Indonesia’s Most Popular Social Media Platforms

Social media has become increasingly popular and prevalent across Southeast Asia in recent years. Indonesia has a population of 278 million people as of February 2022. Indonesian social media users contribute largely to the total number of Southeast Asian social media users. The Indonesian population is versatile in the social networks they prefer to use, like people everywhere, but because Indonesia consists of 17,000 islands, this versatility in choices is largely related to its diverse population. 

Social media platforms are all unique and used for different purposes. Many social media platforms in Indonesia and around the world come and go. Old platforms die, while newer platforms replace them, but some social media platforms have created a brand for themselves that is constantly changing according to user needs and expectations.

Indonesians’ Use of Social Media

Indonesia’s social media landscape can be described as a significant contribution to social media platforms around the world. Indonesian users use YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LINE, WhatsApp, Twitter, and other social media platforms to communicate with family and friends, stay informed about current affairs and trends, share photos and videos, browse through them for fun or out of boredom, and for eCommerce purposes—purchasing, selling, and marketing their business. While there are many different purposes that users browse through social media networks for, there are also social media networks that Indonesians prefer to use more. 

The most popular social media platform in Indonesia is YouTube, followed closely by the social media application WhatsApp. Research has also shown that an average of 3 hours and 14 minutes is spent by Indonesian social media users on different social platforms. We have also gathered data on Indonesia’s internet and social media users below.

Indonesia’s Internet and Social Media Users

As of January 2021, Indonesia’s internet penetration stood at 73.7%, with 202.6 million Indonesians using the internet. Indonesia saw a 16% rise in internet users from 2020 to 2021, so it is safe to say that this is only a further increase in internet users right now. It has the 3rd highest number of social media users in the world, with a social media penetration of 61.8%, which amounts to more than 170 million social media users.

Indonesian Social Media Adoption

Social media penetration in Indonesia has shown a constant increase in the last few decades. The country was called “Twitter-Nation” in 2010 for having the most active social media users on Twitter back then. While times have changed, and Twitter is no longer as popular as it used to be in the country, social media penetration has not decreased.

The country has seen a year-on-year increase of at least 10 million social media users. While social media platforms like YouTube have a 94% penetration rate, other popular social media platforms have similar but significant penetration rates, while newer platforms like Pinterest, Snapchat, and Tiktok are experiencing growth but significant social network penetration rates.

What are Indonesia’s most popular social media platforms? 

Reiterating the established fact that more than half of Indonesia’s population, accounting for at least 170 million people, use social media platforms, we are sure that the major contributors to this are the most penetrating applications in Indonesia’s social media landscape. These social media platforms are YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and LINE. Below, we have explored all these social media platforms in Indonesia and how they are used for various purposes.

Is YouTube Indonesia’s Most Popular Social Media Platform?

YouTube has a 94% penetration rate among the 61.8% of social platform users in Indonesia. According to research, YouTube has over 130 million active users. 53% of YouTube users use the platform to learn about products, and 86% use it to understand how to use a product. Over 200 channels in Indonesia gained over one million subscribers in 2019. This presents a large opportunity for people to use YouTube to showcase their expertise or interests.

Whatsapp and LINE – Indonesia’s Most Popular Instant Messaging Applications

WhatsApp and LINE are popular instant messaging applications in Indonesia. Both applications are highly appealing to Indonesian users. Most Indonesians prefer using these applications to communicate with others rather than sending messages from their smartphones’ mobile networks and paying for wireless carrier charges for text messaging. They were great competitors to Indonesia’s widely used Blackberry Messenger (BBM), until BBM was no longer in service in 2019. 

There are currently 68.8 million Indonesian users on WhatsApp, and LINE has 90 million users, which is a significant number of Indonesians. The applications are also a means of communication for businesses and their consumers. Whatsapp allows businesses to contact their customers, directly answer their queries, and receive immediate feedback. LINE allows its consumers to create an official account and follow the account to be updated on what businesses are up to. Many Indonesian businesses use LINE and WhatsApp as part of their marketing strategies, and the applications are of great importance to them. 

