Influencer marketing in Singapore is growing, The Influencer Advertising market was projected to reach $93.15 million USD in 2023 in the city state. Being almost everyone on social media, Singapore has a huge internet base and rising content creators & Key Opinion Leaders that brands can leverage to reach the country’s online consumers. Here are the key insights of Singapore’s influencer marketing state in 2024 to launch the best influencer campaigns in The Little Red Dot.
Influencer marketing in Singapore is predicted to have promising growth in the next years.
Look at these insights and numbers
- Singaporean 🇸🇬 Influencer Advertising market is projected to reach $93.15 millions USD in 2023
- The average ad spending per internet user in the Influencer Advertising market is projected to amount to $16.28 USD in 2023.
- Instagram is the most important social network for influencers in Singapore 🇸🇬
- Singapore online consumers trust businesses with positive reviews than those without
- Nano-influencers have the highest engagement rate and are the most important influencers tiers in Singapore
- More Singapore brands invest their marketing budget for influencer marketing in 2024
- More brands are leveraging nano-influencers in Singapore
- Follower fraud widespread among Singapore influencers
Influencer marketing in Singapore is the best way to target Singaporean online consumers.
Why?
The Singapore government has an ambitious goal: to become a Smart Nation by 2024.
In 2022, the Singapore internet penetration rate was already at 92%
And they still have 2 more years to complete the rest.
As almost everyone in Singapore is on the internet, brands have a big chance to market their products there.
Especially when young consumers in Singapore actively look for online reviews on social media.
Also, Singaporean influencers keep establishing more online presence in the nation.
Brands need to keep up with The Lion City’s recent happenings for a strong influencer marketing strategy.
And this guide will help you launch a successful influencer marketing campaign in Singapore.
Read on to find out how to hop on the board intelligently.
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What is Influencer Marketing in Singapore?
Influencer marketing has surfaced as a powerful and dynamic strategy in the realm of digital marketing in Singapore. It entails collaborating with individuals who have a significant online presence and a committed following, occasionally referred to as KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders).
There is a little difference between creators and KOLs: the area of expertise.
KOLs are considered experts in a certain topic, such as beauty gurus.
While creators are entitled to gain a certain amount of audience by choosing a niche before starting.
Today, 89% of Singapore citizens are active social media users or 5.3 million people by number.
They spend an average of 2 hours 31 minutes online.
Pandemic has changed the online consumer behavior.
The country’s goal of a Smart Nation by 2024 also causes creators crowd on social media.
This is what makes the digital economic market in the little red dot country so attractive.
Singapore brands should hop on social media ASAP and leverage influencers to showcase their products.
Where is Singapore? (If you don’t know)
It’s the country of Changi Airport! The one with the tallest waterfall on people’s Instagram!
Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is a tiny city-state on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula.
It is only 728.6 km² wide (thanks to gradual land reclamation) but 5.9 million people choose to live in the 64-islands country.
It makes the Lion City the second-most densely populated city in the world behind Monaco.
People speak Singlish or English with a Singapore accent which is influenced by diverse Chinese accents.
Yes, the one with many La’s in the end and various ‘Can’.
Also, you can never forget the street foods 🤤
The little red dot country is one of the world’s most prosperous countries. It has a low rate of unemployment and business-friendly economic regulations.
The influencer marketing landscape also has grown rapidly in this country.
The influencer marketing industry in Southeast Asia is predicted to hit $2.59 billion in 2024, making Singapore a more promising market to land.
Let’s see the stats.
your Brand
Influencer Marketing – With the Best Creators
Social Management – Post, Comments & Messages
Content Creation – Video Edition & Design
Instagram is the most important social network in Singapore for influencers
In 2022, WhatsApp and Facebook were still the most used social media in Singapore.
And Instagram which has 3 million users in 2022 comes the third place.
Here are the 6 most-used social media in Singapore in 2024:
- WhatsApp: 83% of Singapore citizens use WhatsApp.
- Facebook: 79% of Singapore citizens are Facebook users.
- Instagram: 66% of Singapore people use Instagram.
