1. Introduction to Live Streaming
This article is created to help the live streamer in Singapore identify the best windows of opportunity for their target audience to be present and engage with the live chat messages on their live stream. In this article, we share our findings about the best times to target a Singaporean audience on live streams. We tailored these insights for local event organizers, live streamers, or content distributors like vloggers. Note that times are presented in Singapore Standard Time (SST) in the 24-hour window and day of the week (dow) format.
Are you a passionate live streamer who’s looking to better understand your audience? From businesses to individuals, an increasing number of people are live streaming for various reasons, and perhaps it’s for-profit, advocacy, or indulgence. But one main question is still worth asking: At what period of the day, week, or year should we commit to putting our energy into a live stream? Making sure that your target audience is there and actively watching is an essential factor in increasing the likelihood of your message being received and understood.
1.1. Definition and Importance of Live Streaming
Live streaming is a broadcast of real-time unedited video footage to an audience over the internet. The format allows broadcasters to interact in real-time with the audience through live chat, reacting to events and cues in the video. The delivery of live streaming Singapore in today’s world is through live streaming platforms, which include Facebook Live, Instagram Live, YouTube Live, and Twitch. The live streaming technology came into the social media scene in 2011 with Twitch. Since then, new live stream service platforms have emerged, and the existing ones have garnered massive user communities, propelling the phenomenon to hold a significant portion of internet usage traffic. According to the US Live Streaming and OTT Streaming Services, there was a rise in the live streaming audience of 81% by 2019, and the live streaming industry has grown to an estimated value of 70.5 billion USD in 2021.
This paper aims to examine the Singaporean live streaming landscape throughout the year and highlight specific spikes in viewership, with respect to recurring events in the country. The intent of this study is to empower broadcasters and influencers who stream their content on live streaming platforms with actionable insights to schedule their live streams at the best time to capture the Singaporean audience. With no prior study done, the information presented in this paper will help broadcasters engage the Singaporean audience more effectively.
2. Understanding the Singaporean Audience
Singaporeans have a fractured linguistic identity, where the majority of their content and conversation occurs in English. In classic Singaporean fashion, their other Singlish-based languages are primarily spoken at home or near ethnic enclaves within the country. If you are lucky enough to understand the subtleties of the language, you’ll notice that the flagship video from a prominent diva actually presented herself speaking in Mandarin, reciting Hokkien jokes. If you freeze the screen when they show the YouTube view counts, you will see a significant concentration in Taiwan, Hong Kong, but particularly within the island state of Singapore. For convenience, you should exploit the universal damage and attack backup theme where the diva has followed up with English and Mandarin video versions for the same major world event. Additionally, there are some obvious covid-19 standard errors executable ways to improve on the follow-up as well.
Singaporean audiences are extremely unique in that they are a mix of a multitude of races, ethnicities, and even languages. Singaporeans are a diverse group, and the Singaporean audience is as well. More than half of the Singaporean audience comprises of Chinese, followed by Malays, with Indians and expats forming the rest. Contrarily, most video streaming, especially live streams, cater mostly to a single global English-speaking segment. The best time to live stream for Singaporean audiences directly touches on these unique features and more. As business owners, Singaporean or otherwise, you should know that the size of your market can grow as big as 6.2 million if you also include the ideas and concepts described here. Yet, the market fundamentals can be transposed to any other cultural or linguistic group with relative ease using the same logical approach.
2.1. Demographics and Online Behavior
The statistics for Singapore qualified women to use shopping platforms, and the data could be attributed to the high level of digital advertising shown to women. In addition, the word “Beauty” was at the top rank for Singapore: 1, meaning that we see mostly young women very much engaged with beauty content. Singaporeans also use their mobile phones throughout the day, but it is important to note that during work hours the numbers spike, with 38% at lunch, 16% at dinner, and 41% most active at night. The most popular social platforms for Singaporeans are: Facebook (79%), Instagram (53%), and YouTube (32%). It should also be noted that there is a high amount of co-watching. Social media content is normally circulated within groups, so even if a person is not watching the video, chances are they may be scrolling past it in a WhatsApp, Facebook, or Telegram group.
