Company: StarHub
Entry submitted by: Darren Choo (darren) AVP of Social CRM
Community: StarHub Community (http://community.starhub.com/)
Lithy category: Digital Strategy Leader
StarHub Community, together with our social media agency Vocanic has implemented a stellar digital strategy which no other brand on the Lithium platform has done before. We have made StarHub Community the go-to platform for user discussion on all things StarHub: Social TV, Social Sales, Engagement of Segments, Sponsorship, cultivating Influencers & Advocates, nurturing Loyalty and building Partnerships. Our initiatives have been recognized and we have won industry accolades in Singapore: Best use of Brand Advocacy (Gold) at the Loyalty & Engagement Awards 2013 and Excellence in Loyalty Marketing (Silver) at the Marketing Excellence Awards 2013. Read the details below.
As Singapore's fully integrated infocommunications company, StarHub offers a full range of information, communications and entertainment services for both consumer and corporate markets.
With the aim of providing every person, home and business in Singapore with world-class multimedia services and content, StarHub operates a mobile network that provides 4G, 3G and 2G services, manages an island-wide HFC (Hybrid Fibre-Coaxial) network that delivers multi-channel pay TV services, as well as ultra-high speed residential broadband services.
In a bid to further enhance our relationship with customers, it was decided that improving and reinforcing the way we handled customer service, was key. Simply put, the traditional customer service call-centre system needed to be revamped, to take advantage of the power of Social Media.
In so doing, StarHub was able to tap into the vast prowess of peer-to-peer support, eliminating the need for customers to call in. The strategy unearthed unlimited potential going beyond customer service to touch on topics relating to Human Resource, Content Marketing, Sponsorship Deals, Marketing Communications and Direct Marketing just to name a few.
The results across the board have been phenomenal, with the industry recognizing the value and effectiveness of our Lithium-supported Social Strategy as evident from the following accolades:
• Loyalty & Engagement Awards 2013 – Best Use of Brand Advocacy (Gold)
• Marketing Excellence Awards 2013 – Excellence in Loyalty Marketing (Silver)
What were the goals?
We wanted to position StarHub as a company that listens, understands, cares for our customers and the Singapore community. At the same time, we acknowledge that endorsements are often regarded to be more credible and objective when they come from third parties that do not have a stake in the business.
In creating a new platform, it was crucial that it be instrumental in cultivating brand advocates, where in times of need, users could step in to defend the brand on our behalf from the “bashing” conducted by others. It was to also be a sanctuary for frank opinions, transparency and a hotbed for equipment testing by our loyal customers.
Hence, the aim was to create a community managed by consumers, for the consumers and moderated by StarHub.
StarHub Community would present a centralized platform for existing customers to turn to should they have any StarHub product or service-related problems. There, they would be able to access to a wealth of user-generated trouble-shooting tips, solutions, general information and more.
In harnessing the community for support, the secondary goals were to reduce budget spent to hire and train call-centre personnel, and at the same time increase efficiency in addressing technical issues.
In addition, the community would serve as the go-to place for StarHub news updates regarding new handset releases, promotions, cable television show discussions and more. For the ladies, it served as a rallying point to take part in contests and promotions tied in with Lady First Singapore – franchised from Taiwan’s leading lifestyle magazine show.
StarHub Community as a whole would stand as a lifestyle hub for the masses.
The launch of the Lithium based StarHub Community presented us with the opportunity to develop a whole array of campaigns and activations that strived towards a singular endpoint – to drive brand advocacy.
StarHub embarked on an enthusiastic digital marketing programme.
The Community gave us the fans and an avenue for us to engage in a meaningful 2-way conversation with them. Further to that however, we were able to tap into their likes and dislikes, problems, issues, challenges and even suggestions to improve our offerings. The wealth of information garnered allowed StarHub as a brand to tailor our marketing strategies to meet, and more importantly match our fans interests – to give them what they want, not what we want to sell. It gave us the ability to:
• Roll out Social and Community activations for sponsorships
• Develop content based on popular television programmes, translated to offline activities (Social TV)
• Perform segment marketing and social sales, e.g. listing a Recontract thread to ask questions and harvest opinions before putting forth a call-to-action for consumers to renew StarHub services
• Provide a channel for customers to “self-help”, with crowd-sourced expertise on troubleshooting.
