As part of the Baiduri SME Empowerment Series, a special collaboration with Darussalam Enterprise (DARe), a social media workshop was conducted to help micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) capitalise on opportunities in the digital space during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

The online workshop, titled ‘Baiduri SME Empowerment Series: Rising above the pandemic with social media marketing’, was attended by 30 local MSMEs. The workshop was conducted by Walter Lim, an ACTA-certified trainer who is currently the Director and Chief Content Strategist for Cooler Insights, a Singapore agency specialising in content marketing, SEO, social media marketing and brand storytelling. Walter has over 27 years of experience in marketing, public relations, campaign and events marketing as well as strategic planning.

During the one-day workshop, participants were brought up to speed on how COVID-19 has affected the overall business landscape and how they can create an online presence to overcome the obstacles caused by the pandemic. The workshop looked at the fundamentals of social media marketing, best practices as well as measuring the performance of social media campaigns among others.

Speaking on the workshop, Aariz Patrick Ng, Head of Channel Management at Baiduri Bank said, “With a number of businesses going online as a way to overcome the challenges brought about by the pandemic, we aim to provide these MSMEs with the necessary skills and tools to market their business on social media platforms through this workshop as part of our ongoing commitment to co-create with our community. We also hope that the sharing of regional success stories through Cooler Insights will broaden the perspective of our participants, inspiring them to try out new, enterprising ideas that would give them a competitive edge.”

At the conclusion of the workshop, many participants highlighted how the workshop has been a great learning experience for them. A participant stated during the recap and closing session that while they have been running their business for 7 years on social media, they were able to improve their knowledge and gained insights through this workshop highlighting the ever evolving nature of online businesses.