Social media expert Dave Duarte on Thursday has shown that, based on the numbers on the controversial Facebook campaign by the Tourism Ministry alone, the campaign has in fact justified its expenses.

This is because with average domestic tourist spending at RM2,500, the page needs to make sure that it gets 720 people to travel within Malaysia to justify its RM1.8 million price tag.

And with the estimated average conversion rate of Facebook fan to customer at more or less three percent, the page needs to get about 24,000 fans - 17,000 less than its current standing - to recoup expenses.

NONE The current number of fans is on the back of a Facebook application, the first of a total of six to be launched around domestic tourism campaigns for the rest of 2011.

It aims to get 120,000 by the end of the year.

In his blog entry at 6.26pm on Thursday, Duarte ( left ) clarified his statement to Malaysiakini earlier that day, where he said that the ministry could be spending " a bit too much " on its campaign.

The South Africa-based managing director of Huddleminds said that, while he admitted having said that the ministry is investing "a lot of money", he felt the statement needs to be contextualised.

"I did state very clearly that if Malaysia tourism is investing a lot of money in developing and hosting applications for their Facebook pages, that they would likely be spending their money on Facebook and Google ads.

"Ads are necessary expenditure if you want to drive a lot of visitors to your Facebook page over a short period of time. By the way, some companies pay as much as US$8 per fan on Facebook," he said.

ng yen yen pc parliament 160611 03 The posting was made prior to Duarte's joint press conference with Tourism Minister Ng Yen Yen ( right ), who Duarte said "shared the same sentiments".

He stressed, however, that his views were formed before he met the minister at the press conference, where he reportedly said that he was unfamiliar with the political atmosphere in the country when first commenting on the matter.

Duarte, who spoke to Malaysiakini on the sidelines of the World Bloggers and Social Media Summit 2011 in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, also said that he his statement was taken out of context.

In the Malaysiakini report, Duarte was quoted saying that an average expenditure per annum for a social media campaign is US$30,000 - an amount he says is "ridiculous" as it should in fact be US$210,000.

"I was referring to one of the fixed costs of doing social media marketing; the annual salary of a social media administrator.

"I wonder if (the companies that spend US$210,000) are national tourism ministries responsible for generating RM56 billion per annum? Let the budget match the reward," he said.

He added that, with Malaysia being a country with among the highest number of Facebook users, Malaysians should actually wonder why the government is not spending as much on this campaign.

Facebook game unrelated to tourism

Last week Ng said the RM1.8 million expenditure was not just for the development of the Facebook page, but for the whole campaign, which involves maintenance and promotion expenditures.

azlan At another press conference, the minister denied that her statement contradicted that of her deputy, who had told Parliament that the bulk of the RM1.8 million went to developing the Facebook applications.

Visitors to the page will automatically bypass the main page to land on the Flash application, which directs to a non-tourism related Tetris-like game where visitor can collect points in order to win an Ipad2.

After concluding the game, users are not redirected to the main page, where the events and travel destinations are promoted.

There are currently four photo albums - Colours of 1Malaysia launching event, Cameron Highlands, Pulau Aur and Chelsea Flower Show 2011. The wall page has promoted more than 20 events since May.