About twenty million Malaysians are on the internet, and that is about two-thirds of the population. The last five years has shown a steady increase in the demand for digital marketing and digital transformation.
 
A quick look at the term “influencer marketing” on Google Trends shows a steady upward trajectory. With the rise of social media over the past few years, influencer marketing became part of social media marketing and content marketing mix for connecting directly with consumers. Although it's still new to the Malaysian market, it is definitely growing. With the higher statistic of time people spend online each year, it is certainly a medium to reach the younger audience in Malaysia.
 

Social media influencers are a vital aspect of creating an effective digital marketing strategy. In the world of online consumers, influencers play a huge part in selling your product and promoting your brand. If you’re new to the idea of influencer marketing, we’re here to help you learn how to find the right social media influencers for your brand. Before long, 

Here's a quick low down on the social media and influencer marketing landscape in Malaysia.
 
  • The top 12 most active social platforms in Malaysia is YouTube (68%), Facebook (67%), WhatsApp (60%), Instagram (47%), Facebook Messenger (45%), WeChat (42%), Google+ (41%), Twitter (41%), LinkedIn (30%) and Pinterest (26%), LINE (25%), Tumblr (23%).
     
  • Facebook and Instagram are the fastest growing social media platform in Malaysia from 2015 to 2017.
     
  • Facebook reveals that 80% of all Malaysians who have access to the internet are also on Facebook. That brings the number to 18 million users — that’s more than half of the entire population. What’s more, Malaysians also have 1.6 times more friends than the global average.
     
  • Malayasian also spend a whole lot of time consuming video content on Facebook as Facebok statistics reveal that Malaysian spend on average 159 minutes watching videos on the social media site. That’s 55% more than the global average of 102 minutes. Malaysian also spend more time watching videos on smartphones (66 minutes) than watching live television (59 minutes).
     
  • Consumers are increasingly looking to social media for practically everything, and they turn to the people that lead and command on each platform — the influencers — for advice, tips, and recommendations.
     
  • Almost 60% of fashion and beauty brands have an influencer marketing strategy in place, while a further 21% plan to invest in it over the next 12 months.
     
  • Advertisers are increasingly embracing influencer marketing as customers become over-exposed to paid ads and are using social media to guide purchases, often with the influence of favourite personalities.
     

Top Influencer Marketing Statistics Every Marketer Should Know

  • 70% of teenage YouTube subscribers trust influencer opinions over traditional celebrities.
     
  • 86% of women turn to social networks before making a purchase.
     
  • 32% of influencers who currently work with brands cite Facebook as the best platform, followed by Instagram at 24%.
     
  • 71% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase based on a social media reference.
     
  • 86% of the most-viewed beauty videos on YouTube were made by influencers, compared to 14% by beauty brands, themselves.
     
  • 57% of beauty and fashion companies use influencers as part of their marketing strategies.
     
  • On average, businesses generate $6.50 for every $1 invested in influencer marketing.

Why Influencer Marketing?

 

Brands looking into influencer marketing should take note of the trends in the industry in order to fully strategise their campaign. We have identified 3 prominent trends of influencer marketing coming 2017:

Trend #1: Emphasis Towards Content Marketing

In 2016, we have seen and experienced both the good and not-so-positive impact influencer marketing can bring to a brand. Some prominent mistakes made by brands include the overuse of influencers, selecting influencers irrelevant to your brand and so on. But one big mistake that should be avoided is the posting of content which is irrelevant to the audience.

Coming 2017, the emphasis on quality content will be largely noticeable. Content posted by Malaysia influencers not only have to be engaging and interactive, it also have to be new, natural, suited to the influencer and brand, shareable and encompasses a call-to-action to be able to reach out to a wide network of your target and produce positive results. Consequentially, brands which invest greatly in creating quality content will have an edge over the rest.

Trend #2: People-Centric Influencer Marketing

 Most brands and marketers are focused on tapping on the hype of influencer marketing without considering the rationale behind those marketing efforts. In the upcoming year, it is crucial for brands to become more people-centric and focus on the audience when implementing each campaign.

Influencer marketing in 2017 will need to provide consumers with what they desire and explain how purchasing your product or service will add value to their life. With many marketers executing their marketing campaigns without much thought regarding their audience, being the first few to resonate with the audience will bring your brand ahead.

Trend #3: Malaysian Becoming Risk-Adverse

Being risk-adverse, Malaysia consumers are increasingly relying on influencers and word-of-mouth to decide on their purchases. This should be seen as an opportunity to leverage on the available influencers to bring about more sales through the online platform. To be able to leverage on influencer marketing to provide a form of reassurance for the consumers would definitely bring about positive impact on your brand's ROI.

Influencer marketing would hence be a great platform to reach out to the Malaysia market, especially the young Malaysian who constantly look online for reviews. These characteristics of the community is what make influencer marketing extremely effective in Malaysia.

