Social media:
Feeding the frenzy
With a whopping 80.2 per cent of Malaysian internet users proclaiming themselves to being ‘hooked’ on social media, there is little wonder as to why corporations, businesses and even government agencies scramble to establish a presence within social media spheres.
On average, our self-proclaimed social media addicts have a total of four social media accounts with Facebook being the most popular, at a 96.5 per cent ownership within the group, according to data from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).
This is followed by WeChat moments at 60.2 per cent ownership, Instagram at 46.7 per cent, and YouTube at 42.1 per cent.
The usage and perception of social media among our internet users also seem to deviate from their intended uses of just socialisation, as the MCMC survey also revealed that 86.9 per cent of us admit to utilising social media as a means of obtaining information
In comparison, search engines were only able to beat social media slightly at 87.2 per cent while news portals trailed sadly behind at 65.5 per cent.
What this means is that Malaysians seem to adopt a high participation and engagement in our social media platforms – spelling ample opportunity for local businesses to capitalise on this by enhancing their brand outreach and even business operations.
However, like many things that involve technology, our state seems to be a little late in joining the social media rat race – with many of our local business owners still very much reliant on traditional methods of conducting business.
This phenomenon is apparent as many of our local businesses are not even searchable online.
So to help all of us in Sarawak to get the accurate e-maps and business listings we deserve, BizHive Weekly has taken it upon ourselves to compile an anthology of stories from bothh local and foreign business on howw social media has changed them for the better, to potentially sway business owners to start setting up an online presence.