The Segmentation of Social Media Users in Indonesia

The high interests shown by Indonesians towards social media services draws various platforms to the country. Interestingly, almost all of them find that the Indonesian market fits them best. According to a simple research by Dwi Sapta Group’s Head of Digital Business Unit Chandra Marsono, there are several trends of social media consumption in Indonesia.

The research combined qualitative and quantitative questionnaire using online survey (Survey Monkey and Google Form) and succeeded in gathering 3891 respondents from all over Indonesia (most of them were based on Java island) with various range of age. In detail, the respondents were divided into five categories, based on their age and gender (pink for female and blue for male respondents).

Although it has yet represented social media users as a whole, there are several interesting points resulted from the research, which are classification of social media according to users’ age and how those services work.

The gaming mood still belongs to teens

This is the category for users aged 13-15. Some social media giants like Facebook set 13 years old as the minimum age to be a user. Teens at this age still consider the services as entertainment. Facebook dominates large portion of users, both for male and female. It’s not a surprise, as Facebook has tons of online games.

WhatsApp becomes popular as a replacement of traditional SMS. Meanwhile, male teens enjoy using LINE to access various games it provides. Some also actively use BBM, though most of them stated that it was because the app is natively installed on their BlackBerry device their parents bought them.

Teens leave Facebook as up-to-date information becomes more important

Teens aged 16-18 begin to aware updated information, at least based on their favorites. Above diagram shows that Facebook has lost its users, with most of them being teens who lost appetite towards the social media because their parents started to use it as well. In contrast, LINE and Twitter enjoy the wave of new users since they enable users to get updated information.

Young adults are more mature and information-based

Twitter successfully invades those aged 19-25 years old. This is, no doubt, caused by the vast flow of information that the social media offers within a single click. LINE and WhatsApp follow as a native communication service. Meanwhile, Path’s popular among adults aged 22-25 years old indicates that young adults do differentiate between public and personal communication nowadays.

Some new media also present. However, the condition is quite different with what was there 20 years ago. Now, social media gets categorized as a personal need. LinkedIn, which indicates that people today concern more on professional communication, is one of examples to this.

Adults are segmented even more

Adults are those aged 25-44 years old. In this segment, Facebook holds the lead, with users prefer a group communication. Meanwhile, WhatsApp is also a popular service for it’s success in replacing traditional SMS. People in this segment are also more aware on their personal branding, thus LinkedIn’s fame is quite stable among them. Personal communication also rises, as there are more moments to share, e.g photos of their children, vacation, and stuff.

Having many options for social media services is certainly a privilege for Indonesians. They may pick the most appropriate one based on their function and facilities. While the above survey uses age and gender as its research tools, it might have different result should the researcher pick different tools. What do you think?

Translated by Rifki Aria Nugraha