While Facebook has long dominated social media in Southeast Asia, 2016 has shown that Instagram is beginning to catch up – and advertisers are taking notice. This 12 months, Instagram passed a powerful 500 million users worldwide, and lots of of those gains were made in Southeast Asia. According to the worldwide Connect Life Report by Kantar TNS, the variety of users within the Philippines alone increased by 50% between 2015 and 2016.
However, nowhere within the region is Instagram more popular than in Malaysia, where 73% of web users have an Instagram account – greater than in Singapore and Hong Kong. Given Instagram’s massive popularity, that is an awesome test case for the way the social media site can play a regional role in the longer term as a vehicle for driving specific brands and trends. It’s also home to local Instagram stars who show the way it’s possible.
Take, for instance, Malaysian blogger/fashionista Vivy Yusof. She began blogging about fashion almost a decade ago and has gained a military of followers due to her fashion insights. Frustrated with the Malaysian fashion scene after traveling abroad, she turned her blog right into a fashion empire in the shape of Fashion Valet, an internet site selling clothing lines from Southeast Asian designers. Her perspective is Muslim, which translates well to predominantly Muslim Malaysia while maintaining a more mainstream international appeal.
Yusof’s Instagram account played a key role; she currently has 827,000 followers and uses them to advertise Fashion Valet (416,000 followers) and her lifestyle brand The dUCk Group (198,000 followers).
Even though it’s Instagram, that does not imply the photos are a group of selfie stick shots. While there are just a few personal photos of her children, many of the fashion photos are very skilled and well-edited. However, the advantage could also be that, unlike magazine editorials, Yusof’s photos are often taken within the “real world”, so users can imagine themselves carrying a particular bag or head scarf. They also contain comments concerning the quality and attractiveness of the product.
As a life-style brand, she can be an icon of the trendy Muslim woman – Yusof’s brand is predicated on being a married mother and a successful businesswoman who can be a believer.
Yusof just isn’t the one Malaysian Instagrammer who combines personal celebrity, fashion influence and business – this just isn’t surprising considering that, based on Kantar TNS, 92% of Malaysians follow celebrity bloggers.
Online media site Tally Press compiled a listing of 100 influential Instagrammers in Malaysia, 32 of whom had greater than half 1,000,000 followers in 2015 (not bad for a rustic of 30 million). These Instagram stars provide many services to their followers: they advertise latest trends, personally guarantee product quality, present a rather more accessible vision of how trends/products might work in the true world, and share other user-generated content.
Many people have followed the same path to Yusof, leveraging their social media popularity to create a business empire. Actress Nora Danish used her popularity and 4.2 million followers to advertise her Owl by Nora Danish fashion line. Danish also deals in Muslima fashion and uses Instagram to advertise sales, products and even job offers in her stationary store. Meanwhile, Malaysian singer Dato’ Siti Nurhaliza Tarudin parlayed her celebrity status and three.4 million followers into makeup and fragrance brand Simply Siti.
In other cases, celebrities also can endorse products, providing a more direct type of promoting, rather more classic than the old TV promoting celebrity model. Actress Lisa Surihani hasn’t launched her own company yet, but she uses her account, which has 2.7 million followers, to advertise micro-electric masks at an area clinic and Maybank debit cards in between photos of her attending events and going about her life.
Other stars followed suit. For example, Yusof also promotes certain products by posting a photograph of himself wearing a bag or item of clothing with identifying hashtags. Beauty and fashion brands corresponding to Maybelline, Sugarbelle Cosmetics and FCC Malaysia appear to be making the simplest transition, but in some cases other products have gained popularity. Yusof recently posted just a few posts a few credit scoring service that also look “cool,” but don’t seem like she’s selling pimples medications under a soap opera light.
While Malaysia could also be a very successful example of the intersection of Instagram, celebrities and promoting, it might be a test case for the broader use of Instagram promoting in Southeast Asia. In countries with limited consumer protection laws or false promoting in markets corresponding to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, personal recommendations are more likely to carry more weight than traditional promoting.
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