Asia's Women Leadership in Social Networking: Are You Brave Enough to Adopt Madam Ho Ching's Social Media Strategy?

The Rules of Engagement in Social Media

We live in a digital, hyper-connected age in which reputations and grassroots movements can be easily built and destroyed over a single tweet or a viral WhatsApp message. A in-depth social media strategy is essential for anyone looking to address the need for social interaction, building communities and fostering a sense of belonging. In these extraordinary times, there is no better time than now to evaluate how we use our social media platforms as a force for good.

What, then, should be our mode of engagement? Social media influencers will talk about authenticity, being your best self, and speaking unapologetically for what you believe in. On the flipside, no matter how vulnerable and self-honoring you are, being a public figure and exposing yourself on a level global playing field called Facebook with 2.5 billion monthly active users logging from their phones and laptops, is another ball game altogether. Be prepared to be exposed to a shame shitstorm and bonding session of epic proportions in the comments section, where you will be ridiculed and praised all at the same time. If you’re especially influential, like a global leader, your Facebook post may be picked up by mainstream media, like how Trump’s tweets get plenty of airtime on CNN, or like how Madam Ho Ching’s Facebook post got picked up by Bloomberg today.

It all started with an \"Errrr....\"

I read the coconuts.co coverage and mulled over their reporting over Madam Ho’s revised viral post that has garnered ~18k likes and ~23k comments as at the time of writing. Coconut.co’s article headline had a negative, click-bait driven sentiment to it (a far cry from their glowing headlines back in the day on Madam Ho’s “refreshingly chill approach to social media” and how her sporting a dinosaur-pouch made by an autistic student at the G20 summit sparked a fashion trend), but the content was neutral, well-researched and presented both sides of the Taiwan-Singapore mask export story leading up to Madam Ho’s post. On 16th April, China Times, one of the largest four newspapers in Taiwan followed up with an op-ed validating the mask export story, justifying Madam Ho’s right to her cryptic comment.

This was pre-Bloomberg coverage but to me, this post indicated there was more than what meets the eye. Madam Ho Ching is the CEO of Temasek and First Lady of Singapore. She is highly intelligent, a very influential figure, and privy to a lot more information and life experiences that the reactionary, gratuitous comments suggesting how she should run her life and the country. She wouldn’t post something to her feed on her own without a proper rationale. There is foresight in her post, but there was also a lot of public speculation behind it. If you go through the comments section thoroughly, there was some intelligent crowdsourcing of facts going on in defense of her post prior to the China Times article.

The Internet is forever

As the story was developing and the comments section to her post continued to blow up in epic proportions in both shame shitstorms and solidarity movements, the mass post flooding on her newsfeed happened shortly after she made her own post. If you’re interested in the actual posting frequency and engagements stats, go here.

Now that just perplexed me. Did her account get hacked? Was there a bot publishing error in her social media management software? I picked the brain of Christoper Tock, my friend and founder of digital marketing consultancy SocialGrooves.com and we both surmised it was a flooding strategy deployed to drown her feed from her own visceral, personal posts. Flooding may be a temporary distraction, but once you make a public post, it is going to be picked up by the media or screen shot captured and exist permanently on the Internet. Also, Madam Ho’s posts are way too influential to be drowned out. Period.

Speaking our truth

Let’s think about it. If this kind of public scrutiny occurred to someone who was unable to handle the pressure, then it would have spelt the death of a career or a business in lieu of exercising his/her rights to free speech. In a world where most politicians and business figures curate their feed and present beautiful, perfectly scripted posts, how many of us dare to speak our own truths: the good, beautiful, bad and ugly?

Madam Ho followed up with two more personal posts with call to actions for the citizens of Singapore, one of which got picked up by Bloomberg, that triggered mainly positive reactions from the public. There are two personas that she addresses here, a young man and a young woman.

To the young man, she says, “Don’t put words in my mouth, young man!” She states how hindsight is always 20/20, and exhorts us “to get off our high horses, to help, instead of pontificating away.”

