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We Are Social Report April 2020: Thailand Highlights

• 4^th fastest fixed internet connection in the world, 10% increase in fixed internet speed
• 6^th most use of voice and voice commands at 49%
• 3^rd most use of image search tools on smartphone in the world at 58%
• 31^st in concerns about misuse of personal data at 59% (highest is Brazil at 81%, lowest is Japan at 38%)
• 12^th most use of ad blockers at 50% (highest is Indonesia at 69%, lowest is Japan at 25%)
• 8^th greatest potential Facebook advertising reach (1^st India, 2^nd USA, 3^rd Indonesia, 6^th Philippines, 7^th Vietnam)
• 24^th most Facebook monthly ad clicks by country (1^st Romania, 8^th Malaysia, 22^nd Singapore)
• 15^th greatest potential Instagram advertising reach (1^st USA, 2^nd India, 3^rd Brazil)
• 6^th greater QoQ increase in potential Instagram advertising reach
• 14^th greatest potential Twitter advertising reach (1^st USA, 2^nd Japan, 3^rd Russia)
• 9^th in e-commerce share of all sales transactions at 10% (1^st Denmark)

Some Global Highlights

• Facebook remains the world’s most used social platform (2^nd YouTube, 3^rd Whatsapp, 4^th FB Messenger, 5^th WeChat, 6^th Instagram, 7^th TikTok)
• 47% Covid-19 related increase in social media use worldwide
• China leads at 67% people reporting they spend more time shopping online
• Food & Groceries lead in increase in e-commerce interest by item at 33% (Vacations at 3.6%)
• -72% change in Covid-19 impact on e-commerce web traffic for Tourism (+251% supermarkets)
• -92% change in Covid-19 impact on e-commerce transactions for Tourism (+120% supermarkets)

You can read the whole report created by We Are Social here.

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We noticed that our article on Facebook Ad Breaks from December 2018 continues to get visitors, so we thought it worthwhile to update the information.

What was originally launched as Facebook Ad Breaks in late 2018 to give publishers with Facebook Pages an opportunity to make money from their content, moved to Facebook For Creators and is called In-Stream Ads. When visiting the homepage, the call-to-action button says "See Status". Clicking on this button will take you to a page that shows you whether any of your Facebook pages are eligible for monetization using in-stream ads or not. If you're logged in to the Facebook account you use to manage the Facebook Pages you want to check for eligibility then they will show on the screen as you see in the image below. Eligible Facebook Pages will have check marks.

If any of your Facebook pages qualify for monetization, then continue scrolling down to where you can fill in the application. In our case, two accounts are eligible for monetization and they automatically display in the application.

To determine what you need to do to qualify, you'll need to read Facebook's Check Your In-Stream Ads Eligibility and Rules for Monetization. Requirements can vary by country but in general you need:

• A Facebook Page with at least 10,000 followers
• At least 30,000 1-minute views on videos that are at least 3 minutes long in the last 60 days
• You must be at least 18 years old
• You must live in a country eligible for in-stream ads

With the number of hours people spend on Facebook now during the Covid-19 lockdowns, it could be a good time to monetize some of the great content you are publishing. If you need help with any of the above, please feel free to drop us a line using the contact form and we'll get back to you.

The short answer is that no one knows. But there are some smart and informed people out there making some guesses, ranging from October to Lunar New Year 2021. On the very optimistic side, some experts are saying there could be Chinese tourists returning to Thailand as early as August 2020. Some of the factors given for the early projections are surveys (albeit very limited) in China asking people whether they want to travel and whether they want to travel to Thailand. Of the survey respondents the answers is a resounding yes. China is also one of the first countries to achieve containment of the virus, with new reported cases of Covid-19 mainly coming from Chinese returning from abroad not local transmission. Thailand too seems to be making progress towards containment with new cases of Covid-19 in the single digits on some days. These combined factors seem to be aligning in a way that could permit governments and airlines to loosen restrictions on international travel at some point in the not-too-distant future. Many hotel owners and hotel workers are hoping international tourists return as soon as safely possible because the Thai tourist industry is hurting. Thousands of people have been furloughed, put on unpaid leave or on reduced salaries. With properties closed, hotels are left without any revenue except for maybe food deliveries which covers very little.

While there is no consensus on when Chinese tourists will be permitted to travel to Thailand, there does seem to be a consensus that they will be among the first to return, whether that's in October or early 2021. What is certain is that when tourists begin returning to Thailand, competition among hotels will be fierce. Those hotels who use this time to prepare for the Chinese market will very likely be the hotels who end up with many of those bookings. At the moment we are working with hotel clients on WeChat, Fliggy, Dianping and yes, still Sina Weibo. For hotels who do not use any of these channels for reaching Chinese customers now is a good time to prepare to do so. Registration and setup on all of these platforms can take from a few weeks to over one month, depending on the sophistication of both the marketing strategy as well as the chosen agency.

We have been providing Chinese digital marketing for hotels since 2013 when we opened our first office outside of Thailand in Shanghai. We plan on using our years of experience to work with hotels during this pandemic storm to prepare them for better times ahead. Now is the time to prepare.

Sources: C9 Hotelworks, Bangkok Post, Phuket Tourism Association