1) Social TV
StarHub cable television provides a colourful and energetic tapestry of entertainment that constantly engages with consumers. The proposition for Social TV was to tap into this buzz, taking it offline to drive participation on StarHub Community.
As part of the brand’s 2-year SCRM roadmap, we aimed to promote product and service launches through Social Media. StarHub has gone into production of its own content and StarHub Community was seen as the perfect opportunity to drive exposure and engagement.
Lady first
Background: At the beginning, it was found that StarHub Community was rife with male-skewed content, e.g. mobile phones, routers, gadgets discussions and more. This campaign was launched to drive females to the site.
We sent out emails that led customers to perform a simple survey in order to ascertain interests. We targeted females whose interests included beauty, makeup, fashion, hairstyling and write their own blogs. The survey acted as a filtering process to find legitimate female bloggers. 20 bloggers were then invited to attend a briefing where they received topics and social tasks to share with their followers that in turn led to activities, conversations and buzz on the Community.
Results:
- 7,143 unique visitors to StarHub Community’s Lady First board
- 470 Topics written
- 1,274 replies to topics
- Out of 20 original bloggers, 5 remain active to this day, close to 1 year after the activation. 2 of them are members of our Sparklers super user group.
The success of the drive to include the female target audience in the conversation prompted the brand to plan for and launch a sequel activation set to take place mid-2014.
Link to Winners Announcement post: http://community.starhub.com/t5/StarHub-Community-Announcements/Lady-First-Bloggers-Challenge-Winners-Announcement/m-p/36223#M10
Oscars – Predict the Winners
Background: The Academy Awards is a big annual event, televised live globally and watched by many in Singapore. In order to ramp the viewership up on the programme further, we decided to tap into the crowd in the Community for their Oscar predictions.
The mechanic was simple. Fans needed to submit their predictions for the winners of 4 categories – Best Actor, Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Picture and Best Animated Feature. Get them right, and they would stand a chance to win a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0.
In just 5 days we received:
• 259 Entries (from original target of 5) by 151 participants
• 448 votes
• 1,700 Likes, 141 Comments and 57 Shares on our Facebook post about the campaign
Check out the entries here: http://community.starhub.com/t5/Closed-2014-Oscars/idb-p/2014-Oscars
HITS TV – crowd source for which shows to air next
Best way to make fans happy? Give them what they want. That’s exactly what HITS TV set out to do, by crowdsourcing all-time favourite TV shows that may have ended their runs but which people love and miss.
We asked people to submit and vote for the TV shows they’d like HITS to air in the coming months. The idea should fit HITS’s DNA: epic characters, riveting stories, cult following, multiple seasons.
Top Prizes: A Samsung GALAXY Tab 3 7.0, vouchers to Resorts World Sentosa, Sephora vouchers
In addition to posts on StarHub’s social media platforms, the HITS channel on StarHub TV even ran a TVC promoting the contest: http://youtu.be/09GdqFRdP_Q
Results:
Post on Community
http://community.starhub.com/t5/StarHub-Community-Announcements/CONTEST-ENDED-HITS-Pick-a-TV-show-and-stand-to-win-a-Samsung/m-p/65113
2) Social Sales
Background: To encourage recontracts, customers needed to feel the want to. Social Sales put into place a process to help existing customers make that informed choice during their zero-moment of truth (ZMOT) i.e. the step they take right before they make a purchase.
Direct mailers and eDMs were utilized to present a recontract offer that encouraged the customer to head to the Community to ask questions about the offer and get opinions. Community managers on Community then responded to their queries, helping them make the choice to stay with us. This thread garnered 88,000 views.
