Jon Russell

Thailand's First Twitter Wedding

A while back when discussing the future of technology in Thailand, an interviewee assured me that whilst the technology may be the same, the nation of Siam will develop its own, distinctive usages. One has arrived already, the Twitter wedding after @vinegargirl and @kengdotcom tied the knot yesterday, Sunday 10 January 2010.

While using the internet and social media before and after a wedding is common place these days, using it in real-time whilst the wedding is taking place is certainly less conventional.

Headlines and eyebrows were raised in December 2009 when American Dana Hana infamously 'tweeted at the altar' creating the first Twitter wedding, first instance of a twittering groom, the first 'you may tweet the bride' headline, etc, etc.

Credit to @kengdotcom and @vinegargirl, know offline as Keng and Aom, then for no cheesy tweets, they did things differently, Thai-style. 

The couple used Twitter to communicate with friends and spread pictures on the day. Branding at the wedding included their Twitter handles and there was even a hashtag,#aomkeng, to follow the conversation and the rest is history, already indexed by Google thanks to the wonder of real-time search.

Some guests even checked in on FourSquare.

Having recent got married I have pretty strong opinions on the privacy of wedding pictures and other information. Whilst my wife and I regularly put our photos into the public domain of the internet we have kept our wedding collection private - sharing only a few select pictures.

For us, our photos, particularly the official pictures, are special, once-in-a-lifetime images to be treasured. For these reasons we've kept them offline, to ensure they are a little more sacred and in our control - QED see a few of Aom and Keng's wedding photos below.

Despite my disagreement and initial thoughts (a little excessive though they may have been) a part of me does understand Aom and Keng's motives.

Social media and Twitter in particular is about bringing people together and increasing communication. Putting a hashtag on Twitter encourages guests to tweet generates chatter and shares images. Hopefully not at the expense of more traditional socialising.

Guests' photos, video and accounts of wedding find their way on to social networkings in the long run just not within minutes of being taken.

Whether it is a mark that Thai people are less afraid of privacy issues online or just their total adoption of technology, it will be interesting to see if others in Thailand will follow Aom and Keng in embracing social media.

That said, were I to do my wedding again, it would stay offline and hashtag free.

The writing was on the wall back in April 2009 when Aom and Keng made a wedding presentation video which can be found on YouTube and a range of other sites which take its content.

Mobile Social Networking's Big Potential In Thailand

Here's a piece from the Director Thailand blog on the potential of mobile social networking in Thailand during 2010.

2010 is here and rather than review the year we’d prefer to launch straight into mobile social networking, a technology which could break through and have a major influence on Thailand and its businesses this year.

Just to be clear, we are not advocating that mobile social networking will grip every mobile phone owner across Thailand but, in a world where western markets set digital trends, social networking has the potential emerge as a major force in a similar way to Twitter’s rise over the last 3-6 months.

Key to the development is users’ points of access - in this case smartphones such as the iPhone, BlackBerry, high-end Nokia or others. The demand  for such devices is rapidly growing in Thailand as the media has recently commented.

Here is an excerpt from a recent article in The Nation:

“Thailand's smart-phone market is expected to grow to sales of 400,000 units in 2009, or about 35 per cent more than the 320,000 sold last year, according to market intelligence firm International Data Corporation (IDC) Thailand.

The local smart-phone market still has a lot of room for growth. About 20,000 units are currently being sold per month, while total mobile-phone sales are around 700,000 to 800,000 per month. But the market for traditional mobile phones is showing flat growth, and is likely to fall further.”

To read the rest click here.

TAT Looks To Social Media Marketing

New Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) governor Surahon Svetasreni has pledged to use social media to help boost Thailand's reputation and increase visitor numbers in the country.

The new governor is far keener to use social media and e-tools to enhance the attraction of the kingdom abroad.

“We are reshaping our web tools to integrate new media such as Twitter or Facebook. We want travelers to Thailand to be more actively involved into the shaping of our web content by updating our site with their own experiences and advices,” said Mr. Svetasreni.

Social media is also a way to make TAT promotion more effective despite a limited growth in the agency budget.

“Our total budget is up by 1.9 percent to US$138 million for 2010. However, half of the money is affected to administration purposes, which requests us to be even more effective in our marketing expenses,” added TAT's new governor.

via eturbonews.com

As disclosed earlier this week recent tweets from Paula Abdul and Martha Stewart, two celebrities who celebrated the New Year in Thailand, reached a combined audience in excess off 3 million showing just a glimpse of the potential social media has for TAT and Thailand 'The Holiday Destination'.

TAT is not unfamiliar with the social media after using a combination of blogging, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as part of Ultimate Thailand Explorer, a competition which began back in September with winners due to be announced tomorrow, Friday 8 January.

Overview of the competition below.

