local singer Fish Leong had been appointed as the country's Tourism Ambassador for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan on Tuesday.
With public backlash over Tourism Malaysia spending RM1.8 million on six Facebook properties rising, A+M asked digital practitioners in the industry for their take on the issue.
David Lian, APAC Social Media Practice Lead, Text 100 said that increasing digital spending for the tourism sector is the right way to go, as the audience profile has shown that when people want to travel, they get most of their information online.
"So if Tourism Malaysia got one thing right, it's that they need to focus on digital," Lian said.
Roberto Cumaraswamy, country head (Malaysia) of digital agency Vocanic agreed, adding that spending on digital and social media is still very much inversely proportionate with the media consumption habits of Malaysians, who are amongst the most digitally active users worldwide.
"It always worries me when clients resort to social media marketing because they see it as a cheap alternative, because that is the wrong reason to use it. The reality is that building the page is just the first baby step in the journey of successful user engagement," he added.
Kelvin Lim, digital strategist at Burson-Marsteller noted that with no clear visibility into the exact scope of work and length of engagement, no one is in any position at this point to say whether the figures are reasonable or otherwise.
However, the amount stated is certainly possible, depending on project complexity, consultant management requirements and marketing spread.
"Let's be clear, creating a Facebook page is not the same thing as managing a Facebook campaign,” he said.
“When you consider that designers, coders, marketers and engagement crews (all of which contribute to a good Facebook campaign success formula) need to be hired, the appropriate budget has to be allocated," he added.
Lian agreed, adding people assume that social media is "free" because the tools appear to be "free", but this discounts the time creatives need to put in to design assets, the technical work needed to ensure proper tracking is done (though Facebook Insights is free), monitoring and community management, advertising, and other costs such as contest prizes which can sometimes go up to RM 1 million.
Cumaraswamy added that only if engagement occurs that any true value can be obtained from social media efforts: "Sure a simple FB Page using the standard tools can be built by anyone for free, including a 6 year old as the DAP MP has commented. But will anyone visit the page? Will anyone ‘like' it? And most importantly will anyone engage with the page?"
On the view held by some commentators the bulk of the money was channelled towards Facebook advertising, Cumaraswamy noted given the cost effectiveness of the Facebook Ad model, it seems a very large amount of money to spend on advertising on Facebook in such a short amount of time.
"CPC Ads on Facebook are variable in cost depending on how much exposure is desired over a set duration and the amount of inventory available. Typically a CPC of between US0.40 up to US0.80 is the average range for Malaysia focused ads," he said.
Text 100's Lian added that as a rough gauge, a three-week advertising campaign on Facebook can work out to about RM 80,000.
"I think the backlash is symptomatic of poor understanding of how the marketing and communications industry works," he said.
When asked for his take on the criticism received Lim said: "Budget aside, when judged against other significant Facebook campaign case studies, presentation and content doesn't seem to pass muster, and that's part of what is fuelling this rage."
One senior client marketer, who declined to be named for this article, pointed out that the figures stated seemed too high for the work done, adding that depending on which agency was commissioned, it wouldn't cost more than RM30,000 per page/application excluding the cost of managing the site which could be handled by internal staff.
The marketer, whose job scope includes overseeing social media efforts, also described the ministry's approach to its Facebook properties as "too fragmented".
"Why do you need six pages when you are selling one product which is Malaysia? It's not that hard to create tabs for different events. Who is going to like all six and have their news feed flooded in a barrage of updates?"
"The main point of using social media is to engage with your audiences, and from my observations of the activity on the pages, they don't seem to be doing that with inconsistent replies."
When asked whether there was any "rule of thumb" marketers should apply when allocating money towards digital initiatives, Cumaraswamy said there is "no magic percentage".
"It's about going back to basic marketing fundamentals of aligning your marketing objectives with your target users against the budget available. What is clear is that there should be a lot more focus and spend on reaching users via the digital medium that they spend most of their time on, versus continuing to spend everything on TV and Newspapers just because its ‘trackable' and the CEO will definitely notice it."
There is perhaps an upside to the recent publicity garnered by the ministry over its social media expenses.
Traffic has spiked with many netizens visiting (and liking) the reported properties though not for the reasons originally intended as illustrated by one comment posted by FB user Kookie Kutter: "Are you worth RM1.8mill?"
