GE2020 Singapore - Social Media Marketing Statistics and Lesson Learned

Dubbed the crisis election, or the Covid-19 polls, Singapore held GE2020 on 10 July 2020, her most significant General Election since independence.

With physical rallies out of the question, political parties were forced to step out of their comfort zone and engage in virtual rallies in the new normal. We took a look at how the four biggest political parties in Singapore managed their virtual campaigning efforts between 23 June 2020 to 10 July 2020, within the cyberspace.

Who were the winners, losers, and ballers on social media and digital? We did some homework and put together some GE2020 statistics for you.

Website Traffic

PAP: 4,200 web visitors
Top 5 searches: carrie wong, lee hsien loong, teo heng, merdeka generation, and heng swee keat.
Top 5 pages:

https://www.pap.org.sg/
https://www.pap.org.sg/candidates/rachel-ong-sin-yen/
https://www.pap.org.sg/candidates/desmond-tan-kok-ming/
https://www.pap.org.sg/our-party/
https://www.pap.org.sg/representative/lim-wee-kiak/

WP: 2.100 web visitors
Top 5 searches: wp online, hougang smc, medishield life, cpf life, and hdb parking.
Top 5 pages:

https://www.wp.sg/
https://www.wp.sg/manifesto/
https://www.wp.sg/donate/
https://www.wp.sg/how-inclusive-is-our-society/
https://www.wp.sg/candidates/muhamad-faisal-bin-abdul-manap/

PSP: 1,300 web visitors, with a sharp spike in visitors on 7 and 8 July.
Top 5 searches: tan cheng bock, pofma, spotlight, active sg, and tanjong pagar.
Top 5 pages:

https://psp.org.sg/brad-bowyer/
https://psp.org.sg/
https://psp.org.sg/tan-cheng-bock/
https://psp.org.sg/constituency-tanjong-pagar-grc/
https://psp.org.sg/ge2020-manifesto-by-progress-singapore-party-for-country-for-people/

SDP: 285 visitors
Top 5 searches: google singapore news, tan kin lian, inflation rate singapore, aware singapore, and cpf contact.
Top 5 pages:

https://yoursdp.org/news/singapore_police_arrest_falun_gong_practitioners/2009-10-11-1350
http://yoursdp.org/publ/your_letter/vice_activities_in_peninsula_excelsior_shopping_centre/17-1-0-1067
http://yoursdp.org/news/breaking_news_gopalan_nair_sentenced_to_three_months_prison/2008-09-17-493
https://yoursdp.org/news/democrats_unveil_first_six_candidates/2011-04-21-2412

👑 Political party with the most website visitors: PAP

Social Media Followers

1) Facebook

PAP: 206,930 page likes. Average growth rate 6.84%
WP: 137,479 page likes. Average growth rate 21.68%
PSP: 41,057 page likes. Average growth rate 22.50%
SDP: 71,916 page likes. Average growth rate 11.86%

👑 Political party with the most Facebook Page Likes: PAP

👑 Political party with the fastest Facebook Page Likes growth rate: PSP

2) Instagram

PAP: 39,600 followers. Average growth rate 29.56%
WP: 34,700 followers. Average growth rate 247.41%
PSP: 12,300 followers. Average growth rate 180.87%
SDP: 4,790 followers. Average growth rate 87.48%

👑 Political party with the most Instagram followers: PAP

👑 Political party with the fastest Instagram followers growth rate: WP

3) Youtube

PAP: 3,730 subscribers. 928,327 views

Taking into consideration that the party's focus is on the older generation who are more likely to use Facebook compared to other social media platforms, this is perhaps an unsurprising figure as PAP puts in more effort on sprucing up its Facebook page instead.

WP: 11,200 subscribers. 3,401,309 views

PSP: 9,830 subscribers. 2,013,117 views

A notably strong win considering that the account was created less than a year ago on 4 August 2019.

SDP: 8,510 subscribers. 3,312,095 views.

👑 Political party with the most Youtube views: WP

Social Media Page Engagement

1) Facebook

PAP
Posts: 221 posts

156 videos
35 photos
22 status updates
8 link posts

Interactions: 272.8K interactions (217K reactions, 33.7K comments, 22.1K shares)

An average of 1.2K interactions per post
Photo posts are the most popular.