Demographics play an important role in defining an audience’s preferences, characteristics, and trends when it comes to online behavior and viewing activity. For Singaporeans, current data shows that the digital audience is made up of both mature and millennial content consumers, with 88% of Singaporeans between the ages of 15-65 connected through various devices. According to a Social Media Statistics for Cyprus study, the age group of 25-34 is the largest group of people with active Instagram accounts, at 38%. According to a study carried out, there are more females than males using social media in Singapore, and both male and female social media users were in the age group of 25-34.
3. Factors Influencing Live Streaming Viewership in Singapore
Mass closures of land-based casinos in Singapore as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic have seen its first year-on-year decline in its annual gross gaming revenue since 2005. Adjusting to the closure of entertainment businesses and restrictions in place, quarantine and the MICE rule now provide WS Arena with access to Tier 1 customers. Mass walk-in at its premises and walkabout customers in Singapore are unable to consume its other products, as simple as live streaming for free on other platforms from customers’ mobile devices would even lead to a declination of the runners’ monopoly model.
The factors influencing live streaming viewership in Singapore are the closure of entertainment businesses and tight foreign worker policies that have resulted in new customer segments and live streaming adaptation. Unique to markets in Singapore, Tier 1 entertainment options such as cruising in international waters allow both consumption of leisure activities, dining, and being away from the homely environment. With the introduction of live betting options from participating in the live streaming, this new demand segment has increased viewership and adjusted consumption preferences, such as a change in session demand and timing, to watch the live streaming events.
3.1. Cultural Preferences and Festivals
MediaCorp also goes all out to celebrate reunions of different ethnic groups in Singapore during major festivals like Hari Raya, Diwali, and Chinese New Year. During festive periods, programs are aired round the clock with special ones that bring out the meaning of the festival to viewers. Festive specials include events like the Vasantham Diwali Dinner, Chinese Singing Competitions – “Xin Yao Laundry,” Chinese Tele-Movies, Hari Raya programs, Chinese Year-long movie series, Telemovies, and variety shows, etc.
MediaCorp also promotes cultural programs in various languages, which provide infotainment that reflects the rich living heritage and customs. For example, “Vasantham Express,” a morning show on Vasantham, focuses strongly on celebrating and preserving the Indian culture and heritage, and creating local Indian content, while “Geylang Serai Community Development Welfare and Social Association” (CDWSA) (Malay Language) provides content that is both entertaining and promotes social harmony and racial tolerance.
Singapore is known for its rich cultural heritage and festivals. Festivals play an important role in promoting racial and religious harmony among the various ethnic groups in Singapore. MediaCorp plays its part in encouraging the various communities to celebrate and promote their rich cultural heritage through various holiday specials during these festivals.
4. Optimal Times for Live Streaming in Singapore
People in Singapore dedicate times of their day to allocated hours for travel, work, and even leisure. With the quick establishment of the 24hr economy, it becomes even more necessary to understand when to slot in a time for that live broadcast you want to do to reach a Singaporean audience effectively. Running through transport systems in the daytime is crucial as more and more people are utilizing the gateways to make their way in and out of the city to work. In the evening, it’s our personal me-time where we expect to be pampered with much ease, so you might see plummeting numbers of people viewing your live broadcast.
Living in such a fast-paced and hectic world, our assigned schedule for each day seems to be getting longer and longer. We may want to argue that we do not have assigned schedules and all the time in the world is decided by us, but we cannot run away from the truth that Singapore is situated in time zones that do have demands for a timed set of services that serve the people in it.
Creating an ideal promotion plan for a live broadcast requires getting to know the audience’s habits and time constraints. We are going to take a look at the best times to plan and prepare a broadcast, taking into account the geographical settings of Singapore.
