It’s happening right now - 5.00pm MYT. A flash mob — Tali Tenang – that garnered interest and attendance via Facebook group United Colours of Malaysia and promoted via Twitter (@RandomAlphabets), to advocate peace amongst Malaysians in light of the our recent religious unrest.

While many of us can’t be there in person, we can get live updates from @RandomAlphabets and #talitenang. Let’s wait and see if #talitenang will become another trending topic.

Bad news sell… or a laughing matter does.

On Tuesday, Malaysia’s Information, Communication and Culture Minister gained celebrity status on Twitter, and here’s why.

While the world is focused on the misfortune and issues in Haiti, Malaysia had its own share of the limelight at the start of 2010. We made news with our recent torching and vandalising of churches following a court ruling that allowed Catholic publication, The Herald, to use the word “Allah” to refer to the Christian God.

In the spate of events, a student was charged for posting a church attack hoax on Facebook — he was charged with threatening public safety in relation to a comment he posted about the recent attacks on churches.

Amidst all this clamour, Malaysia’s Information, Communication and Culture Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim, had stepped forward to advise Malaysians, especially Muslims, against being totally immersed in the Internet culture, especially Facebook and Twitter.

In recent news reports, he said that facilities such as the Internet could not be accepted wholly because it was a form of business introduced by the West and “Malaysians were just users”. Datuk Seri Dr Rais was quoted as saying that when using such facilities, the people must upkeep the values taught by Islam, Buddhism or Christianity to maintain our culture.

Following this. the local blogosphere and twittersphere were astir with comments about what he said. Twitter-ers have started making jokes about him being too old and regressive-minded, and have made #yorais a trending topic on Tuesday (moving up from no.8 to no.4 within the hour I was writing this). Thanks to the hashtag creator, too.

I was trying hard not to ROTF in stitches reading tweets about “Rais Yatim is so ancient, he…”

Now, I wonder how he (and the government) is going to influence the people to resist (being totally immersed) the powerful allure of Facebook and Twitter (and ultimately the Internet). This is especially when Pikom — the National Information and Communications Technology Association of Malaysia, expects the Internet penetration in Malaysia to grow between 10% and 20% this year, and broadband penetration to reach 50% from the current 32%.

Brian Giesen, Regional Director of Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence APAC, and Tim Ho, Regional Digital Strategist will be holding a “lepak” (malaysian slang: casual hang out) session in Kuala Lumpur to share their views on Social Media in Asia.

If you are in KL and would like to have some interesting conversations with our regional experts, please join them in La Bodega in Bangsar Mall at 7pm local time on Thursday 10th Dec.

Below is the address for the venue:

Please sign up here:

Malaysia records 3.4 million Facebook users, one of the 10 fastest growing countries over the past week. www.checkfacebook.com

GreyReview | snippets of the realtime revolution |

Your walking social media encyclopedia… it’s all you’ll ever need (well, almost…).

I want to be a blogger. Well, at least it’ll get me on (online) TV for a day…

While bloggers in Malaysia continue to get the attention of marketers, they further grabbed the limelight when Nuffnang and Hitz.fm recently aired Project Alpha, Malaysia’s first online TV show about bloggers.

Hosted by TV host/scriptwriter/producer Jojo Struys, who is also a blogger herself, Project Alpha is a fast paced, fast cut, lifestyle-driven show that features the daily lives of seven popular bloggers in the country — a high-powered working Mum, two shopaholics, a full-time accountant by day who is a powerful entertainment blogger by night, a daredevil personality who is always seeking the next adrenalin rush, and a travel writer who practically lives out of her suitcase.

These influencers are: Budiey Isma, Kenny Sia, Redmummy.com, Audrey Ooi/Fourfeetnine, Nicole Tan/Nicolekiss, Poh Huai Bin/Sixthseal, and Ahmad Nazuwan/Beautiful Nara.

There are seven episodes, each giving a three-minute sneak peek into Malaysia’s top bloggers, how they live, what makes them tick and from where they get their inspiration to keep their readers/followers captivated. The first episode went on air on 18 September 2009 and will be aired daily for seven weeks.

With Project Alpha, it is hoped that people from all walks of life will start their own blogs to share their passion and interests with the world.

Are you inspired yet, to start your own blog? Maybe it’s time to start one and who knows, you might be featured in the next season of Project Alpha! In addition, you’ll get to enter the Project Alpha Blog Contest and win yourself the grand prize – a date with Jojo Struys to Chelsea and watch an English Premier League game!

I have always wondered if we are “overdoing” social media, with everyone wanting to jump on the bandwagon without a proper strategy, and wanting to start a Facebook page for the sake of having one.

