I always keep a look out for businesses and organisations that have embraced social media as part of their online strategy in Southeast Asia.  The US Embassy here in Cambodia is one of those organisations that has fully incorporated social media into the way they now interact with their audience.  Interested to find out how and why, I contacted embassy spokesperson Michelle Bennett.  Here are the responses I received:

1. When did the US Embassy in Cambodia start using social media?

We joined Facebook on May 4^th, 2009. We joined Twitter in July 2010, during the celebrations of the 60^th anniversary of U.S./Cambodia diplomatic relations, but our account wasn’t active until we hired a Social Media Coordinator in March 2011.

2.  What was the thinking behind the decision?

The U.S. Government as a whole realized we cannot just wait for people to find our websites and programs. We have to get out and engage with people on “sticky” sites where they are already spending time.  Facebook is hugely popular in Cambodia, so that was a great place to start.  If you talk to Cambodian youth, especially in urban areas, and ask them if they are on Facebook, they almost all say yes. We gave the decision to engage on Twitter a little more thought. A year ago, most active Twitter users in Cambodia were expats, which aren’t our typical target audience. But the Embassy in Phnom Penh felt we had a chance to get in on the discussion on the ground floor and help shape the narrative.  In the last six months, about 80-85% of our new followers are Cambodian, and it seems the network is gaining momentum here.

3. Which social media platforms do you use?

We are most active on Facebook (over 26,000 fans) and Twitter (just passed 5,000 followers). We maintain photos on a Picasa account and videos on a YouTube channel.

The US Embassy in Cambodia on Facebook

4. Is there a separate social media department within the embassy?

Our social media team is part of the Public Affairs Office, which is the office in charge of sharing the Embassy’s messages with the Cambodian public.

5. What was the training process?

There are numerous social media trainings offered by the State Department for our employees. Some of our team has attended those trainings, but Twitter has mostly been self taught.

6. Do you have the autonomy to personally answer any questions people ask, or do you have to consult with other departments or a centralized body?

It depends on the question.  If it is about a Public Affairs program, that is easy to answer within our section.  If the question is about visas, we consult with the consular section.

If the question is about politics or policy, we may consult with the political section or the Ambassador. The Public Affairs Officer is the embassy spokesperson, and is one of only a few people in the embassy authorized to make public statements.

At the end of the day, we need to remember that despite social media’s casual style, everything we post is still the voice of the U.S. Embassy. We do try to answer every question we get, though sometimes we do so via direct messages if we don’t think a public response is necessary.

7. What benefits do you feel having a social media presence has brought the embassy? 

The benefits are numerous. With a click of a button, we have the ability to reach almost 30,000 people.

So if we want to share information about American culture, or an upcoming event, or scholarship opportunities, we have a platform in which to do that.  It also offers a platform for our followers to ask us questions.  Ten years ago, it would be very difficult for a Battambang resident to ask a question of the U.S. Embassy. Now that person can get on their smart phone and send us a question in a matter of seconds.

Social media also offers a chance to connect with our Cambodian audience multiple times a day.  While that connection might usually be very brief, it can have a big impact on the individual.  Think about the student who hears about a semester scholarship in the United States via Facebook.  She applies to the program, is selected, and has an amazing study abroad experience. When she returns to Cambodia, she not only brings those skills and experiences with her, she is now part of our State alumni group (FUSAAC), and has a built in network for support, jobs and new friends.

Our favorite interactions on social media are those which lead to face-to-face conversations.

8. How do you choose what to tweet about and what to post on the Facebook page? How often do you liaise with other departments?

The content is mostly derived from the manager of the specific social media platform. We try to represent the various interests of the U.S. Government here in Cambodia. So if Peace Corps or USAID has a program to share, we’ll post information about that. As well, we send links to interesting and relevant articles coming out of our headquarters in Washington D.C. or from local news sources.

Screening of “An Inconvenient Truth” @ Embassy on April 26. See our Facebook page for a chance to attend: goo.gl/gs2i7

— US Embassy Cambodia (@USEmbPhnomPenh) April 4, 2012

9. What challenges have you faced having a social media presence? 

Social media, if not managed well, can be a real drain on human resources.  It does take a substantial amount of staff time and energy to maintain a social media presence.  Our thought is, if you do it halfway, you aren’t doing yourself any favors. In order to be successful, an organization must commit the necessary resources.  The challenge is finding the right balance between social media and the numerous other aspects of our jobs.

