Friday, September 7, 2012

Indonesia likes social media | International Business News ...

Indonesia has been called ?the social media capital of the world??and with good reason.

A higher proportion of Indonesian internet users sign on to Twitter than in any other country and even though fewer than 25 per cent of Indonesia?s 240m citizens are online, the country is already Facebook?s third-largest market with 43m users.

Quoted on the BBC website, Desi Anwar, one of the country?s most popular television hosts, who has more than 100,000 Twitter followers, said: ?Indonesia is blessed with lots of young people. If you look at the demographics of the users, a lot of them are young ? and young people like to chat!?

Local culture seems to fit happily with online socialising and chat-loving Indonesians typically connect with each other via mobile devices rather than personal computers ? according to Boston Consulting Group in Singapore, just seven per cent of Indonesians had a PC in 2011, compared to 90 per cent with access to a mobile phone.

Indonesia is therefore the perfect testing ground for companies looking for growth in booming emerging markets, where people regularly log on to the internet but develop different online habits to those of consumers in the west.

The problem for social media companies is not how to get Indonesians logging on to their sites, but how to make money from it. For example, as most users access the social network through mobile devices, ads don?t show up at all.

In a report on social media in Indonesia on FT.com, Elwin Mok, managing creative director at Celsius, a Jakarta-based ad agency, says the locals prefer social media-focused campaigns and businesses over traditional online stores. ?Indonesia is not really accustomed to using Google to search for things,? he says. So for companies looking to get their products noticed online, he says, ?it?s very important that they can make it a conversation.?

Consumers in emerging markets like Indonesia are far less hostile than US and European consumers to brands that use social networks for marketing, according to research carried out by TNS. This provides an opportunity for western companies nervous of having too heavy-handed a social media presence in their home markets. For example, Facebook pages for Starbucks and Oakley are some of the most popular in Indonesia.

Although social media users in Indonesia are mainly among the urban elite, the potential benefits of the new technology is also starting to be understood in the rural areas of Indonesia where around half of the population make their living.

8 villages is a business social network for farmers. According to founder and chief executive Mathieu Le Bras: ?It provides them with a link to local buyers, their local sellers ? and other farmers who are growing the same crop as them.?

Read more:

BBC News, Indonesia?s love affair with social media, February 2012

Financial Times, A nation smitten with social media, March 2012

BBC News, Indonesian farmers reaping social media rewards, June 2012

Source: http://internationalbusinessblog.conversisglobal.com/2012/09/06/indonesia-likes-social-media/

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