- Telegram: 49% of people in Singapore use Telegram.
- Facebook Messenger: 46% of people in Singapore are FB Messenger users.
- TikTok: 44% of Singapore citizens use TikTok.
However, despite being the third place, Instagram is still the most popular social network for influencers in Singapore.
In fact, the popularity of Instagram has spread across Southeast Asian influencers.
Instagram is the most-loved social media platform for influencers in Southeast Asia.
Take a look at the table below to check the popularity rate of social media for influencers in the Lion City.
| Social media networks in Singapore | Popularity rate in % 2021 |
|---|---|
| 78% | |
| TikTok | 11% |
| 6% | |
| YouTube | 4% |
Globally, brands agree to choose Instagram as the best choice for influencer marketing campaigns.
79% of global brands use Instagram as their main platform to run an influencer marketing campaign.
Let’s take some notes: Instagram is still number #1 in Singapore.
Keep Instagram in mind if you want your influencer marketing campaign to have the highest success rate in the little red dot country.
How much do Singapore Brands spend on Influencer marketing?
In 2022, more than 67% of brands in Singapore are expecting a marketing budget increase.
The marketing budget increase might be to invest more in influencer marketing.
Why?
Because there is also an escalation in the brands’ influencer marketing budget in Singapore.
This is the influencer marketing budget trend in Lion City in recent years.
- Brands in Singapore that previously do not invest in influencer marketing decreased by 10% in 2021 compared to 2020.
- Brands in Singapore investing 1-30% of their marketing budget in influencer marketing increased by 5% in 2022 compared to 2020.
- Brands in Singapore investing more than 30% of their marketing budget on influencer marketing increased by 5% in 2021 compared to 2020.
In conclusion, more brands in Singapore are aware of influencer marketing’s benefits.
And now, more brands in the little red dot country include influencer marketing in their marketing budget.
For 2024, the number of brands realizing the power of influencer marketing keeps increasing.
In 2022, brands that invest more than 30% of their marketing budget in influencer marketing are expected to increase by 5%.
This means, Singapore is catching up with the global trend.
In 2022, 68% of global brands agree to invest more of their marketing budget in influencer marketing.
Singapore online consumers trust businesses with positive reviews more than those without
Singapore social media users spend more than 2 hours being active on the platform every day.
But why do they stay so long and what for?
Because they have reasons to use social media.
The main reason is to stay connected with family and friends. Others say to get information and create content.
And what for? They are looking for a certain type of content to enjoy.
The most content watched by Singaporeans is reviews.
Here is the detail of the type of content Singaporeans like to watch on social media.
- Reviews: 40% of Singaporeans prefer watching review content – Comparing makeup products by beauty influencers.
- Tutorials: 20% of Singaporeans use Instagram to look for tutorials – How to make your own caramel popcorn.
- Social Feed: 17% of Singaporeans use Instagram to catch up with social feed – Watching friends’ Stories.
- Unboxing: 15% of Southeast Asians search for unboxing content – Unpacking a new K-pop album.
In conclusion, Singaporeans love reviews!
But they only love watching positive reviews of a certain brand.
In fact, 72% of Singaporean online consumers trust businesses with positive reviews more than those without.
That’s why they don’t go to business brands’ accounts to see how good their products are.
Rather, Singaporean online consumers watch influencers’ reviews of the brands they are looking for.
Take a look at this graphic and see how many people have decided to buy an item after being endorsed by an influencer.
In 2020, 51% of online consumers in Singapore are influenced by an influencer to buy a product.
While 49% of the rest are not influenced.
As more influencers are establishing their audience and more brands are aware of influencer marketing’s impacts,
the number will keep increasing to the point where people buy a product solely because of an influencer recommendation.
Let’s see the future.
Nano-influencers are the most important influencers tiers in Singapore
Globally, nano-influencers have the highest engagement rate in 2022: 3.69%.
The same thing also happens in Lion City.
In 2019, Nano-influencers in Singapore have the highest engagement rate among other tiers.
Look at this comparison.