How To Get Started With Influencer Marketing?

 

Reaching out to Influencer Personally or through Influencer Marketing Agency

You may ask, what are the various ways to engage Instagram influencers in Malaysia to perform influencer marketing? There are simply two options: businesses to reach out to influencers personally, or go through an influencer marketing agency.

On the surface, it may seem reasonable to reach out to influencers personally with the presumed low cost and easy reach. However, with the vast amount of influencers in Malaysia, each focusing on specific topics of interest, performing influencer marketing and liaising can be a real challenge. To execute an effective influencer marketing campaign, one should be sure to read up on the various aspect of influencer marketing from the various articles and ebooks available online.

Alternatively, an influencer marketing agency would be of great help in terms of identifying the right influencer for your marketing campaign, negotiating prices and measuring results.

Malaysia Fastest Growing Influencer Marketing Agency

StarNgage is an Influencer marketing and reporting platform allowing brands to customise, manage, launch, and measure digital advertising campaigns on Instagram. StarNgage empowers brands to partner and advertise with everyday influencers - the same way you would on search engines or social networks!

StarNgage provides 4 main services: Targeting, Identifying, Amplifying and Tracking.

 

Target

Set your targeted customer profiles and categories while indicating preferred Cost-Per Engagement

Identify

Search for category-specific and brand aligned Influencers with the right profile to promote your campaign through our patented matching algorithm

Amplify

Mobilise Influencers to create optimised visual content that engages your targeted consumers, amplifies your brand, and generate online buzz

Track

Track your influencer marketing performance through our dashboard and measure your ROI. Pay based on desired results.

How To Choose Your Influencer Marketing Goals and KPIs

 

The Most Common Influencer Marketing Campaign Goals

After activating more than 10,000 influencers across 120 campaigns, we've seen influencers used in many different ways. Here are the most common goals we saw across our campaigns.
 
Product Launches
Brand Awareness
Content Generation
Community Building

The Most Common Influencer Marketing Campaign KPIs

 

Reach

Can be measured based on the number of followers of influencers. Easy to measure, but the least valuable.

Clicks

Easy to measure and one of the most important performance based metrics

Engagement

Includes any social action (like, comment and share). Requires a hashtag or unique link for proper attribution. More value than a click.

Conversion

Includes installs, sign-ups, form completions and purchases. Hardest to measure, requiring a pixel & unique link or a promo code for attribution.

How To Choose Your Influencer Types

 

The Pyramid of Influence

The Pyramid of Influence encompasses the full spectrum of your influencer relationships. Here is a breakdown of how that pyramid works from the top down.   Not all influencers are the same. Over the past few years, there is a big shift in focus from these high-end influencers to micro-influencers. To explain the different types of influencers, StarNgage uses the Pyramid of Influence. Influencers with a high reach and lower relevance, like celebrities and thought leaders, are at the top of the pyramid, while those with lower reach but higher relevance, like advocate and current customers are at the bottom.   Micro-Influencers is a mix of people who have reach, but more importantly, have a high relevance among their audiences. Their influence lies in their niche understandings and the mutual trust with their audiences.
 

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Spectrum of Influencers

The term ‘influencer’ used to describe celebrity and social media elite. But the mass adoption of social media leveled the playing field to include bloggers, instagrammers, youtubers and even everyday consumers. As such, the industry is working to establish a common taxonomy to talk about influencers. Influencers can be identified among the following three types:
 
Mega-influencers: Actors, artists, athletes and social media stars who have 500k+ followers and drive 2%  to 5% engagement per post. They have the highest reach on the influencer spectrum, with their influence driven by their celebrity (they tend to be brands in their own right). They have the lowest overall resonance when it comes to driving actions on behalf of a brand.
 
Macro-influencers: Professional bloggers, and YouTubers who have large base of 50,000 to 500,000 followers and drive 5%  to  20% engagement per post. They have the highest topical relevance on the spectrum, with category-specific influence – such as lifestyle, fashion or business. 
 
Micro-influencers: Everyday consumers  who have 1,000 to 100,000 followers and drive 25% — 50% engagement per post. They have the highest brand relevance and resonance on the spectrum of influencers, with influence driven by their personal experience with a brand and their strength of relationship with their networks.
 
 

Social Media Influencer Landscape in Malaysia

Mega-influencers: Earn their living some other way (e.g. athlete, actor, artist, top model, celebrity), and monetize their influence as a secondary source of income. (For example Lee Chong wei , Nicol David, Siti Nurhaliza Tarudin and Mawar Ashid)
 
Macro-influencers: Earn their living as an influencer (e.g. professional blogger, creator, or journalist). (For example Hong Kiat, Hanie Hidayah, Jane Chuck, Emily Quak, Sabrina Tajudin, Pennmyblog, Ummi Nazeera) 
 
Micro-influencers: Consumers who have relevant influence and may not know it, or aspire to become a macro-influencer. (For example Christinna. K, Elecherlee,Chazynash and Purpletiff )
 
Brand Advocates: Consumers who are passionate and willing to share, but have little influence.
 
