Singapore, May 27th 2021, by Marketing Magazine
Social media marketing company Tokotown is launching in Singapore this June. Progressing from a pilot launch in Jakarta which was done in partnership with Gojek, it is offering two applications: Tokotown Pro for Merchants and Tokotown for Influencers. The platform will enable merchants and brands to leverage local content creators as brand advocates, creating an online marketplace between the two entities. The service is free for influencers but merchants will pay a monthly fee to list campaigns. Tokotown is based in Singapore and is part of a group of companies, including social media marketing agency One9Ninety and influencer marketing agency Narrators. It currently serves clients such as Unilever, L’Oreal, and Samsung amongst others.
Merchants can create campaigns on the Tokotown Pro App, offering products, services, vouchers, experiences, and their corresponding dollar value. Micro and macro-influencers can discover the campaigns on their Tokotown app and decide if they want to exchange their social media postings for the value of an offer, without involving monetary incentives. The only trade involved would be the merchants’ inventory for social media marketing value.
The campaigns involved are either in-store or online. The first option asks for influencers to come physically to the merchant’s place of business to receive a free service or product. The latter allows for online executions with vouchers or products being sent to influencers. Influencers require a minimum of 1000 social connections and are vetted based on engagement rates, audience credibility score, and manual verification to be part of the community.
According to Tokotown’s global lead Max Verrier, the launch will enable brands and marketers to have access to a seamless mobile-driven solution, allowing them to access and engage with vetted content creators at their fingertips, as well as analyse the performance of the content created. The platform aims to tackle the traditional pain points of SMEs working with influencers or those who do not have the know-how and allows them to cost and time effectively centralise the whole process.
To promote the apps’ launch, Verrier said Tokotown is investing heavily in social media marketing, paid media, influencer collaborations and word of mouth, with the initiatives being supported by Narrators. Once the app is approved on the Apple Store, the company will initiate campaign creation with selected few pre-launch brands for a coordinated campaign scheduled for sometime in June. Verrier added that the campaigns will only go live on the launch date accompanied by the rollout of its influencer app and the recruitment and onboarding campaign.
Separately, the Tokotown Pro partnership with Gojek was launched together with Narrators last year. Under the collaboration, the platform provided direct access for merchants in the Gojek ecosystem to connect with social media content creators who have been tested and verified. Tokotown explained in a blog post that merchants have the guarantee to be matched with content creators that suit market needs. All influencer content and results can be directly monitored through the merchant campaign dashboard. The content generated by creators will be posted on various social media channels, including Instagram, Facebook, and Tiktok.
Separately, Gojek recently made the news for its merger with Tokopedia to form GoTo Group. According to Gojek, this is the largest ever business combination in Indonesia and the largest between two Asia-based Internet media and services companies to then.