Facebook in Indonesia
October 2nd, 2012 • Marketing Insights
For those of you unaware, in addition to being my motherland, Indonesia is the largest archipelago, 4th largest country by population, and 18th largest economy by nominal GDP (G20 member).
If you put these facts in a meat grinder, the sausage of information that comes out is that Indonesia’s Social Media scene is exploding. People here are fanatics about keeping in touch, sharing every move they make, and retaining high visibility. As an everyday example of the growing platforms of social media in my country, I’d like to share the story of my “Ojek” driver. An ojek is essentially a motorcycle taxi (some guy on a bike that’s willing to drive you around traffic), and as an indicator of their SES, you would be generous to pay them $2 USD to take you 25 kilometers.
So my story begins with a simple explanation of the nature of my agreement with my ojek driver. He would take me to and from work everyday for a grand total of $2 USD per day; I would pay him at the end of the week in lump sum. At the end of the first week, I paid the kind man and we agreed to exchange contact information. His contact information: BB Pin 29C***** -_- I was naturally surprised to see that he had a Blackberry, and I asked him how he liked his new phone (it was a newer model than mine). He said he loved it, and told me that I should subscribe to his Twitter and Path (a local foursquare) accounts because he always posts where he is on those applications.
I found out the other day at work that Indonesia has the 4th largest number of Facebook users in the world, after the US, Brazil, and India. One in every five Indonesians are active users; that’s a lot of folks plugged in once you realize that Indonesia has a population of over 250 million people. Companies that are trying to get/maintain their competitive edge MUST consider social media platforms as channels that are unique to any other. We know that mobile phones containing all of these channels are always being checked by their users in Indonesia, this allows companies to deliver messages to their followers at ANYTIME and ANYWHERE.
The parasitic addiction to our handhelds has in fact revealed itself as a vast and limitless opportunity for advertisers such as myself. Guilt eludes me as I’m one who has always played the hands I’m dealt, but there are potential threats that come out of this. But for now, let’s focus on this emerging opportunity under the bliss of ignorance.
Stay tuned for my take on latent hazards of “glued-to-screen syndrome”