More than 60 professionals and volunteers from the non-profit and social impact space joined us at Artistry Café for Be An Idea’s 4th Fuze Night, making it our most successful event to date.
Bringing together the best people in the social impact sector, Fuze Nights serves as a platform for our humble, local superheroes to relax, connect and learn from others in the same space. Changing up the format a little, we had an exciting line-up for the evening.
“What would you do if you weren’t afraid?
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Gamely stepping in to replace our original speaker, Kai Elmer Sotto brought with him more than seven years of experience with both Facebook and Instagram, and a truckload of marketing and strategic experience to boot. Sharing candidly about storytelling on social media mediums, he stressed the importance of connecting to the human mind.
“Think about your own behaviour, about how you want to tell this story, about the audience you’re reaching out to and ask yourself if they are highly engaged with what you’re saying.”
He encouraged audience members to listen, build a relationship and to include elements of purpose, authenticity and high quality into the stories that they are trying to tell. “Most importantly, your messaging must be easily understood,” Kai adds before referring to twin guest examples, Yafiq and Yais Yusman, who collectively have about 60k followers on Instagram.
Kai then shared about the 3Ps that are very important to consider – People, Proof and Platform. Citing Charity:Water’s Instagram account as an example, Kai explains how every single picture not only aims to build a relationship with people, but also provides proof that people’s time and resources are worthwhile on the right platform. Instagram, is platform built to inspire.
“It’s not uncommon to feel the need to utilize every single social media platform. Ask yourself, what is the one word that you would identify with each platform and is that relevant to what you’re trying to do?”
He concludes his talk with a short how-to on advertising hypotheses, encouraging audience members to create 2-3 different campaigns and weigh out which ones work best after a short test run.
“Do not worry about the likes, engagement is way more important,” he adds, emphasizing that comments on social media is an indication of interest in your subject matter. Taking questions from the audience, Kai maintains that it is really about the “media” and not the “social” in social media.
“Always go back to the what and ask yourself what are you trying to achieve,” he adds, ending on that note to an extremely appreciative audience who sends a generous round of applause his way.
Our next performer, singer-songwriter Jean Goh, bravely steps up to perform for our first ever local talent spotlight segment of Fuze Nights. Sharing stories about how she uses YouTube as a platform to share her music with a younger audience who looks to her for inspiration and advice, she also performs 2 originals and a cover of Gabe Bondoc’s “Lion”.
“Always go back to the what and ask yourself what are you trying to achieve,” he adds, ending on that note to an extremely appreciative audience who sends a generous round of applause his way.
Jean Goh performs at Be An Idea's October Fuze Night event. Check out her original song Hush Now.
“ …That I’ve got the heart of a lion. I’m not, I’m not afraid, not afraid of the dark. I’m a fighter, bring the fire, fighting for the light.”
Our next speaker, Wu Jiezhen from The Hidden Good, rounded off the night with an excellent presentation on social experiments that show how every-day Singaporeans are kind by nature and are looking for innovative ways to change the world. She shared hilarious videos on how creative campaigns can bring people together, such as Dance for Your Prata and Rags to Riches.
Wu Jiezhen from The Hidden Good shares how she is capturing the everyday kindness of Singapore.
The event ended with an open networking session where guests were invited to mingle and get to know each other better. Post-its were passed around and guests were encouraged to nominate an idea or person that they felt was most deserving of our prize of two Robinsons gift cards worth $50 each. Our lucky winners for the evening were Jane and Marcus, congratulations guys!
Fuze Nights typically take place on the last Wednesday of each month. Look forward to more insightful talks and opportunities to connect every last Wednesday of each month at Artistry!