Background

Red Dot Design Museum first opened in Germany and the Red Dot Design Museum Singapore was subsequently established to better connect with the Asian design scene. Red Dot Design Museum Singapore exhibits the latest design trends from around the world. All exhibits at the museum are winners of the three international Red Dot Design Award; namely Red Dot Award: Product Design, Red Dot Award: Communication Design and Red Dot Award: Design Concept.

Red Dot Singapore also hosts an art flea market, MAAD (Market of Artists and Designers) monthly. Through MAAD flea market events, Red Dot Singapore seeks to create a platform for aspiring artists, designers and entrepreneurs to showcase their products. MAAD was initiated by Red Dot Singapore in 2006 and is a primary focus for Red Dot Singapore.

Existing Active Channels

Red Dot Museum Singapore currently employs Facebook, Google Plus pages and Youtube in their social media strategy. For MAAD, the Museum creates a separate Facebook event on a monthly basis. MAAD also has its own Instagram profile and Google Plus page.

Focus of Project

Our group has decided to focus on the MAAD event held monthly by Red Dot Singapore because the Museum has been actively attempting to improve MAAD’s social media strategy/content. Their goals are to expand MAAD’s campaign reach and boost engagement with MAAD’s social media accounts.

We studied the museum’s own social media strategy and found that it is well established and that they already have a clear message and direction which is working for them. Thus, we will not be focusing on the museum’s own strategy as we feel there is less value to be added as opposed to MAAD’s social media strategy.

We feel MAAD’s social media strategy can be further developed and improved upon as the museum is looking to boost interaction with MAAD’s social media platforms, event visibility and ultimately, foot traffic at their events. Their end goal is to increase the promotion of and appreciation for the arts and design scene in Singapore.

Current Issues

MAAD has begun to face a fall in visitorship over the past few months, which has created a cause for concern for the museum as they worry it could lead to a vicious cycle; less visitors would result in a decline in interest of artists and designers to even showcase at MAAD events. MAAD’s social media channels are not garnering enough interaction with the general public who come as visitors to the event as noted by the number of followers and likes per post.

There has also been considerable diversion of attention away from MAAD events and its social media platforms as evidenced by the fall in visitor traffic and initial primary research conducted by the Museum.

Research Questions

1)     How can MAAD use social media platforms to better raise awareness for the local arts and design scene?

2)    How can MAAD leverage on social media to position itself as the premier platform for local artists and designers to showcase their work and to increase engagement with a wider audience?

Value of Study

We hope to generate an increased awareness of MAAD as a place where Singaporeans can come to appreciate the arts and design in a relatable way.

Through improving MAAD’s social media campaigns, we would like to foster and develop both local and foreign artists and entrepreneurs through positioning MAAD as an event where their work can be recognized and valued.

Objectives

We want to analyze the platforms MAAD is using to gain publicity and assess how effective their efforts have been thus far so as to help improve upon or generate completely new social media campaigns.

From this, we hope to increase engagement with the public and draw more visitors to MAAD events. We would also like to develop a greater reach to Singaporeans by identifying influencers with large followings who have skills and interests relevant to MAAD’s themes.

Methods

We will be conducting primary research through surveys to find out about the general attitudes of Singaporeans towards the arts and how aware they are of such events. This will help us to better identify the gaps in MAAD’s social media strategies and tailor our strategies accordingly.

We will be using case studies of similar events held locally and abroad. This will enable us to study the various social media campaigns that have been employed, which will help us in creating our own strategies that would work the best for MAAD.

We will also be evaluating influencers in Singapore to identify who would be the best suited to help in pushing out our social media campaigns for MAAD.

By: Meliza Tan, Melissa Cheok, Marcus Yeo