Global Gourmets

Thankyou to NZTE for this Blog by Fiona Acheson,  

This highlights the message the Global Gourmets and its Digital Media partner has been harping on about for sometime now.  Get Social.... Get your message out.  New Zealand Export companies have a chance to be heard at a very affordable cost compaired to former international print marketing cost.  If you are exporting a food or beverage product you need to be talking to your users and sharing your love for your product. 

Share recipes, uses, social events where your product was showcased. Everybody loves a good story, tell yours.

http://blogs.nzte.govt.nz/2011/3/22/being-a-friend-in-business

Indonesian retailers, just like those in the West, don't miss the opportunity presented by commercial events like Valentine's Day. Western retailers, however, would be hard pressed to match a Valentine package advertised this year in Jakarta.

A five-star hotel offered a US$88,888 five-night pampering experience for two which included, among other things, helicopter transport and a one-carat diamond ring. Money aside, it was its promotion tool of choice - Facebook - that stood out and confirmed a growing business trend here.
 
Indonesia has just become the world's second largest user of Facebook with 35 million users.  Even the Facebook page of the United States Embassy in Jakarta has about 143,000 friends, more than three times as many as the State Department itself. 

The New Zealand Embassy in Jakarta recently followed, launching its Facebook page last year.

Whereas most people in the West first connected to the internet through a desktop computer, Indonesians are logging on for the first time via their mobile phones. Mobile phone researchers The ROA Group estimate that by next year half of Indonesia's 240 million people will have a mobile phone.  

Internet users are predicted to reach 34 million by 2012, by far the largest number of users in Southeast Asia. Yahoo! Indonesia research shows that the growth is not restricted to top tier cities, nor to the young and affluent - it is across all demographics. 

This appetite for social media also extends to Twitter. Indonesia is now ranked the fourth largest Twitter user in the world after the United States, Japan and Brazil. That makes Indonesia the largest Twitter user in Southeast Asia with approximately 10.8 million tweets per day (roughly 12 percent of the world's tweets).

One reason behind this growth in social media could be the effort Indonesians have to make to see each other face to face - traffic jams and struggling infrastructure - but the reasons seem to be deeper than that.

Customers all over Asia appear to be comfortable mixing their social lives with business, and firms in Indonesia have seen Facebook's potential as a business and branding tool. 

Indonesian shops will encourage their customers to be their 'friend' on Facebook, and companies such as Pizza Hut, Sour Sally (frozen yoghurt), J-Co Donuts and Coffee, and Starbucks use Facebook to disseminate information about promotions and events or discounted products.

Even attempts to set up meetings by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise's staff in Jakarta have had more success using Facebook.  After numerous attempts by email and phone to set up an appointment on behalf of a New Zealand education institution, we finally resorted to searching for the contact on Facebook and requesting a meeting that way. We received an immediate and positive response.

New Zealand companies in Indonesia are similarly catching on. Fonterra Brands Indonesia uses Twitter and Facebook as the fastest way to communicate promotional events for its different brands.

Good Health Indonesia, which is gaining market share selling New Zealand natural health products primarily through multi-level-marketing, is supplementing its website strategy with individual Facebook pages which they use to invite friends to seminars or help keep current members updated on what they are doing.

Indonesia is already our seventh largest trading partner and with continued economic stability and a growing middle class, it will only become a more important economic partner. But we need to build awareness of each other.

Facebook and other forms of social media can be powerful tools for New Zealand companies with limited marketing budgets to introduce and build a brand in the market.

This piece first appeared in the National Business Review on 18 March 2011.