WP
Posts: 132 posts

72 photos post
45 videos
8 status updates
7 link posts

Interactions: 504.3K interactions (412K reactions, 30.8K comments, 61.5K shares)

An average of 3.8K interactions per post
Video posts generated the most engagement at 4.9K interactions per video post
One reason as to why WP's video posts generated more engagement may be because the party's pre-filmed videos are subtitled, which makes it easier for people to watch and fulfils Facebook's criteria of designing videos for “sound off”.

PSP
Posts: 102 posts

70 videos
18 photo posts
10 link posts
4 status updates

Interactions: 236.9K interactions (166K reactions, 30.7K comments, 40.2K shares)

3K interactions per post on average.
The party saw the most number of average interactions on their posts published on 24 June, at at average of 10.2K interactions per post, which can be attributed to the highly publicised walkabout conducted by Lee Hsien Yang and PSP on that day.
The party again saw a new high on 1 July, with 31.3K interactions, when PSP released the video of Lee Hsien Yang's decision on not contesting.

SDP
Posts: 175 posts

98 videos
68 photo posts
7 link posts
2 status updates.

Interactions: 180.8K interactions (142K reactions, 14.2K comments, 23.6K shares)

An average of 1K interaction per post
Link posts generated the most engagement at 1.7K interactions per link post.
SDP's link post unveiling the party's website received the most engagement (7.4K interactions).

👑 Political party with the most Facebook posts: PAP

👑 Political party with the highest engagement rates on Facebook: WP

2) Instagram

PAP
Posts: 76

47 photos
24 videos
5 carousels

Interactions: 70.3K interactions (68.4K likes, 1.9K comments)

An average of 925.3 interactions per post

WP
Posts: 40

25 carousels
14 photos
1 video

Interactions: 93.9K interactions (992.5K likes, 1.4K comments)

An average of 2.3K interactions per post

PSP
Posts: 31

24 photos
6 videos
1 carousel

Interactions: 24.1K interactions (23.6K likes, 551 comments)

An average of 778.8 interactions per post

SDP
Posts: 72

63 photos
6 videos
3 carousel

Interactions: 11.6K interactions (11.4K likes, 205 comments)

An average of 161.7 interactions per post

👑 Political party with the most Instagram posts: PAP

👑 Political party with the highest engagement rates on Instagram: WP

3) Youtube

PAP

Videos: 179
Interactions: 1.3K (896 likes, 346 dislikes, 19 comments)

WP

Videos: 47
Interactions: 13.9K (12.6K likes, 317 dislikes, 889 comments)

PSP

Videos: 165
Interactions: 46.8K (38.9K likes, 2.4K dislikes, 5.6K comments)

SDP

Videos: 48
Interactions: 16.3K (4.4K likes, 654 dislikes, 1.3K comments)

👑 Political party with the most YouTube videos: PAP

👑 Political party with the most YouTube interactions: PSP

Social Media Ad Spend

SDP: 44 paid ads between 23 June 2020 to 9 July 2020, totalling to $111,196.

PSP: No paid ads during campaign period, but the party ran ads regarding POFMA in December last year for $318.

WP: $0

PAP: $0

👑 Biggest baller: SDP

Opposition Personalities of GE2020

Dr Tan Cheng Bock

Search volume: 99K
Facebook: 103,259 page likes
Instagram: 63K followers

Dr Chee Soon Juan

Search volume: 57.6K
Facebook: 96,393 page likes
Instagram: 16.1K followers

Dr Jamus Lim

Search volume: NA
Facebook: 40,319 page likes
Instagram: 72.7K followers

Nicole Seah

Search volume: 182.5K
Facebook: 23,115 page likes
Instagram: 41.3K followers

Pritam Singh

Search volume: 33.2K
Facebook: 41,758 page likes
Instagram: 25.2K followers

Sylvia Lim

Search volume: 15.6K
Facebook: 24,551 page likes
Instagram: 17K followers

He Ting Ru

Search volume: 14.8K
Facebook: 18,717 page likes
Instagram: 10.2K followers

Dr Paul Tambyah

Search volume: 22.9K
Facebook: 9,237 page likes
Instagram: NA

Lim Tean

Search volume: 41.7K
Facebook: 31,934 page likes
Instagram: 2,222 followers

Raeesah Khan

Search volume: 6.6K
Facebook: 13,342 page likes
Instagram: 27K followers

👑 Most popular opposition politician (by search volume): Nicole Seah

👑 Most popular Singapore opposition politician on Facebook: Dr Tan Cheng Bock

👑 Most popular Singapore opposition politician on Instagram: Jamus Lim

Social Media Marketing Lessons from GE2020 in Singapore

1) Be relatable

One way to capture the attention of your audience is to be relatable. Speak your audience's lingo.