Posts on Community:
http://community.starhub.com/t5/Broadband-Recontract-Offers/StarHub-Broadband-Recontract-offer-HomeHub-and-more/m-p/21994#U21994
http://community.starhub.com/t5/Hubbing/100-Mbps-Cable-and-200-Mbps-Fibre-HomeHub-plans-now-available/td-p/39663
http://community.starhub.com/t5/TV-Recontract-Offer/StarHub-TV-Recontract-Offer/m-p/35619#U35619
3) Segment Engagement Strategy
Background: In order to diversify conversation threads and subjects in the Community beyond technology, the brand tapped into the various likes and interests harboured by fans to create and list lifestyle content.
This produced two long-term advantages. First, we were able – through the information gathered – develop a knowledge base that gave us an insight into our customers. This would allow us to tailor marketing strategies accordingly. Secondly, with this knowledge at our disposal, we were able to effectively take the conversation to our customers, speak in a language they appreciate, and harvest a meaningful relationship.
Food segment – Auspicious dishes
Background: StarHub’s Hubalicious - a gastronomic extravaganza that celebrates all things food – is a testament for the brand’s love for food. And since food holds a special place in the hearts of Singaporeans, the opportunity presented itself, to reach out to consumers via gastronomy.
StarHub leveraged on the Chinese New Year festivities to invite fans to share their celebrations with food. It was a call for foodies to unite, to showcase home-made treats and dishes. The top-voted entry walked away with a Samsung GALAXY S4 (LTE), while consolation prizes were made up of 8 $50 Resorts World Sentosa vouchers.
Results:
- 252 unique visitors
- 20 entries
View the entries here: http://community.starhub.com/t5/ideas/v2/ideaexchangepage/blog-id/CNY-AuspiciousDishes-Contest/tab/most-kudoed
Female segment – Ask the beauty experts and Lady First community activation
Lady First didn’t just fulfil our Social TV agenda (above). It also served as a content piece to drive participation from the Female segment. Please refer to the Social TV segment above for results.
Travel Segment - Crowdsourcing of itineraries
In conjunction with the year-end holidays, travel plans follow with fervor. StarHub recognized this and tapped into the myriad of vacationers planning their getaways. Through Community, StarHub encouraged members to share their upcoming travel itineraries and get their friends to vote for them. However, no touristy itineraries were allowed. Anyone can head to the Eiffel Tower. Plans shared had to unveil lesser known foreign destinations like jungle trekking in Cambodia and local coffee shops in Vietnam, and more.
3 winners snagged a total of $2,000 Chan Brother Travel Gift Vouchers. (3rd prize: $400, 2nd prize: $600, and 1st prize: $1,000.)
Results:
- 1,404 unique visitors
- 29 entries
After the contest ended, we created an Interest Group on StarHub Community with the crowd-sourced travel itineraries so visitors can continue to discuss and share their ideas.
http://community.starhub.com/t5/General-Travel-Discussion/bd-p/travel
Elderly segment – Active Ageing Hackathon Phase 1
The StarHub Golden Gurus initiative saw campaigns rolled-out on the Community targeted at including senior citizens in the online conversation. The brand appreciated that seniors often felt left behind and clueless when it came to IT, new media, the internet and the likes. Golden Gurus sought out seniors who were well versed in the intricacies of technology to coerce and train their peers.
The Active Ageing Hackathon paired StarHub Community members with UP Singapore members to bring together experts, researchers, marketers, designers and developers over one weekend from 16 - 18 Aug 2013 to develop prototypes of solutions to improve the lives of our Seniors in Singapore. 2 best ideas clinched a Samsung GALAXY Tab 2 7.0 Tab each.
Results:
- 988 unique visitors
- 97 entries
- 2,305 votes
View the entries here: http://community.starhub.com/t5/Closed-Active-Ageing-Hackathon/idb-p/activeageinghackathon
Elderly segment – Active Ageing Hackathon Phase 2
In a follow-up to the submissions from phase 1, we displayed the submitted prototypes on the Community and asked people to vote for their favourite ones on the forum, giving them the power of influence in helping the prototypes become a reality. 10 $50 StarHub vouchers were given away to lucky voters.
