The countdown to Christmas is on, and retail marketers are going full-speed, working to finalize their plans and maximize their response rates over the busy festive season. For a growing number of those businesses, Facebook marketing will play a significant part in that process - to assist with this, Facebook is releasing reports looking at how users in different regions across the world use Facebook over the Christmas/New Year period, based on internal data.
The first report in this series looked at habits among Australian Facebook users, highlighting some pretty clear and important trends for marketers to be aware of. Facebook has now released the second in the series, this time looking at the Southeast Asian market, a region which incorporates Indonesia, The Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore. Here's what they found.
Overarching Trends
In order to break down the trends for each nation within Southeast Asia, Facebook has provided both a general overview of the region, along with a series of infographics and country-specific figures.
In terms of overall trends, as you'd expect, mobile is prominent:
"Compared to the rest of the year, people share 30% more mobile content during the festive period and 75% of posts created were on mobile"
The data also shows that this increase in Facebook activity is applicable across all demographic groups, with youths (+19%), Millennials (+23%), parents (+17%) and mums (+19%) all more active on Facebook over the Christmas/NewYear period. Facebook's data also shows that greetings and festive messages dominate posted content in the period with 84% of Facebook chatter in the Philippines, and a huge 90% in Indonesia, focused on holiday season exchanges.
And then of course, there's shopping.
"Shopping starts ramping up in the festive season and peaks in December, when shoppers go into overdrive-retail store check-ins on Facebook spike by 14% compared to the rest of the season, with 39% of check-ins taking place on Saturdays and Sundays."
Facebook also notes that over 50% of people in the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand have indicated that they're intending to do more shopping online this season, and Facebook will inevitably play a big part in this. More than 4 out of 5 people in these three nations noted that The Social Network plays an influential role in their shopping process during the period.
In terms of timing, Mondays are most popular for online shopping in the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand, whilst Vietnamese prefer Thursdays and Singaporeans prefer Sundays. When shopping on mobile, Fridays are the most popular day across the region - a particularly interesting stat.
Regional Focus
In order to further breakdown the role that Facebook plays in Southeast Asia, Facebook's also provided region-specific infographics, with a defined focus on the trends and behaviors of each. The stats are well worth a look - even if you're not marketing to these regions, it's interesting to see how Facebook trends vary - and don't - across different nations. Behavioral shifts like this, of course, are widely reflected in other areas, but seeing how such trends impact on nations across the world gives you some additional context to the significance of the role Facebook plays in the wider digital shift.
Indonesia
The Philippines
Thailand
Vietnam
Singapore
The full Southeast Asia report is available on the Facebook for Business blo