Below is the detail of the average engagement rate by tiers in Singapore in 2019.
| Influencer tier in Singapore | Engagement rate in % |
|---|---|
| Nano-influencers | 5.8% |
| Micro-influencers | 2.08% |
| Mid-tier influencers | 2.03% |
| Macro-influencers | 1.49% |
| Mega-influencers | 0.51% |
Now let’s check the real-time engagement rate of some nano-influencers in Singapore.
I use an online engagement rate calculator to measure the engagement rate of these accounts (they will also appear on my influencer recommendation in the next section).
- Isabelle Han (@hxyisabelle), a beauty influencer with 7k followers has a 9.96% engagement rate.
- Dione (@dionetyf), a fashion influencer with 8k followers has a 6.18% engagement rate.
- Travis Lim (@travlim), a food blogger with 6k followers has a 5.45% engagement rate.
Nano-influencers are indeed the most special breed among other tiers.
Despite a small follower size, nano-influencers still make it to have the highest engagement rate.
But how could it be?
The audience of nano-influencers are usually family or friends, basically those who have a close connection with them.
The more familiar you are with the account, the more likely you are to engage with its content.
So, wait no more! Start working with nano-influencers in Singapore for the best campaign results.
Influencers?
Let us help. We can find and contact them. Build your Campaign and ROI
GET A FREE CONSULTMore Singapore brands will leverage Nano-influencers in 2024
In a study, 44% of consumers agreed that they are more influenced by recommendations from family or friends many times before buying a product.
In that context, nano-influencers can push in.
Remember that nano-influencers’ audience is basically their friends and family?
Exactly.
Brands can leverage nano-influencers to reach consumers that trust a product recommendation from family or friends through nano-influencers.
Nano-influencers tend to create genuine content that resonates with their audience.
Moreover, Singapore’s online consumers trust brands with positive reviews more than ever.
Working with nano-influencers is like having a free pass of sales increase.
Well, it seems that brands in the little red dot country are already aware of this.
A mere 33% of brands in Singapore collaborated with nano-influencers in 2020.
More than 82% of Singapore brands will include nano-influencers in their marketing strategy in 2022.
And the number keeps growing from year to year.
So far, the best strategy to run an effective influencer marketing campaign in Singapore is:
Use Instagram as the platform and collaborate with nano-influencers.
What kind of Influencers can you find in Singapore?
You can find literally any influencer tier in the Lion City.
But micro and nano influencers are the most crowded in the country.
In 2019 only, more than half of influencers in Singapore are micro-influencers.
Take a look at this full list of distribution of influencers in Singapore in 2019.
| Singapore Influencer tier | Distribution rate in % |
|---|---|
| Nano-influencers (1k-10k) | 26% |
| Micro-influencers | 58% |
| Macro-influencers | 14% |
| Mega-influencers | 1% (too small, did not include in the report) |
In conclusion, smaller size influencer tiers are dominating the Singapore industry.
Nano-influencers catch up with the number with a 26% presence.
Meanwhile, there are only a few mega-influencers in this Lion City.
Here is the list of the best Singapore influencers in 2024.
Yuni – The best Singaporean mom-influencer
Yuni is a mom influencer based in Singapore.
She uses her Instagram as her platform to share her daily life and memorable moments with her family.
She also posts many sponsored products for mom, baby, and family.
She takes extra effort to make sponsored content, so the endorsed products are always well-explained.
If you want a family-friendly influencer to promote your products to parents and children, you should keep Yuni in mind.
Chloe Chong – Established Singapore lifestyle influencer
Here is the Miss Smile influencer.
Exactly, her Instagram feed is full of smiles.
Her bright personality of her helped her account grow as one of the most popular micro-influencers in Singapore.
Chloe also has been successful to build her online skincare business, Cojo Beauty, thanks to her established online presence.
She is now among the top of Singapore’s micro-influencers brands counting on.
Chloe uses her platform to share her everyday outfit, and also to promote endorsed products actively.
Add Chloe to your list for a successful influencer campaign in the Lion City through a micro-influencer.
Ken Hermans – Singapore-based beauty nano-influencer
Kenny is very special.