Results:
- 106 unique visitors
- 381 votes
Community post:
http://community.starhub.com/t5/Closed-Active-Ageing-Hackathon/idb-p/activeageinghackathonphase2
4) Sponsorship - Digital Engagement Strategy
Kim Soo Hyun
In a typical sponsorship deal where a celebrity is involved, fans rarely get the chance to revel in the thick of the action. StarHub Community however, gives them a unique digital platform where their shared content is logged, consolidated and seen by all – giving them the airtime to unabashedly show off their love for the star.
Popular Korean celebrity Kim Soo Hyun commands legions of fans in Singapore. We set out to give his fans an avenue to shout about their adoration by showcasing their “die-hardness”. All they had to do was to get creative with photos, videos and more and the best entries would win a pair of passes to an exclusive fan-meet.
Total entries: 60 within just 4 days
For those who had passes in hand, we leveraged the selfie trend to get fans to take creative photos of themselves with ticket stubs for a chance to have Kim Soo Hyun call them on their phone during the event to join him on stage and grant their one wish with him.
Total entries: 181 within just 9 days
http://community.starhub.com/t5/Get-Your-Wish-Granted-by-Kim-Soo/I-m-a-Ticket-Holder/idip/
74679#U74679
5) Influencer and Advocacy strategy
Among the thousands on StarHub Community, there lies a select few who shine. A select few who spend countless hours on the Community for the sole purpose of helping others – through troubleshooting, moderating conversation threads, and even defending the brand when “bashing” arises. These heroes – influencers and brand advocates - are recognized by the brand and invited to the Sparklers Club.
We put in place a gamification framework identify Community members and advocates and invite them into the Club in order to be groomed as brand guardians.
To encourage this behavior, a value-exchange was set up. As a Sparkler, one would be able to attend get-togethers to meet, greet and share ideas for improving the Community. Sparklers are also regularly engaged for co-creation, ideation and market research, giving them the opportunity to feel like a part of the brand, making the Community a fun and meaningful place to be and contributing to its ultimate growth and success.
Watch this video introducing the Sparklers Club! http://youtu.be/luUmeumI5YQ
More info: http://community.starhub.com/t5/StarHub-Community-Blog/StarHub-Community-welcomes-its-1-000-000th-unique-visitor/ba-p/58529
6) Loyalty strategy
StarHub Community Rewards Phase 1
In conjunction with the 1st anniversary of StarHub Community, we partnered with 15 different lifestyle and F&B brands, with exclusive members-only offers. For purposes of the redemption, we created a mobile browser app, from which fans could flash offers to merchants (following a sign-up through Community) in order to enjoy respective perks.
Results:
- 3,606 participants, 2,547 new SHC members through this app, 434 offers redeemed across the period of 3 months (Oct – Dec 2013)
- 11,601 unique visitors, 14,550 visits, 753 StarHub Facebook page likes Jackpot Bonanza
The objective of Jackpot Bonanza was member acquisition. A total of 198 prizes worth $10,000 were up for grabs through a specially designed digital slot machine.
Every player was given 10 chances to spin. The catch was this – if they’d run out of chances, they were then required to perform social tasks like tweet, invite friends or sign up on StarHub Community to get extra chances.
Results:
- 6,205 people played Jackpot Bonanza, 1,752 new SHC registrations
- 700 tweets, 1,331 Facebook invites.
- 11,502 unique visitors, 21,299 visits
7) Partnership strategy
StarHub entered into a partnership with Marina Bay Sands in support of the Annie Leibovitz exhibition. A contest will be launched on 5 May, targeting photography enthusiasts on Community, inviting them to reenact a rendition of selected Leibovitz works.
The best photo will win tickets to the Annie Leibovitz exhibition at ArtScience Museum and a night’s stay at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel including access to the rooftop infinity pool.