 

Top Youtubers (Youtube Influencers) in Malaysia

 
lescopaque
lescopaque
Les' Copaque Production
Monsta
Monsta
Monsta
namewee
namewee
namewee
TheMingThing
TheMingThing
dmingthing
老吳 Laowu
老吳 Laowu
crazyissac
lingbigyong
lingbigyong
lingbigyong
 Joseph Germani
Joseph Germani
GermaniProductions
TheGRIMFILM
TheGRIMFILM
TheGRIMFILM
DanKhooProductions
DanKhooProductions
DanKhooProductions
matluthfi90
matluthfi90
matluthfi90
mxmantv
mxmantv
mxman.tv
JinnyboyTV
JinnyboyTV
JinnyboyTV
Joanna Soh Official
Joanna Soh Official
joannasohofficial
Dennis Lim Ming
Dennis Lim Ming
Dennis Lim Ming
Joyce Chu
Joyce Chu
theCLOVERJOYCE
CodyHongTV
CodyHongTV
CodyHongTV

Top Instagrammers (Instagram Influencers) in Malaysia

 
Nur Fazura
Nur Fazura
missfazura
 Hairul Azreen Idris
Hairul Azreen Idris
hairulazreen
Queen Qya
Queen Qya
tiz.zaqyah
Fara Fauzana
Fara Fauzana
therealfafau
Mawar
Mawar
mawarashid
Elizabeth Tan
Elizabeth Tan
elizabethtsm
liyanajasmay
liyanajasmay
liyanajasmay
Zhafou | Zhafoujr
Zhafou | Zhafoujr
fouziahgous
Elizad Sharifuddin
Elizad Sharifuddin
elizadsharifuddin
Jenna Chew 周甄娜
Jenna Chew 周甄娜
jenna_chew
Ummi Nazeera
Ummi Nazeera
umminazeera
intanladyana
intanladyana
intanladyana
Michiyo 何念兹
Michiyo 何念兹
michiyo_ho
chazynash
chazynash
chazynash
nadzmiadhwa
nadzmiadhwa
nadzmiadhwa
yasminhani
yasminhani
yasminhani

How To Choose Your Influencer Marketing Content Types

 

Plan Your Content Type Before Activating The Influencers

 

Brand Generated

Brand creates the content and influencers are activated to share it with their networks.
 
  • Pros: Influencers don't add any personalization; they simply share the content. Least risk.
  • Cons: Less Creativity and personalization. Least impactful.

Co-Developed

Brand develops guidelines for the content and influencers create their own content based on adaptation. For example: “Share a picture of your selfie in Singapore Botanic Garden”.
 
  • Pros: Moderate Impact Pontential
  • Cons: Mild risk.

Influencer Generated

Content is generated by Influencers based on their creativity. Brand gives loose and generic direction.
 
  • Pros: Influencers have full creativity with loose guideline from brands. Maximum impact.
  • Cons: Review process is needed as part of risk management as the risk is higher.

How To Choose the Right Incentive for Your Influencer

 

Plan Your Incentives Before Activating The Influencers

 
There are different factors you should consider before making a decision on what kind of incentives you offer to your influencers.
 
Exclusivity: Incentives should be exclusive to only influencers that you like to activate in order to motivate participation in your influencer marketing campaign.
 
Influencer type: Most of the mega-influencers and macro-influencers will require cash payment, while micro-influencers will consider other form of compensations aside from cash.
 
Brand affinity: The most enduring and valuable level of influencer relationship is based on the mutual belief that the influencers and the brand share common values. It is advisable to activate relevant influencer who is passionate about your brands for best results. Branded incentives will work best in this case.
 
Fulfilment Effort: If more effort is required by the influencer to create and share branded content, then a higher incentive value is needed.
 

Types of Incentives

 

Cash

For most of the mega-influencers and macro-influencers, you will have to use payments for incentives. However for micro-influencers, some of them are open to receive VIP treatments and special branded incentives other than cash.

VIP Treatment

When activating micro-influencers, the most popular incentive is an exclusive experience. This type of incentive works best when they are passionate about your brand. This could be in the form of a discount, gift card,  limited product giveaway, VIP free trial etc.

Recognition

Micro-influencers are more than happy to receive non-monetary rewards such as recognition. You can do this by featuring their content on your owned media such as Website or share their voices and give them a limelight on your social media channel.
 

Common Incentives Ideas

 
  • Exclusive Event
  • Early Access
  • Discounts
  • Free Trial
  • Contest Entries
  • Gift Cards
  • Experience Box
  • Limited Product Sample
  • Priority Service

Brands use StarNgage to Find Influencers

Request a consultation to discuss how we can help your next Influencer Marketing Campaign