He is a versatile artist: he does makeup and he influences people.
He shares his glamor makeup looks both on Instagram and TikTok.
He also likes to update his daily moments with his loved ones.
Kenny has worked with various brands that support inclusivity and diversity like Rare Beauty and Mac Cosmetics Singapore.
If your brand is aiming for more than just a sale, then start working with Kenny to spread a greater social impact.
Ibtisam Almashor – Makeup Artist & beauty influencer Singapore
Ibtisam is a popular makeup artist and beauty influencer in Singapore.
She even built her own makeup brand: Ibtiiman Beauty.
As a beauty influencer, her Instagram feed is full of makeup hacks, her daily makeup looks, and also lots of endorsed makeup products.
She is also a mom of 3, sometimes she posts her family portrait with her children.
She also does bridal makeup and one of Sephora’s influencers.
Ibtisam is a great choice if you want to work with a family-oriented and influential beauty influencer in Singapore.
Isabelle Han – Rising Singaporean lifestyle nano-influencer
If you are looking for nano-influencers in Singapore, Isabelle is the one you should keep an eye for.
She was in the Sun NUS beauty pageant in 2019 so she is popular among her colleagues.
She poses for a daily girlfriend material look on Instagram every day, and shares outfits of the day, and moments with her loved ones.
She also posts many endorsed products, mostly beauty, fashion, and lifestyle.
Go add her to your list and feel the power of nano-influencer!
JianHao Tan – The biggest YouTuber & Singapore male influencer
If you need a boost from a mega-influencer, you should try JianHao.
He is technically the biggest YouTuber in Singapore right now with over 5 million followers.
He produces funny videos on his main channel and family videos on his family channel.
While on Instagram, he likes to share his love for his wife and daughter.
He also shares a lot of product endorsements from e-commerce promos, gadgets, and even game platforms.
JianHao’s posts are full of engagement, perfect for brands to reach a wider audience.
Shina Tan – Singapore-based lifestyle Instagram influencer
Shina is well-known for her versatile niche.
She is a roundup lifestyle blogger who shares her daily life on Instagram.
She always gives the best result for the brands working with her.
Shina creates creative content for every product she endorses.
Her authenticity is indeed what makes her a very great promoter for your brand.
Shina makes sure that the content helps her audience use the best product.
Don’t waste Shina’s influence and start working with her!
Travis Lim – Growing food nano-influencer in Singapore
Tarvis is a nano food influencer.
And yes his Instagram feed is full of foods . It’s like a cuisine paradise 🍔🍕🍦🧁.
You can find his reviews of almost every dish in Singapore on his feed.
Pastries, snacks, noodles, coffee, ice creams, burgers, you name it.
Travis is only followed by 6k followers but his account’s engagement rate is already 5.45%!
No wonder brands are flooding his feed with food endorsements.
Join other brands to work with Travis for the best influencer campaign results!
Naomi Neo – Singapore-based celebrity & young mom-influencer
Here is another mega-influencer in Singapore: Naomi.
She shares her daily activities with her 670k followers on Instagram.
She is well-known for her success at such a young age.
Now, she is a mom of 2 and lives happily with her family.
Naomi also works with a variety of brands, from food products, beauty and makeup, to family products.
If your brand wants wide exposure from a family-oriented influencer, working with Naomi can be a great choice.
Dione – Singaporean model & fashion nano-influencer
Dione is a rising nano fashion influencer in Singapore.
From having 5k followers in March 2022, now Dione is followed by more than 9k followers on Instagram.
She loves wearing street styles for her daily outfit and shares them on her Instagram.
She is very authentic and has the perfect figure for a model.
Just look at her feed! She will be your ultimate promoter for your luxurious brands.
Is follower fraud common among influencers in Singapore?
Sadly, it is.
But like everywhere else in the world, there is influencer fraud on Social Media.
Some influencers in the little red dot country admit that it’s not easy to grow a social media account with only ‘organic method’.
A study in 2019 says, 47% of Singaporean influencers artificially boost their followers.
The method is not only to push the followers’ number but also for their account growth overall.
