2009: The Year Of Twitter In Thailand?
Another op-ed to pick through this time '2009: Year Of Twitter' from The Nation and the seemingly ubiquitous Asian Pornwasin, a reporter who hasn't updated her Twitter account since 25 November.
The article begins calling Twitter the "technology phenomenon of the year" a description which should (but isn't) followed by "in Thailand" as the service has been active for more years and had equally phenomenal years in 2007 and 2008 as it began to break western markets.
It is often joked that no-one reads The Nation but, for those that do, here a few points worth highlighting.
More than 100 Thai companies of all descriptions have already boarded the "new-media bandwagon" by opening Twitter accounts. They include Boon Rawd Brewery (@Singha_Beer), Central Department Store (@Centralnews), Fuji Restaurant (@Welovefuji) and Kasikornbank (@KBank_Live).
Labelling Twitter for business "a bandwagon" suggests scepticism as to its benefits, but with huge multinationals, like Dell (which made $6.5m) investing time and money in Twitter and Twitter itself looking at a feature for business it is clear that this bandwagon is quickly becoming an established medium.
[Perhaps this is why The Nation's Twitter feed is so poor, are they are also on the bandwagon? Is it creaking yet]
While Thai companies are increasingly coming to Twitter there are a lot more than one hundred companies in Thailand - there is more to come. And of those which do 'use' Twitter few are successful or innovative in any way.
Many use the medium like @centralnews, poorly.
@centralnews is little more than a website traffic generator. It has more than 4,000 followers yet it follows none back (reciprocity and listening to customers are key elements of Twitter). Central tweets nothing but Central news and promotion, as there are no deals unique to Twitter, anyone interested would do better visited the website more often or signing up to the newsletter.
2010 is a year when companies like Central must be more creative like, for example, @welovefuji (which reciprocates follows, retweets (RTs) and communicates with its audience, posts pictures and useful/interesting information) or @singha_beer (listens to its followers whilst communicating promotions, facts whilst being a little spontaneous and random, making it more interesting to follow that a 'boring corporate').
The article fails to make this point, instead suggests that a lot of Thai companies are on board and that Twitter is just a bandwagon whose wheels will fall off in due course.
Looking at western market and firms that are doing it well, I'm not sure they'd agree.
The last big event of the year was when Thailand's top 10 "Tweeple" - top users of Twitter - met for the first time in an old-fashioned face-to-face communication called "Tweeple Talk".
Twitter users joining the event included Deputy Prime Minister Korbsak Sabhavasu (@korbsak), Apirak Kosayodhin (@Apirak_Bangkok), Suranand Vejjajiva (@suranand), and Phra Maha Wudhijaya Vajiramedhi (@vajiramedhi).
They shared opinions and Twitter experiences with about 200 people who joined them, as well as 30,000 to 40,000 other Twitter users in Thailand through a live broadcast on www.beenets.com/live.
The Thai tweet-up (through beenets.com) was indeed significant as clearly shows there is a substancial users base of Twitter users in Thailand - although finding exact figures is problematic.
Another remarkable achievement for Thailand's Twitter society was the "We Love King" campaign. Thais showed their love for their beloved monarch by making the tweet "WeLoveKing" the top-trending topic in the world during half an hour on the evening of December 5 - His Majesty's birthday.
The King's Birthday was an indicator that there are a lot of devoted Twitter users in Thailand rather than any sheer number of users. Whilst the hashtag (called so because it is topic tag preceded by a hashmark) did trend it was perhaps over emphasised by some users who repeatedly sent out tweets which included as many of the #weloveking hastags (called so because it is topic tag preceded by a hashmark) as possible.
The result is likely more of an indicator of what it takes (in practical terms) to make a topic a trending topic rather than a "remarkable achievement".
With more Thai Twitter users online in 2010 we can except more trending topics for significant events, look out for Songkran (Thai New Year) in April.
It was the first time a Thai topic had dominated the most-mentioned category of the most-popular social-networking tool of the digital world.
#BarcampBKK, the hashtag for Bar Camp Bangkok, a meeting of self-confessed geeks and internet enthusiasts, was Thailand's first trending topic back in May 2009 - spoils a nice story I'm afraid.
As for labelling Twitter "the most-popular social-networking tool of the digital world", Facebook is quite clearly the owner of this crown (were it a country, it would be the world's fourth largest) though not in Thailand just yet.
