As a leader in the “content marketing” trend through real users, or reviewers, “Revu” has now reached its 2nd anniversary. Revu continues to emphasize its “micro influencer” strategy, which more than 2,000 campaigns from a wide range of brands have trusted as a “secret weapon” for entering the digital-era market. This reinforces the power of real product users whose credibility helps pass along articles and genuine user experiences to target groups and customers by word of mouth, while also allowing those articles and real-use reviews to be analyzed and developed further into effective marketing strategies.

Mr. Anupong Chantorn, Managing Director of Alternate 65, operator of “Revu,” Thailand’s No. 1 review platform under YDM (Thailand) Co., Ltd., said that as REVU enters its second year, the founder of “th.revu.net," a website for creating review content about products and services and a platform answering the needs of the newest form of online marketing, continues to grow by 50% and has been very well received by brands. The Revu platform now contains more than 12,000 reviews and more than 8,500 reviewers, doubling from the previous year.

In addition, more than 2,000 product or service campaigns have already used reviewers through REVU. The company targets 30% growth in revenue next year and plans to increase the number of reviewers to 15,000. The top five product or service categories most commonly using Revu’s review platform as a marketing strategy are beauty, lifestyle, IT and devices, health, and food. There are also products that one might not expect to be reviewed, such as bathroom cleaner, men’s underwear, travel insurance, and even treadmills.

“We are the real specialist in micro influencer platforms that answer the need for long-term content marketing through real product use. Content marketing is no longer done in the old way, where an influencer simply holds a product and posts on social media. Today, influencers must actually try the product and share their experience through review articles. Marketers must also be able to measure engagement, or the number of people who read the review articles, rather than focusing on reach or followers, which may not be the key variables many marketers believe them to be. Sometimes marketers do content marketing only for a short period, but good content should be created for the long term and must support consumer search behavior today. Consumer behavior has changed, and people always search for information before making a purchase decision. Creating content that supports search is therefore extremely important in today’s content marketing. Importantly, this year we plan to enter the influencer markets of neighboring countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and Taiwan.”

Mr. Anupong added that the use of influencers for content marketing in Thailand is currently divided into four groups: Celebrity, Power Influencer, Peer Influencer, and Micro Influencer (or real users). Each of these four groups serves a different function. If marketers want to build brand awareness, they should choose celebrities because they can reach the widest consumer audience. However, if a brand wants to create credible content, it should work through micro influencers because the content comes from actual experience using the product. After trying it and finding it good, they then share it through their own channels, creating word of mouth, or friend-to-friend recommendations. Content marketing should therefore be conducted across all groups together, because each group has a different role as mentioned above.

Regarding the overall content marketing market in Thailand, Revu’s management commented that content marketing trends have changed in line with consumer behavior. In 2015, the focus was on creating buzz for brands, such as many brands turning to viral videos to promote themselves. In 2016, the focus shifted to creating content through celebrities or famous pages across social channels. Then in 2017, brands created content through power influencers or well-known bloggers, which received very positive responses regardless of the product being posted about, leading to a surge in online sales phenomena. However, in 2018, consumers have become more selective in media consumption, choosing to search for the truth or for articles that feel sincere and communicate genuine experiences rather than advertising claims. The use of micro influencers has therefore become a strong trend for 2018.

“According to theshelf.com in the article Influencer Marketing is the New King of Content (2015), overseas consumers’ media behavior has changed as follows: 20% of female consumers still believe blogger promotions, while 35% read blog articles to discover new products. Another 47% read blog articles to look for trends or ideas, and 70% choose to trust online review articles as their second option. Most interestingly, 92% of consumers trust recommendations from anyone who is not part of the brand or associated with the brand,” Revu’s management stated.

th.revu.net is a new-form website for reviewing products and services, created through the collaboration between YDM (Thailand) Co., Ltd. and YDM Global, the online marketing giant from South Korea. Together they created Thailand’s first and only true “Micro Influencer Platform,” with deep expertise in marketing through micro influencers, enabling brands and marketers to conduct content marketing for products or services easily through the real experiences of “micro influencers,” who post reviews on their personal blogs and share them on their personal Facebook or Facebook Fan Pages to widely distribute content about the use of those products or services. This creates credible and sincere articles that spread by word of mouth. Revu supports long-term content review creation for brands and supports today’s consumer search behavior, because consumers now always search for information before making a purchase decision. Creating content that supports search is therefore critically important in today’s content marketing. Brands or marketers can define keywords or the messages they want to communicate to consumers by creating campaigns on th.revu.net, and there is also an automatic reporting system that clients can access themselves to measure page views, unique visitors, likes, comments, and shares, allowing marketers to use the data to correctly analyze and further develop their marketing strategies. Measurement of content marketing must be able to assess engagement, or the number of people who read review articles, rather than reach or followers, which may not be the key variables many marketers understand them to be.