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RESEARCH
ANALYSIS
TRENDS

Social media trends during COVID-19 and

what this means for brands in Asia

Following Social Media Day this 30 June, ADA explores Moreover, when it comes to the number of people
how usage and consumption of social media have gone engaging with and having conversations around COVID
through the roof to reach a ‘new normal’. -19 related posts, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and South
Korea rank the highest even though the number of
Through a deep analysis of social media trends across cases reported in these countries are relatively low. To
nine countries in South and Southeast Asia, we have date, Cambodia only has 141 cases in comparison to
identified four key findings around the uptake of social the Philippines which has over 35,000 cases to date. In
media and what this means for brands. Bangladesh, social media engagement starts to spike
between late February to mid-March when
1. Mentions vs Engagement governments started restricting travel into the country

while moving to close schools.
ADA’s findings have shown that there has been a sharp
spike in social media mentions and engagement in What this means for brands: Be informed about local
Asia. However, when a comparison is made between updates especially at a government level – what is the
countries, the spikes correlate more with respective government announcing, implementing, or restricting
government actions rather than with the spread of the today. This is regardless of whether it directly affects
virus. your brand, because, at some level, everyone is
affected. Especially if your brand has regional
Indonesia, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Cambodia have
the highest number of mentions on the subject of presence, next steps must cater to all markets and their
COVID-19. However, three out of four of these respective government actions.
countries have relatively low number of new cases in 2. Sentiment Analysis
the countries. For example, up to early March,
Indonesia was still reporting zero cases of the virus Naturally, overall public sentiment towards COVID-19
within the country, yet social media mentions started to and all facets surrounding the topic has been negative.
spike as early as February. Also, in Indonesia, a large However, the increase or decrease in positive
spike in mentions occur when the government started sentiment has been largely in tandem to two factors,
introducing large-scale social restrictions gradually in including the localized progression of the virus and the
the month of March to April. government or political response towards the virus and
its repercussions.

July 2020: Virtual-, Augmented & Mixed Reality: revolutionizing the customer experience 16