Indonesia’s digital economy continues to increase. In 2020, the value of the Indonesian digital economy reached 44 million USD or equal to 631 trillion Rupiah. The analyst predicted that, in 2025, it is expected to reach 124 million USD or 1.744 trillion Rupiah.
It was mentioned by Atalia Praratya, Head of Regional Craft Council (Dekranasda) of West Java, in a webinar entitled “Business digital transformation for SMEs in the new normal,” organized by the community service institution of SBM ITB. She emphasized the potential of the digital economy that should be leveraged by SMEs’ owners to increase their sales and adapt to the new normal situation.
In her presentation, Atalia explained that the number of internet users in Indonesia reaches 196,7 million, with 17,8 percent of which from West Java, making West Java province have the highest number of internet users in Indonesia. It has a positive correlation with the increase of the digital economy. “The number of internet users can indicate the potential of the digital economy of Indonesia,” she said on Tuesday (8/6/2021).
With such high internet penetration, SMEs in West Java Province have broad opportunities to scale their business in this digital economy, especially in the new normal situation. “Digital economy has the potential to be a locomotive of the national economy,” Atalia highlighted.
However, there are only a few SMEs that maximize this potential. Therefore, through this webinar, the community service team of SBM ITB tried to educate SMEs’ owners to do the digital transformation in their business. Digital transformation, in this new normal era, is crucial for SMEs to adapt to the change of the business environment. “Pandemic being an accelerator in digital transformation. SMEs need to be optimistic in catching the opportunity in the change of business environment,” mentioned Sudrajati Ratnaningtyas, Lecturer and Researcher of SBM ITB.
One form of digital transformation that SMEs can do is through online selling and marketing by taking advantage of digital marketing. It can help SMEs to promote and sell the product for the wider society. One of the tools is social media. It is a tool for communication, but it is also applicable for business purposes.
Social media strategy for MSMEs
In the webinar, Ivan Anwar, a digital marketing practitioner and the founder of NYSN Media, shared some tips for SMEs to maximize their social media to scale up their business. Ivan explained that SME owners need to concern these four aspects to maximize their social media strategy: setting a goal, setting a target audience, being consistent in posting quality content, and building a community. In addition, marketing content used in social media should implement the human-centered principle by understanding the persona of the audience.
“To be successful in social media, we need to explore our customer persona by paying attention to demography, background, spending power, the most favorite social media, and the least favorite social media of the audiences,” Ivan revealed. Ivan then emphasized that building social media and doing digital marketing is not easy. “If you want to jump into digital, you need to struggle, be consistent, and not be free,” he added.
Written by Student Reporter (Deo Fernando, Entrepreneurship 2022)