To the strawberry generation, which includes myself, that kind of exhortation and encouragement could be perceived in a negative light. The influencers of our generation and all the rest of us who don’t monetize our content tend to only post IG-worthy shots of ourselves that look good and seek social validation for more likes and shares. The downside is that it gets toxic for our mental health to see perfect lives all the time because we all know that life is not perfect. But we take it upon ourselves to be liked and trusted at all costs, because to some of us, social media is a way to build our reputation, businesses and livelihood. To come across as polarizing or to be rejected by others, would mean self-sabotage, death to our businesses and social reputation. So we take great pains to curate perfect, inspirational content and say the most politically correct thing.

As for Madam Ho’s generation, and for Madam Ho herself, she is utterly fearless around her approach to social media. They have nothing to lose by speaking their minds. That position is a gift to be appreciated, because being 100% real and vulnerable is so hard to come by these days. Let’s break down the spirit of the messaging to our generation here:

For starters, she doesn't need it for income, obviously. The currency here is reputation. Whatever she says moves markets, shapes political ties, and impacts Lee Hsien Loong's reputation as Prime Minister. The fact she is posting indicates she wants to be heard and engage the public, she loves Singapore, but gives no quarters about speaking her mind.

Given her military background, it’s no surprise she comes across as a strong woman and shows tough love for Singaporeans who don’t fall in line.

Madam Ho Ching is navigating a national crisis, like we all are. She is very likely above what media advisors tell her, hence the mass flooding of her feed after all her posts. Could this have become a social media PR crisis for the rest of us? Yes. Are her posts vulnerable and polarizing at the same time? Yes. Are the posts justified for her love of the nation? Yes.

Personally, I've also posted viscerally before about my exes without naming names, when I was navigating my own personal life crises. However, it was self-sabotaging (obviously because the guy dumped me). But in therapy, I found out that my visceral posting on social media was caused by a broken psychological defense mechanism due to years of repressed emotionality, or rather, the inability to feel a complete range of emotions in my psyche and release them in a safe space.

So when a sense of urgency builds up, reactivity takes over, and one ends up with very strong, extreme reactions, forever immortalized on the Internet.

It is easy to justify the reactivity by layering on a sense of self-righteousness (\"I am entitled because I have contributed so much\", \"I am entitled because I am rich\"), making judgment-based decisions, and not acknowledging the views of others. Reactive action can be trained into proactive action with more mindfulness training over time and a strong grounding in our sense of self-worth to speak our truth.

For a long time, I felt that posting viscerally made me wrong, that something was wrong with me to be strong-willed, or to be outspoken on social media. We have so few female leaders on the global stage to emulate from. Reading Madam Ho’s posts made me reassess my own self-judgment about repressing my truth and playing small.

Here is the question to ponder in our new age sensitive times - how do we distinguish chronic reactivity from speaking our truth? In times of crisis, quick, decisive actions need to be made, leading to a resurgence of strongman politics reminiscent of the LKY era.

Translating talk into action

If you compare Madam Ho’s and PM Lee’s posts, even though they have markedly differing styles of delivery, the spirit of the messaging remains the same: putting Singapore first.

To the young woman who made a comment in one of her Facebook posts, Madam Ho responded, “Migrant workers are not a covid “problem” to be deported back home, young lady. If our migrant workers fall sick in Sg, we take care of them. So, folks, don’t yelp about repatriating our migrant workers home.”

I’m going to let the approaches of two governments speak for itself, and you choose.

Would you rather be told a story of disadvantage, where voiceless migrant workers employed by corporate entities are unable to seek proper healthcare, because financial bottom lines are prioritized above the welfare of their fellow humans? In the largest cluster in US, identified in a meatpacking plant in Texas, out of 3,700 workers, 644 workers and their close contacts have been infected. Despite the steep increase in cases, the Governor in charge continued to decline to issue a shelter-in-place order, stating that such an order would not have prevented the outbreak.

Or would you rather hear this message of a country that cares for its people, including its foreign workers? The Singapore government is actively isolating, quarantining and treating foreign workers even though their case numbers currently outnumber that of the above US cluster.

Madam Ho Ching’s social media strategy is walking her talk. Are we brave enough to do the same?