Despite his age, Dr Tan Cheng Bock, the 80-year-old politician, is crushing it on social media by speaking his young voters' language.

He captured the hearts of young voters by revealing his knowledge of "Hypebeast" and "Woke".

https://www.instagram.com/p/CCFz7ZZnK8o/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_video_watch_again

https://www.instagram.com/p/CCH2owkHDRC/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_video_watch_again

https://www.instagram.com/p/CCHccktH9LJ/

2) Stories matter

"People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories and magic" - Seth Godin.

While being a credible candidate and having a sound manifesto are important, telling stories that connect with your audience is also important.

Watch the following two videos of Jamus Lim and Nicole Seah telling their stories.

https://www.facebook.com/jamusjlim/videos/2797996606993293/?d=null&vh=e

https://www.facebook.com/100514571712837/videos/2637860749863522

These two videos went viral and had high engagement rates. It shows that you don't need a big budget to have high engagement rates. You just need certain elements in your story:

Share your values
Share something personal - for eg, your family background, the loss of a loved one, your lifestyle
Be authentic
Show your credentials - for eg, where you studied
Share about why you do what you do
Show how you evolved over the years
Listen and respond to your audience's key concerns

3) Lightweight but authentic creative assets work

Jamus Lim and Nicole Seah's videos that we've shared above are good examples of videos (and photos) that are authentic, yet lightweight in production.

The videos were shot in their homes, with the two candidates in their casual wear. Effective videos don't require high budget and professional settings.

Another politician, PAP's Tin Pei Ling, is a savvy social media user. She endears herself to her voters by producing different types of lightweight content.

Relatable content:

https://www.facebook.com/tinpeiling.official/videos/606155466998957

Content that shows you she listens and takes actions:

https://www.facebook.com/190962180945684/videos/289427565726070/

Heartwarming photos:

https://www.facebook.com/tinpeiling.official/photos/a.585259174849314/4152963468078849/

https://www.facebook.com/tinpeiling.official/photos/pcb.4151169344924928/4151169081591621/

4) Apologize when you're in the wrong

We all make mistakes.

When Raeesah Khan was reported for her insensitive comments on social media about certain race and religion, she and The Workers' Party apologized for it. They didn't avoid the issue.

Similarly, companies sometimes make mistakes too. They get negative online reviews for it. What companies shouldn't do is to avoid those negative reviews. They should reply to those reviews properly and honestly - it will show the public that they listen to feedback, and have a plan to improve on it.

5) Be quotable

Jamus Lim is no doubt one of the standout stars of GE2020. As you can see in this Google Trends graph, which measures relative popularity of a search query, Jamus is the most popular politician, compared to other prominent opposition politicians, like Nicole Seah, Tan Cheng Bock, Pritam Singh, and Chee Soon Juan.

One of the main reasons for his surge in popularity (other than the fact that he did very well during the live debate session) is he produced many memorable quotes during GE2020.

"It warms the cockles of our hearts."
"What we're trying to deny the PAP is not a mandate. What we're trying to deny them is a blank cheque."
"Gam Xia Sengkang!"

These quotes gave him more visibility and media coverage on social media and traditional media.

Conclusion

GE2020 has shown that virtual campaigns do work, and may soon overshadow physical rallies.

Social media marketing has been proven to be a key strategy that political parties and personalities can use to gain visibility and convey their message. Those who could leverage social media marketing well seem to do better than their less savvy counterparts.

Dr Chee Soon Juan has seen a surge in popularity amongst younger voters, especially after his interview with social media personality, Prettipls, was released. Similarly Dr Tan Cheng Bock and Jamus Lim, whose memorable quotes such as "hypebeast" and "warms the cockles of our heart" have been meme-ed, have also experienced the rippling network effect that allowed their message to be amplified to multi-faceted audiences.

It's time for political parties to embrace the new future within the digital age. Looking for Facebook marketing services in Singapore? Please feel free to reach out to our digital marketing consultants if you need help with your Facebook digital marketing campaign! For your info, we are regarded by many as the top Facebook marketing company Singapore.