About TheSmartLocal – Meet our Team!

About Us

TheSmartLocal is an independent media publisher that locals trust for hyper-local information on what to do in and out of their country. We share this through 4 platforms – our website, YouTube channel, Facebook page and Instagram. Our website is one part editorial based and one part community based where members can upload their own reviews and have their say about everything Singapore.

Today, TheSmartLocal reaches over 3 million Singaporeans each month. Businesses looking to advertise can check out our advertising services provided.

Key Stats:

Reach:

Monthly Website views: 1.1 Million Unique Visitors, 2.5 million hits
Monthly Facebook Reach: 8 million+
Facebook Followers: 360,000+
YouTube Subscribers: 216,000+
Instagram Followers: 96,000+

Services:

Campaign Conceptualisation
Editorial Coverage
Photography Asset Creation
Video Production and Promotion – YouTube/Facebook
Event Organisation – Live Activations
Talents & Hosting
Digital Media Consultation
Custom Publishing
KOL Marketing
Full Post Coverage Analytic Reports

Timeline & Milestones:

August, 2012 – TheSmartLocal.com is founded
January, 2013 – TheSmartLocal.com hits 100,000 unique visitors a month
June, 2013 – TheSmartLocal expands to Malaysia
January, 2014 – Our YouTube channel, TheSmartLocal TV is started.
January, 2015 – TheSmartLocal.com hits 1,000,000 unique visitors a month
February, 2015 – TheSmartLocal expands to Australia.
December, 2015 – TheSmartLocal Facebook hits a record 10 million reach a week.
January, 2016 – TheSmartLocal hits 1 million YouTube views a month
January, 2017 – TheSmartLocal hits 4 million pageviews a month
January, 2017 – TheSmartLocal hits 2.5 million YouTube views a month
February, 2018 – We run our first event, GlowBeat x SCAPE
July, 2018 – Alpha launch of InsightsRN, our data analytics arm.
November, 2018 – We pick up Media Brand of the Year at the Mumbrella Asia Awards, beating companies like VICE, CBNC and SCMP.

Our Story

TheSmartLocal was founded by Bryan Choo, an entrepreneur with a passion for travel, food, writing and film making. It was may seem like a mixed bag of skills, but fortunately he was able to apply all these into the creation of this portal.

He enjoyed using sites like TripAdvisor but found out the reviews were all written by foreigners and thus misrepresentative of the true local experience. He felt it was the locals who knew their country the best, but there was no portal that provided a true local voice. Hence TheSmartLocal was created, to build a hyper-local resource from the inside-out that locals and foreigners could use.

TheSmartLocal has since grown into one of the most influential online media publishers in Singapore. We were fortunate to be joined by some very young and talented individuals, who have helped us get to where we are today.

Our Press Coverage

techinasia – “Be a Smarter Local With TheSmartLocal.com“
yahoo – “12 Startups in Asia That Caught Our Eye“
e27 – “TheSmartLocal offers quality reviews on restaurants, tourist spots and shopping establishments“
tnooz – “TheSmartLocal aims to eliminate fake reviews and adopts blog style for quality reviews“
webintravel – “The Smart Local – using local communities to build trusted review sites across Asia“
theonlinecitizen – “The fast growing local review site“

If you would like to get in touch with us, you can contact us here.

Bryan Choo

Bryan loves exploring Singapore and sharing his adventures with readers. He enjoys photography, film making, harassing his cats and creating viral content. He is trying to learn more about fashion after someone said he looked like a 40 year old. He is not 40 years old. He's Managing Director at TheSmartLocal.com. He thanks you for reading this and apologises for talking in third person.