The Indonesian Digital Population
In early 2024, DataReportal found that there were 353.3 million of active mobile connections in Indonesia which is 126.8% of Indonesian total population. DataReportal also reported that there were 185.3 million internet users in Indonesia with 139 million social media users. This equated to 49.9% of total Indonesia population were actively using social media.
Source: DataReportal
Indonesian Influencers Play an Important Role on Social Media
With the large number of social media users in Indonesia, the influencer marketing strategy sounded like a good option, which was proven by the data from Statista that stated there were 62% Indonesian online consumers, affected by influencers’ recommendation before deciding to purchase.
Source: Statista
The growth of internet usage and how fast was social media growing in Indonesia have led many researchers try to figure out this phenomenon. In 2021, Afifah, et al. found that electronic words-of-mouth (e-WOM) (as in online reviews) has a positive effect on brand image. The researcher also said that the influencers have an impact on raising the consumption of a brand through a built trust. To promote the product more effectively, the influencers need to convey the information of products in an attractive way. This research also found that the e-WOM and influencers marketing have a positive and significant effect on brand image. This concludes that influencers and e-WOM have played a quite important role on brand image. In addition, research from Kwiatek, et al. (2021) also found that e-WOM is now more effective than traditional words-of-mouth for customers who look for recommendations online.
Not only brand image, the effect of an influencer’s endorsement also had an impact on brand trust. Although, the influencers endorsement does not have a direct effect on their buying intent. On the other hand, brand trust has been proven to have a significant effect on buying intent (Firman, et al., 2021). There is one thing that the brands also need to pay attention to, that is the credibility and trustworthiness of the influencers they are planning to collaborate with. Brands also need to focus on their product reviews because negative information can lead to a negative impact. Therefore creating a negative attitude towards them. This also means, negative reviews impact purchasing potential in the future.
Influencer Marketing is Time-Consuming and Complicated
Researchers found that the credibility of an influencer plays an important role in creating brand trust and increasing the tendency of potential customers to purchase. At the same time, the intelligence and reliability level of influencers can increase sales, whereas the attractiveness of the influencers had no effect. This concludes that the impact of influencer marketing is significant in increasing brand trust and brand image, which can lead to an increase in purchase intent. This is the reason why brands need to pay careful attention in choosing the influencers they are collaborating with, even if the process of selecting influencers is time-consuming and complicated. Brands are recommended to avoid non-credible influencers to avoid breaking customer trust in them.
How Do We Keep Up with The Tech?
Influencer marketing, especially in Indonesia, is a popular marketing communication strategy. One of cacaFly Metrodata’s Indonesian clients, a fast-moving-consumer-goods (FMCG) brand, collaborated with more than 40 micro influencers. This project impacted their sales growth during this period. This was possibly because they chose the right influencers with the right target audience, which proved Mammadi’s research in 2021, which said that it is important to know the target audience of the brand and choose the right influencers along with the company’s communication strategy. Listing down the influencers has been a challenging part for influencer marketing strategy. Evaluating cacaFly Metrodata Indonesia’s internal challenge on this strategy, cacaFly Metrodata Indonesia believes that developing an AI that can help this part will be helpful for marketers. In 2024, cacaFly Metrodata Indonesia has committed to develop the AI tool to help marketers to list down influencers based on one influencer persona, this tool is called “KOL Partners.”
The main goal of this tool is to shorten the time consumed for marketers while looking for the right influencers for their campaign. Looking for influencers, especially micro-nano influencers, is complicated. In addition, evaluating every influencer’s performance on social media can be a lengthy process. So, by utilizing this tool, marketers can reduce their work by finding one influencer persona, input the link or the username of this influencer, then marketers will have a list with more than 25 influencers in a similar industry. Marketers can also look at the influencers’ performance in just one click. Not only the performance, KOL Partners can also help marketers to take a sneak peek to the influencers’ 5 top performing contents.
Figure 1. KOL Partners Platform
Conclusion
In a growth digital era, marketers need to be ready to adapt to the fast evolving environment. Influencer marketing is one of the popular strategies nowadays, especially in Indonesia. Increasing brand trust and image can lead into sales and marketers can collaborate with credible influencers to promote their products in an effective way. In the very fast-paced environment of the marketing world, marketers need to keep up with the speed, which makes AI-based tools one of the most important things to use these days. AI tools can help marketers save time, which can be used to learn and keep up with the speed of marketing technology.
As mentioned in Haleem, et al. (2022) research, artificial intelligence (AI) has vast potential in marketing. It was found that AI also has a massive influence on digital marketing. One of the important advantages of using AI as a digital marketing tool is, to quickly process large amounts of data. Not only does it hasten the process, utilizing AI in marketing technology can also be beneficial for brands to reduce human errors and create an automation tool which can ease the workload of marketers.
References
Afifah, L. I., Worang, F. G., & Arie, F. V. (2022). The influences of E-Wom of reference group and Instagram influencer toward Wardah and Maybelline brand image. Jurnal EMBA: Jurnal Riset Ekonomi, Manajemen, Bisnis dan Akuntansi, 10(1), 143-151.
Firman, A., Ilyas, G., Reza, H., Lestari, S., & Putra, A. (2021). The mediating role of Customer Trust on the relationships of celebrity endorsement and E-WOM to Instagram purchase intention. Jurnal Minds: Manajemen Ide Dan Inspirasi, 8(1), 107. https://doi.org/10.24252/minds.v8i1.20594
Grewal, D., Hulland, J., Kopalle, P. K., & Karahanna, E. (2019). The Future of Technology and Marketing: A Multidisciplinary Perspective. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 48(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-019-00711-4
Kemeç, U. and, & Yüksel Hale Fulya. (2021). The Relationships among Influencer Credibility, Brand Trust, and Purchase Intention: The Case of Instagram. In Tüketici ve Tüketim Araştırmaları Dergisi= Journal of Consumer and Consumption Research (Vol. 13, Issue 1).
Kemp, S. (2024, February 20). Digital 2024: Indonesia – DataReportal – global digital insights. DataReportal. https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2024-indonesia
Kwiatek, P., Baltezarević, R., & Papakonstantinidis, S. (2021). The impact of credibility of influencers recommendations on social media on consumers behavior towards brands. Informatologia, 54(3–4), 181–196. https://doi.org/10.32914/i.54.3-4.5
Mammadli, G. (2021). The role of Brand Trust in the impact of Social Media Influencers on purchase intention. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3834011
Panigoro, E., Taslaud, G., & Harab. (2024, January 7). Influencer marketing in Indonesia in 2024. INSG.CO. https://www.insg.co/en/influencer-marketing-indonesia/
Wolff, H. N. (2024, March 28). Topic: Social media in Indonesia. Statista. https://www.statista.com/topics/8306/social-media-in-indonesia/#topicOverview