10. How are you working with other organisations to promote social media use in Cambodia?

Last Thursday, we led a seminar for NGOs on how to use Twitter called Twitter Talks (#TwitterTalks). We’ve done these for university students before to introduce them to this platform, but this was the first time targeting NGOs.  To help the conversation from an NGO perspective, we partnered with The Pari Project, who was able to answer questions like “Should your organization commit to this?” looking at what the target audience is, and then how to direct tweets towards that audience. For our part we spoke about the nuts and bolts of how to use Twitter and third party applications (including using some of your advice on scheduling tweets). The day went very well, and all of the participants will be moving forward using Twitter with a better understanding of the time commitment required to use the medium correctly.

Twitter Talks in Phnom Penh with the American Embassy & The Pari Project

11. Do you use any third party tools to monitor your Twitter and Facebook campaigns?

For Twitter we use Hootsuite, Klout, and sometimes TwitPic.

The US Embassy on Twitter: Follow @USEmbPhnomPenh

The US Embassy on Facebook:  Subscribe

I particularly like the way the US State Department has realised the value of having an individual social media campaign in each of the countries in which it is present.  Other organisations and businesses I know in this region have been hesitant to recognise social media as a viable tool as they see it as being too hard (and risky) to leave the voice of the company to an individual or local department.  The US Embassy has shown that this can be achieved both effectively and professionally.

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Related posts:

1. Is Social Media on the Rise in South East Asia?
2. Is Now the Time for a Social Media Department?

Any time I speak with small to medium size businesses about social media I pretty much get one of the following answers:

“Yes, yes we’re going to get onto that soon”.

“We’ve got a Facebook page but we don’t really do much with it”.

“We just don’t have the time”.

Here are some thoughts on why it’s time to embrace online culture now:

1) Become human

More and more these days customers expect your business or organisation to be human. Supporters and customers expect timely responses to queries, complaints or general input. A brand that has its own personality, voice and face will undoubtedly lead to people talking about it more. Everybody knows, for example, the face of Apple and Virgin.

2) Interact

Social media is a great way to interact with your customers and supporters. Imagine if you were given the opportunity to sit down with people interested in your brand every day for an hour without having to go anywhere – surely you’d jump at that opportunity.

3) Tell people who you are while boosting your Google ‘juice’

Brands that blog receive 55% more traffic to their websites than those that don’t.  Most organisations are capable of uploading a group of photos with a comment to a Facebook page with relative ease.  Why not add them to your website/blog instead, increasing your Google ranking for posting up-to-date and relevant content.  You can then link it to Facebook later on.

4) Use social media to effectively deal with customer complaints

Twitter and Facebook can be great tools to respond to complaints. Many businesses will just delete or ignore negative feedback,but actually it can provide a good opportunity to show others that you are interested in what people have to say and that you are willing to improve all the time.

@joelgascoigne I submitted a question to your customer service weeks ago and am still waiting to hear back. What gives?

— Joel Gascoigne (@joelgascoigne) February 13, 2012

Rather than turning me off the brand, seeing this message from Buffer founder Joel Gascoigne made me like them more.

5) Likes and follower numbers really aren’t important

Don’t spend all your time trying to get 100, 1000 or a million fans or followers on a particular social media platform. Concentrate on the community you have and interacting with them. Yes it is important to network and find people who will be interested in what you are offering, but don’t use numbers alone as a measurement for whether or not your campaign is working.

I would much rather see a Facebook page with 200 engaged fans that is being updated every day with relevant content than one that has 10,000 fans and is only being used once a month with little or no interaction.

Finding the time:

Maybe now is the time to rethink your daily work pattern. You may not fully understand the advantages of social media at this stage and how it will benefit your business or organisation, but I would say that now is the time to start taking it seriously.  Start by freeing up 1 hour every day which you can use to create and action some kind of online strategy.

The internet is not going to disappear overnight and you can’t afford to ignore it any longer.

What is currently keeping your business or organisation from adopting a social media strategy? Questions here often turn into blog posts so please ask away.

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We all want the same out of Twitter; to enjoy reading tweets, to interact with people who interest us and to find an audience for our updates.  Here’s some quick tips on how to best maintain your account so you are following and being followed by the people that matter to you.

How to follow the right people on Twitter

I use two methods for this.

1) Look at the timelines of the people you are already following and see who they are communicating with. Then follow those people. Using this method you are assured that the person is currently active on Twitter and is prepared to engage.