The Ultimate Thailand Explorer, a social-networking competition from TAT, aims to raise Thailand tourism by attracting people to join the competition and have them publicize Thailand’s top five destinations including Bangkok, Phuket, Pattaya, Chiang Mai, and Koh Samui through digital world.

The winning couple of the Ultimate Thailand Explorer, selected by a process of online voting, will win a cash reward of US$10,000, a holiday package to Thailand, a Blackberry and a Handycam video camera. Plus, the voters are also eligible to win a holiday package to Thailand worth US$1,500, a spa voucher, a Blackberry, and a handycam video camera.

Interested challengers have to apply as a pair and film a one minute video clip telling which destination you wish to explore, why you want to go there, and how will you promote the place to other visitors. Afterwards just upload your video onto Youtube.com, you must complete your team profile registration form and encourage people to vote for your team and share their Thailand experience and stories through social media tools.

via thailand-travelonline.com

Facebook & Twitter Statistics For Thailand [Via AIS]

Recently stumbled upon a number of interesting statistics from Thai operator AIS from a press release announced back in early December (2009).

The reliability of the stats is questionable as there is neither a source nor a reference. Social media user data is notorious difficult to find per country, particularly for smaller markets like Thailand.

However according to AIS

There are about 1.34 million Facebook members in Thailand with over 5 million viewers.

Regarding Twitter, there are 600,000 members with over 1.2 million followers.

There are over 6 million AIS Mobile Internet users at present.

There are about 100,000 users of Facebook on mobile phones.

There are about 30,000 users of Twitter on mobile phones.

The user statistics do not seem too drastic although it is not 100% clear what Facebook's "over 5 million viewers" refers to and the mention of "over 1.2 million followers" for Facebook in Thailand is also unclear.

Using the AIS statistics the following is true:

** 7.5% of Facebook users in Thailand actively update through their mobile phone compared to 5% of Twitter users

** Facebook membership in Thailand grew by 15% September through November [or which ever time AIS statistics date from - stats 1,160,980 in Jan 2009 to 1,340,000 - see here for more)

** More than 5% of Twitter users in Thailand took part in the recent Tweeple Talk Thai-language Twitter event (with an estimated 30,000-40,000 in attendance)

More light on this is definitely required.

Dhamma Embraces Social Media

Twitter's New Year Boost For Tourism In Thailand

It seems being seven hours ahead of GMT gives Thailand advantages beyond positioning English Premiership (football) matches at 9.00 pm - a dream slot for bar owners - after the country's tourism industry inadvertently made use of the time delay and Twitter.

Details are from Access Hollywood below

The stars are celebrating New Year's Eve around the world and sending out their well wishes via Twitter.

Paula Abdul and Martha Stewart were some of the first celebrities to share their New Year's Eve moments as they both appeared to be celebrating (separately) from Thailand.

"Lighting a lantern and letting it go with a wish on New Years at Six Senses Resort in Thailand", Paula Tweeted.

Martha also shared her well wishes.

"A happy new year to all my friends in thailand it is almost midnight and we are all thinking about the possibilities for 2010."

Although these endorsement are unlikely to be response for any holiday bookings just yet, the Twitter messages had a potential audience in excess of 3.3 million (Abdul has 1.5 million followers and Stewart 1.8 million) making them, alongside the pair's other tweets from Thailand, influential.

One drawback of digital media is the difficult of quantifying such influence but the attention, alongside additional media coverage like the article, come as a boost for Thailand tourism industry and the country's reputation globally.

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.

Hi5 Still Ahead Of Facebook In Thailand - TechCrunch

A First For Twitter – Advertising Appears On Thai Editor's Profile Page

He is editor-in-chief of The Nation and one of Thailand's most followed Twitter users with a shade over 22,500 followers at time of writing. It is a safe to say that with his large captive, Suthichai Yoon is one of the country's most influential Twitter users.

With such a large following it is logical to assume his profile page receives a sizeable amount of daily traffic. 

No need for assumption, Khun Suthichai’s page speaks for itself. 

The background of the page is space-to-rent, with an advertisement from Nok Air – "Thailand's domestic airline based in Don Mueang International Airport, Bangkok" – currently occupying the space. 

As a country, Thailand is fairly tolerant to advertising - just filling up a car with gas an advert is placed on the bonnet while seemingly any space, anywhere can carrying ads. 

That said selling out a Twitter page, a personal space online, takes advertising to a new level. 

Is it too idealistic to say that social media should be free from advertisements and endorsements? Does everything and everyone have a price?

I’d like to invite Khun Suthichai to provide more information about the Nok Air placement. 

• How much money does Nok pay for it? 
• How many hits does it register per day and how much custom does Nok receive from it? 
• Is it ethical for the editor-in-chief to carry an advert on a personal web page? 

One thing is for sure, this a first for Twitter – will it catch on?