In today’s social media driven era, making your brand noticeable relies heavily on some of the biggest names in the game.

Southeast Asia has some of the world’s heavyweight media users – a crucial figure for companies wanting to branch out in this part of the globe. Data from research firm eMarketer in 2016 showed that countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam surpassed the number of Facebook and Twitter users in the US.

We Are Social advises those exploring digital opportunities should put SEA somewhere near the top of the list. Afterall, “connectivity is growing at an impressive rate throughout the region, but with just 53 percent of its combined population online today, there’s still plenty of room for further growth too.”

According to their report, the percentage of active social media users increased 31 percent from January 2016 to 2017. Active mobile social users also grew to an additional 36 percent in the same period.

Nowadays, more than half of Southeast Asia’s population uses the internet. But even if Facebook is the usual focus of most marketers, don’t disregard the power of Twitter.

Jakarta, dubbed the Twitter Capital, is known for its residents being highly active on the social media platform. Forbes said in 2012 that it is the world’s most active city in terms of posted tweets.

A study from Brand24 showed that Jakarta contributed about 2.4 percent of the 10.6 billion Twitter posts made all over the world from January to March 2013.

Does your business want to gain a following in Indonesia’s massive capital? How would you let people even notice your content? Here are a few tips from experts to help you get started:

Use videos

In fact, Social Media Week suggests you should increase your focus on video.
According to Brightcove, a survey conducted by research firm Millward Brown found “Indonesia has 74.6 million Internet users who engage in more active screen time than any other nation globally.”

They also add that “tech-savvy Indonesian consumers are devoting an average of nine hours per day watching video on multiple devices – two hours more than the global average of seven hours.”

With videos being a form of content marketing that’s easier to absorb, recall and often more engaging, it’s only fitting to study these statistics to pique interest among Indonesians and use this information as an advantage in the market. Although it’s a popular strategy among brands, pithy video content that provides value to audiences reigns supreme.

Consumers are bombarded with tons of videos on a daily basis. In their blog, Ceros cites the three key ingredients of “snackable content” (or content that’s short and sweet) to make users stop scrolling and pause to watch: it’s eye-catching, it’s short and it’s easy to follow.

Don’t be afraid to tell a story

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Time and time again, experts in the business have always emphasised the importance of engaging audiences. After all, the cutthroat industry has prompted brands to come up with some of the savviest and most clever campaigns that touch on a variety of emotions.

Razi Thalib, co-founder and CEO of Indonesian dating site Setipe.com, told audiences at a ClickZ Live Jakarta event that: “brands should treat social media as a ‘digital town hall’ or ‘digital mall’ when developing their sales and marketing strategies for Indonesia.”

“In social media, unlike maybe in a mall, people aren’t really going there to shop; people are going there to congregate,” he added. “What you want to do is to engage, tell stories, gain trust, and have some sort of engagement and connection with the customers so buying from you, or your agents, on social media is going to be something natural.”

Create compelling content

Twitter has released a simple guide for businesses when it comes to marketing strategy – and surely they know best.

The social media giant says “compelling content will help you attract new followers and keep them engaged over time.” It can also be easy to get overexcited and post updates at random times and with no clear strategy. So with several things to tweet about, it’s best to narrow updates down according to what works and what the market responds to best.

Twitter’s advice is to focus on creating regular content relevant to the target market and authentic to the business.

When it comes to the best practices that can help your brand create tweets that spark conversations and engage audiences, here are Twitter’s top five: keep tweets short and concise – and don’t forget to add a link if you need to convey a longer message, use visuals in your tweets as images lead to higher Tweet engagement rates, incorporate relevant hashtags and focus on keywords that are relevant to your business, interact with audiences by asking questions/running polls, and connecting with retweets and replies – which is also a good way to show consumers that you pay attention to queries and value their opinion.

With Jakarta being a social media obsessed city, finding strategies that work can be a tricky task. However, when you’ve finally figured out a way to catch their eye and get them talking – or in this case tweeting – you’ll find your brand gaining some of the world’s most loyal and active followers-turned-consumers.

Do you need help in creating engaging content? The Content Collision team can tell your brand’s story. Drop us a line and we’ll discuss our strategy.