Facebook and Indonesia – Mutually Beneficial Audiences?

Indonesia is ranked 3rd amongst Facebook’s highest user base in 2022, while Indonesia’s Facebook users number 140 million people. This is a huge percentage of Indonesians in the country and Facebook users around the world. The social media use of Facebook is predominantly for eCommerce, and the application is seen as a social marketplace. 27% of Indonesians have made a purchase after learning about it on Facebook. Most young people do not use Facebook, at least not as much as the older generations who make up the majority of Facebook users in Indonesia.

Instagram Marketing for Indonesian Small Businesses

Instagram is a popular social media platform in Indonesia, and it is a photo-sharing platform by nature. However, Instagram, too, has become a social marketplace much like Facebook, but the distinction lies in how it operates. As mobile phones have become better, and the interest in aesthetics and details has become increasingly important, businesses use Instagram marketing to attract their potential customers on Instagram through high-quality images and other graphical elements that are eye-catching and interesting.

81% of Instagram users use the social platform to keep up with businesses they are interested in. Small businesses can therefore use Instagram marketing to easily showcase their products and services on their feed, acting as a quick portfolio for consumers to go through. This serves as a benefit for both small businesses and consumers, as the customer can easily access the brands they want to follow. Small businesses do not generally have the budget for extensive marketing campaigns, and Instagram’s platform provides plenty of opportunities for small businesses to indulge in growing their business. 

Social Media for Indonesian Businesses

Social media platforms have evolved from being just a messaging platform and just a photo-sharing application to supporting businesses to reach their customers and allowing customers to reach businesses they are interested in. This versatile nature of social media platforms has created great avenues for brands and their customers. Indonesia has the highest number of billion-dollar tech startups in Southeast Asia, and this puts the country on a high pedestal. Given the country’s extensive social media use, it can use online commerce as a way forward for both the country’s economy and the growth of businesses using social media. Different business purposes can be targeted using social media, and one such application is marketing. Social media has a lot of new ways for marketers to get their message out there, and one of the most important ways is influencer marketing.

Indonesian Influencer Marketing

Influencers are people on social media platforms who have created a brand for themselves. They specialize in content creation and have an audience for their specific niche, whatever it may be. Influencers are considered to be reliable, and therefore, brands can use Indonesian influencers to cater to their different business purposes, like sharing upcoming events or products, advertising existing products and services, and many other business goals. Using the right influencers, brands can boost their reach to the influencer’s audience, and this has become a great marketing tool in Indonesia. 

Social Media Influencers’ Impact on Consumer Buying Behavior in Indonesia

According to research on the influence of social media influencers on consuming behavior, 62% of the Indonesian consumers that took part in this research made a purchase decision to buy a product or service promoted by a social media influencer. 

Indonesian Cultural Social Media Insights

Many Indonesians, similar to the population of other Southeast Asian countries, prefer the idea of face-to-face communication. This means that they also tend to prefer shopping in person over the online shopping experience. They are drawn towards person-to-person interactions, and this builds more trust and reliability in a brand, regardless of how marketers promote the social commerce sector. Indonesians also tend to have a sense of group loyalty, which aligns their behavior with others in the groups they are part of, and if that group loyalty lies in purchasing outside of virtual platforms, most, if not all, members of that group will showcase the same buying behavior. 

Conclusion 

Social media platforms in Indonesia have a high penetration rate in the country, and there are many social media platforms that Indonesians use. YouTube is very popular in the country, with the highest number of users, while other social media platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, Line, and Instagram are prominent platforms used by Indonesians. 

The use of social media in Indonesia varies from learning about products to being an inexpensive platform that allows users to communicate with family and friends to be a great platform for marketers to apply strategies to grow their brands and reach their customers. Similarly, a customer can easily keep up with brands they are interested in. Social media is a great marketing tool in Indonesia, and if you want to know more about how you can improve your social media marketing to market your business, you can contact us and we will gladly help you.