Hence, when I had the privilege of listening to Pete Teo, Malaysia’s very own multi-award winning singer/songwriter/film producer, at the Social Media Club (Malaysia chapter) inaugural event last week, I really wished I could put him in front of many people and hear it from him straight!

Teo, famous for his anti-racism music video Malaysian Artistes For Unity that became a popular national culture phenomenon last year, recently produced the 15Malaysia project, which also instantly became a hit. The 15Malaysia website, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were primary channels for publicity, in addition to print media.

15Malaysia is a short film project consisting of 15 short films made by 15 Malaysian filmmakers. These films deal with socio-political issues in Malaysia and feature some of actors, musicians and top political leaders.

When the project was launched on Facebook on 17 August 2009, it reached 10,000 fans within an hour. Today, it has 86,852 fans on Facebook, 1,488 followers on Twitter, and 366,363 video files downloaded from the 15Malaysia website … and still counting. (The tremendous amount of traffic has busted four servers and Teo has also received a lot of help from the public through his SOS tweets.)

While he has successfully made use of social media to promote the 15Malaysia project (which has just received an invitation to screen all 15 films at the Golden Horse Film Festival in Taipei this November), Teo said that it’s not about the tools. Social media is only a tool and is as good as it gets if you do not engage people in an emotional way. He aptly stated that, “You cannot ‘formulate’ your way into this (social media success).”

Think before you jump. The important questions: What are you trying to sell? What is your message? How does your project engage the public and what value are you offering to the community?

During my recent trip to Singapore, I had the opportunity to grab coffee and have a chat with Ben Koe, Employee #3 of JamiQ, a new social media monitoring service which is currently in beta.

I’ve asked Ben a few quick questions about the state of social media across Asia Pacific, what companies should do first before jumping in, and how JamiQ will be different from the array of social media monitoring services currently on the market:

Q. How would you characterise the digital landscape here in Asia Pacific?
Asia Pacific contains some of the most densely connected communities in the world which makes it one of the largest opportunities for digital marketing. However, marketers are still undecided about the effectiveness of engaging online. But this is understandable, while we are certain about the large population that connect online, there is no one best way to reach them.

In order to engage successfully online, marketers need to flip their logic around. Instead of the traditional method of identifying the best media to communicate through, brands can now be their own media. Corporate blogs, community forums, YouTube channels, etc. are all affordable means for companies to establish their presence online and build communities around them. 

Q:  Across APAC, we are seeing an increased interest in social media. Before jumping in, what should organisations do in order to generate real results from their efforts?
Organisations need to take a step back from the hype and observe their brand online. Listening to what’s being said by their customers in the region is the most critical exercise one can perform. The ability to listen gives you the intelligence required to craft an effective communication strategy. Just like how you wouldn’t bother selling in-car stereos to people who take the bus, you need to know what your customers want; and most of the time your customers will not tell you directly, they’ll be telling their friends online.

Too often, marketers are communicating what’s on their agenda completely overlooking the “truth” being talked about on forums or being ranted on blogs. Once you know what your customers or the industry is talking about, you then can make better judgment and strategy for engaging them for your brand before consumer-driven perception takes over.

Q:  How will JamiQ be different from some other social media listening services?
JamiQ’s chief advantage is its reach. This is the foundation of social media monitoring. Just like a search engine, the more web pages the engine can cover the better a service it is. If you read the fine print on some social media monitoring services you’ll find that some claim to have indexed 12 million blogs, another 20 million, and others 100 million. So who’s giving you the full picture?

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The most recent statistics from comScore show that a bank, Maybank, dominates Malaysia’s Internet. Clearly they have understood the Internet (Or people in Malaysia are really desperate for loans!). Nearly one in three Malaysians online visited Maybank’s site in June.

As you can see from the below listing, Maybank beat out numerous media properties, so people must be visiting their bank more frequently than they check the news.

Last week during my visit to the Ogilvy PR Kuala Lumpur office, I had the opportunity to deliver a social media workshop for the Malaysian government’s Ministry of Works. 

Many of the Malaysian Government Ministries, including the Ministry of Works, are quickly becoming more active in social media and see the value of participating in dialogue with the public. And for good reason - that’s where the Malaysian people are going online. Consider some of the latest statistics about Internet and social media use coming out of Malaysia:

• 16 million Internet users*
• 66 percent of Malaysians use social networks (ComScore, December 2009)
• Friendster and Facebook are tops - with 3+ and 1+ million members respectively*
• Average Malaysian youth belongs to 4 social networks*
• Broadband penetration is at 21 percent*

* Source: Malaysiacrunch.blogspot.com