NXTCON 2014: “Social Media Users in Indonesia Are Very Like to Share and Shop”

In a series of technology conference events NXTCON 2014 the second day which was held on Thursday (8/5) yesterday, the theme of the discussion was “Social Media and Chat” became one of the discussion themes that could not be missed. Indonesia is known as one of the markets for social media and application users mobile messaging largest in the world, is suspected to be a market that requires an approach that is conveyed by its business people.

Undoubtedly, Indonesia is a "soft" target for many social media players, whether it's foreign or local players. In the discussion brought by Enda Nasution (Founder GoBlog Media), Andy Lau (Chief Marketing Officer MNC-Tencent), Sukan Makmuri (CEO Kaskus), Daud Aditirto (growth manager Facebook Indonesia), and not to forget Ammon Bartram (Co-Founder SocialCam), the social media climate in Indonesia is now entering a new stage with adjustments that must be made by social media actors who want to be successful in the Indonesian market.

According to Daud Aditirto, social media users in Indonesia have a unique behavior. He found that on the Facebook platform, Indonesian users like to do two things, namely sharing and shopping. "I think for the Indonesian market, if the social media functions are combined with the e-commerce function, it will progress quickly. They love to share with others while shopping at the same time. This is what we find in the behavior of the majority of Facebook users in Indonesia. No doubt Facebook now seems to be a platform marketplace too,” said Daud Aditirto.

Yes, although there has been no further study regarding marketplace "a la" this Facebook, but from what David said it was true. I myself quite often encounter buying and selling activities that appear on Facebook whether it's from trading products fashion to electronics which also often have many elements of fraud.

It was responded positively by the Makmuri Sports which is a new boss in the ranks of Kaskus. The forum, which claims to be the largest in Indonesia, admits, line social-marketplace become the "life" of Kaskus service so far. According to him, the function of social media for Indonesian users has changed a little bit, which was previously a platform for connecting people to each other, has now turned into a business media that many users rely on. He revealed that Kaskus in the future will continue to focus on these services while increasing monetization growth in them.

Responding to the current condition of social media users in Indonesia, Andy Lau, who is WeChat's representative for Indonesia, said that his party is aware of this by making efforts to localize the business content offered by WeChat. Just like in the discussion on the first day of NXTCON 2014 which talk about content localization, Andy believes that entering the dynamic Indonesian market requires special efforts to be well received by Indonesian users.

“For WeChat, to implement these efforts, we have localized the business content that we offer, namely the sticker feature. We have released local sticker content several times and received a very good response in the Indonesian market,” he said. WeChat was previously known to have released animated sticker content containing local content, one of which was released an animated sticker with the character of a public figure which is quite popular in Indonesia.

Behind that, Andy Lau also revealed the challenges encountered in the social media market in Indonesia. He said that the unique behavior of social media users in Indonesia is also found in their low level of loyalty. "They quickly move from one platform to another, so it's not strange that in Indonesia, there are many social media that are emerging and sinking," said Andy again.

To face these challenges, Sukan Makmuri from Kaskus has a few solutions. He said, a 360-degree approach should be taken by social media actors. Like what Kaskus did, through offline activities it will form a solid community that not only meets face-to-face online but also meet in the realm offline.

As a media forum, it is certainly easy for Kaskus to implement, but for other players, the challenge of unstable loyalty from Indonesian users can be a challenge in the future so that later they can survive in the Indonesian market which has great potential.