4.1. Weekday vs. Weekend Viewership Patterns
For the weekend entertainment purpose or weekend leisure options, Singaporeans turn to YouTube live in droves, especially in the afternoon and early evening periods. These slots represent daytime leisure, where after a day’s worth of free time, audiences want to be entertained actively or passively, live entertainment in real-time, and spending the day in an idly passive way. In summary, target 8 PM slot on Monday to Friday, with 1 PM as the lunch hour weekend option, and 5 PM as the optimal weekend hour for significant streamed activities.
The main bulk of the viewership will be in the evenings, peaking at around 10:00 pm. This suggests that most people will be catching up on the happenings of the day after they return from work or recreational activities, some logging on mid-day out of personal leisure. We can also see that much fewer people view live-streams in the early AM hours – this implies that you are better off choosing weekday evening slots when trying to reach out to people on weekdays. In this period, Singaporeans follow the typical workweek hours of 9-6, with many still finding activities at 7 PM, easily complementing after-hours social activities with live stream engagements.
5. Strategies for Effective Live Streaming in Singapore
The best times for Singaporean audiences are actually on the weekends. We include both Saturdays and Sundays, supposing video live-thumbnails on one of those days would not be too much of an encumbrance. The ideal slot to reach peak viewership is Sunday evenings. Given that this would interfere with prime-time television schedules – essentially the transport of local audiences onto video live thumbnails on Sundays – video live is not optimal. It wouldn’t be advisable to cross the local moments prime-time of popular Singaporean programs. On Saturdays, the crucial slot is early afternoons. Lifecycle marketing is, of course, the best way to understand what is happening in other target demography segments considering that millions of this data are generated every day around the world by platforms like Social. This guide for Singaporean viewers is based on data that includes nearly half a billion digital transactions and over 50,000 posts showing up in alters that are incorporated into different models.
Knowing the best times to live stream is essential when targeting specific demographics, including particular regions, countries, or time zones. Following that, the stakes can be even higher when it comes to reaching international audiences, needing precise and efficient scheduling. This article discusses the best times to live stream for those in Singapore and what businesses can do to maximize the effectiveness of their live streaming campaigns. Whether it’s any video here priced too in aspects of social media marketing, one of the key drivers is determining which platforms to engage and, of course, when. One factor that has to be considered is the location of the target audience and, more importantly, their time zone. When reaching out to Singaporean consumers through live video, keep in mind their schedules and how likely they are to tune in at certain hours of the day. Singaporeans are more engaged on some days at certain hours, making it more advantageous to aim for those time slots. Businesses need to keep in mind that the typical audience should be at home or otherwise in a convenient, accessible spot when the live event happens.
5.1. Engagement Techniques and Interactivity
If you go live on something like Facebook, encourage your spectators to enable notifications so that they receive them every time you go live, ensuring your audience is at least somewhat enthusiastic about your content. Another way for the audience to directly influence the show is polls and questions allowing them to choose what happens, but the trick here is to design everything sufficiently in advance so no choice is a bad decision, only a different one. Personalized calls to action are another good option. If you’ve provided your live streaming audience with a great show, it doesn’t hurt to request supportive gestures, in the form of likes, follows, or shares depending on your target and where you are broadcasting. They’ll be better invested in your content if viewers feel like they’re part of the show and they’ll like you to ask them to help you expand your reach. Keep in mind something very simple. Your bakery might be nuts about your logo and your slogan, but interesting enough to keep your audience tuned in and interacting with you.
One aspect that can increase engagement in your live stream content is interactivity with your audience. The more interactive your live streaming is, the easier it is for the audience to engage (this is important!). Try chatting with the comments that come in, asking questions and prompting users to answer, both verbally and in produced messages on the screen. Ask to share with friends who may also enjoy your live content. Encouraging other engagement in the first 5-10 minutes is a must. If you like, you can chat with a friend or co-host on screen; otherwise, you can just look like a lively host. Make sure you use your live content’s opportunities to the fullest: for Instagram, this means using stickers or interacting with spectators directly. The award is to be able to call your viewers out loud and give answers to suggestions directed personally to you.
