For the first time, Indonesia’s social media communities organized a meet-and-greet event
For the first time, Indonesia’s social media communities organized a meet-and-greet event in Jakarta.
Called Social Media Festival, the three-day event brought together hundreds of online communities in the country.
Some preferred to remain anonymous despite wanting to meet their online followers. Others like Jonathan Nasution came prepared to lend credence to his online initiative.
Three years ago, Jonathan started tweeting about Jakarta’s traffic situation. Now, he has 120,000 followers and has since developed a website called infolalulintas with a dedicated server.
Jonathan Nasution, co-founder of infolalulintas.com, said: “For now, we can’t confirm the accuracy of the traffic information. But we will eventually know of any inaccurate information. We can block the follower by having additional filter on our server.”
Thousands of online communities have sprung up in Indonesia over the last couple of years, thanks to social media where Facebook and Twitter are the preferred choices.
At the Social Media Festival, several others shared their expertise and experience in harnessing the power of social media to organise and engage.
Shafiq Pontoh, spokesperson for Social Media Festival, said: “This is a meeting point for those of us who have not met each other, don’t know one another, to meet other communities where they meet, get to know and collaborate.”
With a population of more than 200 million people, Indonesia is home to one of the world’s largest community of Facebook and Twitter users.
From as little as US$5 a month, Indonesians are now able to access social media platforms through their mobile phones.
Events like this shows the tremendous change that will come Indonesia’s way with the increasing use of social media.