My opinion on the 1.8Mil spent by the Tourism Ministry on Facebook
Everyone is talking about the MYR 1.8Mil spent by the Tourism Ministry on Facebook. There are many who seem to be jumping to conclusions and running around like a headless chicken, panicking that 1.8mil of the rakyat’s money is used to setup a free Facebook Page. I’m not on anyone’s side, but consider this:
According to Msian Insider, the contract includes : costs for designing, flash programming and coding, testing and debugging, uploading and launching the application, system server deployment and campaign management.
The 1.8 million is for 6 Facebook pages, not one, SIX. That amounts to an average of MYR300k per page. Which includes what seems to be a Facebook app created in Flash. Creating an app can range from a couple of hundreds to thousands. Not to mention perhaps they have not rolled out all of their plans yet – which is why the page looks rather empty.
Someone asked me, do you need a server with Facebook? Well you need to host your app somewhere don’t you? And depending on how elaborate and complicated it is, the cost will be different.
Note that in this case, we’re not told the exact details
- How long is the contract? Is it 3 years? 1 year? is it 6 months? is it 3 months?
- Does it include contest prizes cost?
- Does it include Facebook ads cost? Or other network advertising? Says.My? Nuffnang? Advertlets?
These are all the questions that should be answered.
Personally, I think the price is quite high, but it’s Reasonable IF they do actually fulfill everything in the scope above. (p/s: dont forget to factor in any misc expenses like under tables,etc).
Again, not being on anyone’s side here. Just stating facts. What’s your opinion?
Edit 18:00 15 June 2011 – Tourism Malaysia released an Media Statement on their Social Media Campaign here
5 Comments
Twit N View
bg saya masih lagi logik utk nilai yg dinyatakan seandainya mereka jelaskan lebih lagi bayaran utk keperluan apa secara detail spt yg u nyatakan…
diharapkan penjelasan lebih diberikan dalam bentuk bertulis.
kebenaran jgn disembunyikan.
pasal kos under table tu biasa ler projek gomen, tak pernah lekang, ntah bila ler akan berterusan..
kadang2 disebabkan under table ler kos meningkat..
blogjunkie
I agree with you – I think it’s on think it’s on the high side but doesn’t sound too far unreasonable.
In general people are not familiar with how the digital marketing industry works. Personally I mark up my fees if I anticipate that it will be a difficult client, so perhaps there’s some PITA (pain in the ass) fees built in too – after all they are working with a govt agency…
Nicholas Chan
I agree with you on this….before jumping to conclusions and also that alot of details has not been forthcoming yet.
I’d say to wait awhile to see what happens.
This is the best time for the gomen to come clean on this and how they CAN be transparent if they want to
Yong
6 FB pages, seriously? Do you need that many pages just to promote our country desperately?
Ariff
As one of so called the headless chicken running about on the interweb wud like to call ur attention to this article right here http://www.mmail.com.my/content/75053-rm18m-facebook-fiasco
im no techie or what so ever so i dont know whether the figures shown by the web programmer with 7 years experience is false but come on 300k? i’ve recently clicked on one of this local msian artist with better fan page with flashier designs and more interactivity, then it must’ve cost them what? 500k for the page? them local artist must be raking in the moolah damnnnnnn!!!
just my tots