2) Followerwonk - This is a good way to find people in a particular field of interest.  It allows you to search Twitter bios using certain keywords. You need to sign in with your Twitter account first and then enter your keywords. You can then follow people based on their profiles. It will also tell you if you are already following them and if they are following you back.

You may have to get creative with your keywords. If you are interested in finding a new set of people to follow out of your field then this works especially well.

Twitter follower tools – who to unfollow

Maintaining a Twitter account will lead to an all round richer experience. If you follow people that are no longer using the service, are misuing it, or are never engaging with others then you’ll probably want to unfollow them. You may also decide to unfollow people that don’t follow you back.

I personally rarely follow people who are following a lot more people than are following them (unless they have obviously just joined Twitter). A quick clean up once a month will increase your chances of gaining new followers.

Here are the two tools I use to manage my account:

1) Twit Cleaner

This is an amazing web-based tool which tells you all sorts of information about your followers:

It allows you to identify people you are following who are no longer active on Twitter in a way that is useful or interesting to you.  You can then choose to unfollow people directly from the site.

2) Unfollow for Twitter

Great app for iOS devices only to see who hasn’t tweeted in a certain amount of time and who is not following you back.

A site like who.unfollowed.me is also a good way to determine who is not following you back but it doesn’t tell you who hasn’t tweeted in a while.

How do you manage your Twitter account?  Any great tools you’d like to share?

Follow @SimOliver

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A friend and guest house owner in Cambodia’s top tourist destination, Siem Reap, asked me recently about her social media strategy. Her problem, she said, was trying to find interesting things to post on her Facebook business page and therefore maintain interest and engagement. Here are a few ideas on what to post on your business Facebook page if you’re a guest house, bar, restaurant or shop owner.

1) Keep it personal

If you run a small business then let your fans know what you’re up to. Being a foreigner living and working overseas is interesting to a lot of people. A post such as:

This is where we chill out in the evenings when we get a bit of time off. (picture of balcony preferably with someone sitting in a chair looking relaxed)

What do you think of our view?

This allows people to get a glimpse of your lifestyle, asks a question and hopefully creates some engagement.

2) Involve your staff

Run a competition with your staff each week for best performance or something similar and then post a photo of the winner.  You could also post photos of staff who are celebrating a birthday, wedding, or graduation.

Here’s our cook Samnang who cooked a delicious fish amok special this week for our guests.

Ask him anything you want about Khmer cooking.

This shows you not only to be an employer that has an interest in your staff’s welfare and personal lives but it is also a way to promote specials without sounding too much like a sales pitch.

I would also suggest getting your staff to ‘like’ and follow the page on Facebook if they have accounts, and encourage them to interact.

3) Use reviews and emails from customers

It will always sound a lot more genuine if someone else is singing your praises and talking about your business. Use emails and reviews from sites such as Trip Advisor to make a short post.

First email I read this morning. So nice to get these:

“Can I just say that I thoroughly enjoyed my stay with you, the staff, the rooms, the service were all impeccable…I will definitely be recommending you to my friends”

Don’t make the post too long – just use a few sentences.

4) Take photos of guests, customers and ask them to tag themselves

Smiling photos of customers will work well on a Facebook post especially if they are doing something silly.  Group shots will always work better.

We had a fantastic group of Swedes in last night who all ordered our ribs special and this was their reaction… (add group photo of everyone with thumbs up, smiling and pulling silly faces)

You can then tell them it will be on your Facebook page in the morning and to go on there and tag themselves. This will probably get you a few more ‘likes’ as well in the process.

5) Post one photo per week of your specials or offers

A Facebook page full of self-promoting posts is dull. Simply posting a photo of something that’s been on your menu for ages will not be of much interest whereas a special will.  If you show your fans that you are constantly innovating, improving and creating, this will get noticed.

If you’re taking a photo of food, take a look at a few food blogs first to see how people capture dishes.  A lot of Facebook posts will gain attention if the image really stands out.

Make the post engaging too and try and get a question in at the end.

Special of the week: Big Mark’s Massive March Meatball Pasta

Only $3.50 with garlic bread and fresh parmesan.

Can we tempt you?

6) Make your FAQs into a post

Running a tourist-based business you’re probably answering the same questions every day. Write these down and once a week answer them in a post.

Call it FAQ day and use a nice photo to accompany it.

FAQ#15 – Is it safe to go out at night in Siem Reap?

