The Great Indonesia Movement (Gerindra) Party is the most popular political party on social media, a survey has shown.
The online media monitoring firm Katapedia found that Gerindra was the most-talked about political party in the month of November, making up 19.67 percent of total political party mentions on the social media platforms Twitter and Facebook.
CEO of Katapedia Deddy Rahman said that Facebook and Twitter were surveyed simply because among social media sites they had the largest number of users in the country.
Deddy said that a party’s popularity was measured by how often the party’s name was used as a keyword or hashtag.
The second most mentioned political group was the National Democrat (NasDem) Party with 13.68 percent.
NasDem, a new political party founder by media mogul Surya Paloh, was considered a success story in the social media given its ever-growing visibility.
Deddy said that the success of the NasDem Party owed much to its decision to hire a so-called social media “buzzer” in the regions.
“The NasDem Party used the official Twitter handles and Facebook accounts of its legislative candidates in the regions as a campaign tool,” Deddy said in a press conference on Monday.
The NasDem Party has also issued a directive for its legislative candidates to use the hashtag “NasDem” whenever they send a tweet.
From the survey, Katapedia came up with a list of the most popular political parties based on their presence in the social media.
The graft-ridden Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) is in third place with 12.97 percent, while the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) comes in fourth place with 12.12 percent.
As of 2012, there were 43.6 million Facebook users and 19.5 million Twitter users in Indonesia, based on data from state-owned telecommunications company PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom). Meanwhile, the now-defunct social media consulting company salingsilang.com had predicted that by 2014, there will be at least 100 million social media users in the country.
Social media in Indonesia has also proven to be effective in triggering public movements.
In 2009, a social movement called “Coins For Prita” emerged on Facebook. The movement sought to raise at least Rp 204 million (US$ 17,340) to help Prita Mulyasari, a housewife, to pay fines imposed by the Banten High Court for defaming Omni Hospital, after her private complaints became public.
Her supporters declared the punishment imposed on Prita was unfair as she had merely practiced her right as a consumer to complain. Thousands of people of various backgrounds from around the archipelago donated coins — finally resulting in more than Rp 600 million being raised for Prita.
Knowing the power of social media to spur the public, political parties and public figures alike have begun to take the new trend more seriously.
Some politicians, such as Golkar Party chairman Aburizal Bakrie and Gerindra chief patron Prabowo Subianto, jumped on the social media bandwagon in 2009, while some, like President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, only started using Twitter and Facebook recently.
Yudhoyono and his family have been very active in social media since.
In fact, Yudhoyono first vented his anger about the Australian spying program via Twitter.
His wife, Ani Yudhoyono, who is also known as an avid photographer, is a heavy user of popular photo-sharing app Instagram.
Source/Fuente:http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/12/03/nasdem-gerindra-popular-in...