Influencers who do these dirty tricks hastily want to connect with brands to get brand sponsorship.
In return, brands who have done a deal also get cheated on.
It is indeed a great loss for brands as the money they invest just disappear.
So here I show you the strategy used by Singaporean influencers to artificially escalate their account growth:
Singaporean influencers tend to buy followers
Turns out, macro-influencers have the highest cheating rate of 56% among other tiers.
While nano-influencers have the lowest follower fraud of 38%.
In fact, growing an organic follower base is not easy among influencers.
In a 30-days to become an influencer challenge by The Straits Times Singapore, it is almost impossible to reach 5.000 in 1 month, unless the account goes viral.
The first catapult to boost followers is through buying fake followers.
But, buying followers itself is not cheap.
A Singapore influencer can spend almost $50 to get 5000 followers.
To sum up, you can spend almost $100 to fake grow your account.
Once you have bought followers, you still have a little engagement because of the fake followers.
This will force you to do another strategy to inflate the engagement: buy likes and comments.
Influencers in Singapore love to buy likes and comments
The number of followers is not enough to show how legit your account is to be an influencer.
You need engagement.
If you build your followers with fake ones, then it will not easy to force engagement even if you diligently post every day.
If this situation happens to Singapore influencers, most of the advice will be: “Buy likes and comments”.
In the same challenge, you can get 1000 likes on 10 posts for $12.50 and 50 comments on 5 posts for $6.99.
It costs around $20 to get 1000 likes and 50 comments.
But then it stops right there.
Once you fake it, you have to do it again and again.
The next post will get the same quiet engagement if you don’t buy likes and comments again.
Singaporean influencers use boost groups to enhance engagement
A boost group is also known as a comment pod or engagement pod.
It is a group created by influencers on a certain platform like Facebook or Telegram.
The group later collectively supports each other’s accounts to boost engagement.
This is how you can check on suspicious comments done by influencers using the boost group tactic.
- They only write emojis like 😍 or compliment words such as wow, cool, fantastic, etc.
- The sentences are simple and often irrelevant to the posts.
- They mention another account without writing any sentences.
This strategy plus buying likes and comments are very popular among macro-influencers at 34%.
Singapore influencers use follow/unfollow tactic to grow followers
This tactic is known where influencers do a follow spree to a number of users in a hope that they will follow them back.
Then they unfollow the users days later.
This can be easily checked by the following ratio.
If the influencers’ following number is almost the same as the followers, they are most likely doing this trick.
This strategy is the least popular among other strategies but is the most used by mid-tier influencers with more than 15% of them.
How to start an influencer marketing campaign in Singapore?
There is plenty of ways to do this.
First, the very cheap way: do it manually.
Start your research on the most popular platform for influencers: Instagram.
Find the potential influencers and start contacting them.
But it sure takes lots of time.
Here, I will introduce you to the best ways to start the most effective influencer campaign in Singapore.
Choose the best influencer marketing platform in Singapore
The first easy start is to choose the best influencer marketing software in the country.
Why influencer marketing software?
It can help your campaigns be much more effective and manageable.
You can save lots of time and money.
You don’t have to look up to influencers one by one because you only need 1 click.
Influencer marketing platform has a big database of influencers.
You can find everyone that matches your need, even those who are outside of your reach from manual searches.
Remember the follower fraud case? You can easily track an influencer’s authenticity with their fraud detection.
They also have an auditor tool for you to review their account performance and see how far their account can bring you results.
Some of them also have campaign management where you can monitor your influencer marketing campaigns.
You can also check out the KPI in a form of a project score and see how successful is the campaign for each influencer.
All in one place.
Using the best influencer marketing platform is like saving yourself from time-consuming work.
Find the right influencers with the help of the Singapore influencer marketing agency
The secret recipe to launching a successful influencer marketing campaign in Singapore is using a service from an agency.
Influencers?
Let us help. We can find and contact them. Build your Campaign and ROI
GET A FREE CONSULTWhy?
They can find the right match for your brand and bring you real results.
PLUS, you will not waste any more time running the campaign.
