How BlackBerry Engages Indonesia Through Social Media

Update: “We don’t do PR for BlackBerry in Indonesia – a different agency is retained. The Edelman Digital brief across APAC is pure social media/digital marketing and content provision, including driving all of the above,” said John Kerr of Edelman.

If you’re a regular Penn Olson reader, you already know that RIM’s BlackBerry is huge in Indonesia. A large part of its success is due to its extensive and smart use of social media. Gerald Ang, digital head at RIM Asia, shared how BlackBerry is hitting the jackpot in Indonesia by conversing and engaging through social media platforms.

At IDBYTE, Ang revealed that RIM’s BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) has more than 45 million users, 5.2 million groups, and billions of messages sent per month. 70 percent of all BBM users use it daily to communicate with friends and family.

Here are my notes as Ang shared more about BlackBerry’s social media master plan in Indonesia:

Facebook

BlackBerry Indonesia’s Facebook page has more than 1.1 million fans, and they are a highly engaged group with over 500,000 active users. Ang graciously credited Edelman, its PR agency for doing a good job. The key to having an active Facebook page is content. And the company often produces video content that shares how people are using BlackBerry in Indonesia.

“Our Indonesia page is one of the most active Facebook pages in our company,” said Ang.

Online Video

BlackBerry Indonesia loves to create video content. These videos are not in typical advertisement style, but rather it has more of a documentary feel that shows how people are using BlackBerry handsets. One video in particular caught our attention as it shares how Indonesian moms are using BBM as a platform to share knowledge on breast feeding (see below). Ang says content help to discover more BlackBerry brand loyalists who his team can then work closely together with to create even more content.

Digital Monitoring