A: Siem Reap has a very low crime rate.  As long as you don’t wander around in the early hours, drunk and alone you’ll be fine.  On check-in we can give you further advice.

Anybody else got any advice they would like to share?

If you start a blog in the future, you can use these responses and comments to make a number of interesting blog posts.

7) Use Google Alerts to find posts about your business and what’s going on around you.

Google alerts is a great free online tool which enables you to find specific content.

Simply add your keywords (e.g. Rosy Guesthouse Siem Reap, Travel Blog Siem Reap, Travel Photography Siem Reap, etc) and then be informed by email when someone writes something about you or the area in which your business is based.

Blog posts that mention you or your area will likely have relevant content that you can use – events in your town, captivating photography, or interesting perspectives.

Add your comment to the link:

Here’s a great post by Travelfish on where to get the finest cocktails in Siem Reap.

Did they miss anywhere out?

Follow these suggestions and you’ve got a week’s worth of content.

Always respond to comments and be polite and friendly.

Do you have any Facebook tips for small service-based businesses? 

Follow @SimOliver

Related posts:

1. Why Facebook for Business is Getting Harder

Instagram is a great app for iOS that allows you to take photos of your daily life, edit them with some funky filters and share them with your followers. Really, it’s Twitter for images.

Recently I came across Hong Kong based Instagramer, Tyson Wheatley (@twheat), who has a staggering 46,268 followers while following 454.

In order to gain some insights I asked Tyson a few questions on how he has become one of Southeast Asia’s most popular Instagram users.

How often do you post?

Daily, with an occasional short break. I just finished a self-imposed 48-hour break, which is probably the longest I’ve taken in a year.

How often do you go onto Instagram per day?

I typically check in three or four times a day. During my morning and evening commutes, and a quickie during my lunch break and again before I go to bed. Yeah, I’m pretty much an addict.

What do you use to take your photos?

An iPhone 4s.

Is there any technique for taking a great photo for Instagram?

There are probably many techniques worth exploring, none of which I’d claim at being an expert in.  I try to pick subjects that are well lit and preferably not moving.

I think the key, for me at least, is the editing. Instagram comes with a really fantastic set of filters and the new “Lux” feature is great at enhancing lowlight images, but having a set of great photo editing apps can make a huge difference.

Instagram is square format, so obviously cropping and framing are important when taking photos.  I usually take a lot of photos of the subject I’m shooting, using Camera+ or the standard iPhone camera. And I’ll try several different angles. Then I’ll play around with a variety of apps, sometimes combining them before posting only the very best edit to Instagram.

What are your go to apps to edit photos?

Filterstorm, Picfx and Snapseed.

How many times have you appeared on the Popular board?

I’m not sure. I’m fortunate enough to have been added to IG’s “Suggested User” list, so a lot of my posts make it to the Popular board.

How did you get your first 100 followers?

My first followers were my friends and people who I was already connected with through other social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

How did you grow your follower numbers after that?

Mainly through using the app, liking and commenting on other user’s photos. Leaving nice comments is probably the best thing you can do to grow followers.

A lot of people seem to beg you to follow them back. How do you determine who to follow back?

Well, asking for a follow is definitely not the way to go about it. The number of followers a user has isn’t necessarily the best indicator of talent. The real currency on IG is likes and comments. My advice for anyone new to IG is to leave nice comments on other user’s feeds. It’s also the best way to meet and discover new friends.

Is there anything about Instagram you’d like to see changed?

I’d like a longer news feed. And I thought the tilt-shift tool from a previous version was better than the current one. But overall, I think it’s an incredible platform.

Are there any other Instagramers in Southeast Asia to keep a look out for?

Gah, too many to list. @Msbluesky, @Jethromullen, @stephenleopold, @Indigoblue, and @furkidsinhk in Hong Kong.  @rianassaaf is great.  So is @matsumotokazuo, @ada39 and @catharumi.

If you want to get an idea of what your iPhone can do take a look at my favourite three photos from Tyson’s stream.

Central Hong Kong from the Peak -> 2512 likes, 268 comments

"This is Kaya. She is 8, and fearless". -> 2540 Likes, 397 comments

Labryinth -> 2026 likes, 167 comments.

If you want to follow Tyson’s Instagram stream, view him on Webstagram, type in the name @twheat to a username search in Instagram or you can follow his tumblr feed too.

Are you a fan of Instagram?  What tips do you have for gaining more likes and comments?

Follow @SimOliver

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