The influencer marketing agency will do it for you 🙂
“But, how much should I trust them to run my brand’s campaign?”
3 big reasons: exceptional expertise, cost-effectiveness, creative strategy and approach.
They have worked with a number of influencers for years.
They also can make sure that the influencers are authentic.
And they know specifically who you should work with based on the influencer’s strengths and specialties.
This level of experience and insight in the ever-changing market is what makes it valued.
Also, the influencer marketing agency has a dedicated team with amazing creative ideas.
They know better than anyone what campaign should be executed and who the influencer is to run the campaign.
All for the best results.
Trusting them = you work and worry less 🙂
What is the best influencer marketing software to find influencers in Singapore?
It is a very impressive tool for an influencer marketing platform.
It has more than 10 million influencers around the world, very easy for you to find one in Singapore.
It also has a powerful influencer auditor.
It is a review tool of an influencer’s account performance. You can literally find any information regarding the influencer here.
You can look up their audience quality, ad performance, how much you must pay if you want to work with them, and other insightful stats.
You can analyze the whole information and get to the decision whether the account performance can boost your goal or not.
It will also provide how many suspicious followers of the account.
No worry about the follower fraud anymore.
Worry about being ghosted by the influencer?
Easy. You can send a message with Inflact templates to start the conversation. 100% works.
You want to work with many influencers in advance but it is difficult to manage?
It’s basically campaign management where you can send outreach messages in advance and maintain communication with many influencers.
Also, you can live-monitor every campaign performance.
Check the success parameter of the campaign in just one look: KPI score.
It’s time to launch an influencer marketing campaign for your Brand in Singapore
That’s a wrap!
I have done my job to put you into the perspective of the influencer marketing state in Singapore in 2024.
The influencer marketing industry in Singapore takes to a promising level.
Let me summarize the reason.
First, brands in Singapore are aware of what influencer marketing campaigns could bring to their brands.
In result, more and more Singapore brands want to work with influencers.
Second, half of Singapore’s online consumers trust an influencer’s product recommendation before buying an item.
This is another way to say that the market has made a certain demand: they trust businesses with positive reviews over those without.
Like it or not, brands in Singapore need to dive in on influencer marketing ASAP to get into the hype.
When done, brands need to understand more about the market:
leveraging nano-influencers to capture online consumers who trust family or friends’ recommendations.
Now you have full ammunition and it’s your turn to run a successful influencer marketing in Singapore in 2024.
Let me tell you the best way to start: use an influencer marketing agency!
They have established years of experience and they work beyond creativity.
They know how to bring results to your brand.
So, are you ready to expand your brand’s impact in Singapore with us?
Don’t hesitate to contact us once you have set the goal.
How can I get influencers to promote my product in Singapore?
Hop on Instagram then find the right influencer for your brand. Or simply use an influencer marketing platform for easier and wider discovery. Then, start writing them an email outreach with captivating subject lines to catch their attention. Don’t forget to deliver the message straight to the point. When they respond to you, start negotiating: give a valuable offer to the influencer in exchange for your marketing goal (brand awareness, sales increase, etc.)
Is influencer marketing effective in Singapore?
YES, definitely. Almost everyone in Singapore is already on social media and they spend more than 2 hours online. Also, influencers in Singapore are growing rapidly in recent years. Not to mention that half of the online consumers in Singapore are highly influenced by an influencer before buying a product. Running an influencer marketing campaign in Singapore is like having immunity to failed marketing.
Continue to read if you like Influencer Marketing studies and insights
- Influencer Marketing in France
- Influencer Marketing in Indonesia
- Best Influencer Marketing Software
- Influencer Marketing in Taiwan
- Top 10 Best Influencer Marketing Tools
- Top 10 Micro-Influencers in Singapore
- Top 10 Fashion Influencers in Singapore
- Top 10 Male Influencers Singapore
- Top TikTok Influencers in Singapore
Article By
Gregory Taslaud
Founder and Full time Blogger at INSG. Inbound Marketing enthusiast since 2001, I love data, test and review Tools. On a mission to build Media & eCommerce projects with various Brands and Creators.