Auto Indonesia - Social Health Index

Everyone knows that traffic in Indonesia is no joke. CEIC reports that there are 128,503,267 units of motor vehicles in Indonesia - that's roughly 1 motor vehicle for every 2 Indonesians. Frost & Sullivan projected that vehicle sales will continue to grow by 5% in 2017.

Social media penetration has reached 40% of Indonesian population, and vehicle manufacturers are investing more to reach this tremendous market, and to have a competitive edge.

On Facebook, an average of all Automotive brands in Indonesia showed that there was 32% YoY increase in Paid Interactions - but this is just one part of the equation. Most consumers do not decide on purchasing a vehicle based on a single interaction - this means that brands need to have consistent and relevant strategy to engage with their audience, to build affinity and brand preference. This also means that marketers need to have metrics that are closer to business objectives.

We put forward an index to track the social media health of brands, looking at 4 key areas, across 4 key networks:

We mapped out the social media health of 8 key automotive brands in Indonesia from Jan-Oct 2017 and found that:

• Honda had the best score among competitors, dominating on Facebook and Twitter.
• Mitsubishi was strongest on Instagram, but overall Instagram and Twitter seem to be a more level playing field for all - this presents an opportunity for brands to really stand out.

Looking deeper into the 4 key pillars (P.A.R.S.), we found that:

• There is an even spread of Acquisition: there are still new people joining the conversation/ community.
• Retention and Shareability seem to be where brands struggle the most: a sign that audiences are not generating repeated engagement or broader distribution - this may affect brand preference/ affinity in the long run.

Consumers are becoming smarter - we have more access to information and choices than ever before. Platforms like Facebook are also becoming smarter - there are more and more different ad formats, and new ways of targeting audiences, generating $9.3 billion revenue in Q3 2017 alone.

Social media penetration has reached 40% in Indonesia.

The one shortfall of this equation seems to be brands - many brands are not becoming smarter on social; they are having to invest more only to be disappointed with the results. Why is this so?

My opinion: many brands are still spending a lot on social to talk about themselves, and not putting their audiences at the centre of the conversation. There are more than 8 million advertisers on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, and if majority of them are still constantly talking about themselves - no wonder reach and engagement are dropping, and no wonder brands are not seeing results.

Every marketer faces different challenges and limitations, but simply spending more is not efficient, status quo is also not acceptable - it is time to change the conversation - as much as consumers have access to data/ information, brands need to find the right partners who can help them be smarter as well.

Thank you for taking time to read this, if you have queries or feedback, you can reach me at: jonathan.see@socialbakers.com