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Communication Research
Study in Holland: The Opportunity to Enhance the Use of Social Media to Communicate with Indonesian Students
Nathania LimantoMaster of International Communication Management – The Hague University 
The Emerging of Social Media in Indonesia
Internet is becoming an important part of people in Indonesia; so is social media. People, youngand old, have at least one account in social media. Social media is the modern communicationtool that offer two-way communication, between corporate and the customer.Social media have several characteristics, such as dynamic, two-way communication, and senseof community. Corporate that wants to take part in this online realm has to realise that socialmedia is not merely being available, but also being visible. Appearance in hundreds of socialmedia is a waste, unless it is controlled and maintained. Because of various social media thatalso serve various need, corporate needs to be smart to choose the right social media.
Students in Social Media
 According to the questionnaire, 91.3% of Indonesian students know and have access to socialmedia; of which there are 96% that have accounts on social media. Because of the nature of Indonesian people, who are mostly collective, they have a strong sense of community on socialmedia. Most of the students access social media to correspond with their friends, meet oldfriends. However, they access social media also to search for latest information or news; they search for information about study, education, scholarship, as well as about celebrity gossips.Top 5 Social Media sites:1.Facebook 2.Friendster3.Wikipedia4.Blogspot5.WordpressTop 3 Activities on Social Media:1.Chatting or sending message with friends or new people2.Searching for news, gossip, latest information about education, etc.3.Updating personal blog(s), social networking sites’ profile (share photo or video).Top 3 Activities on Social Networking Sites1.Browsing to their friends’ sites,2.Leaving comments on their notes, photos, or videos, a3.Changing their own profile (uploading photos or videos).Besides social networking sites, Indonesian students are also keen to visit celebrities’ weblogs,celebrity bloggers’ weblogs, and other weblogs, just to get up-to-date, reliable information.
 
Study in Holland in Indonesia
Neso Indonesia is a well-known organisation in Indonesia, especially among the scholarshipseekers, because of StuNed and NFP scholarship offered by Nuffic. However, Holland was not very popular among Indonesian students, because of the myth that studying in Holland requiredability to speak Dutch.Study in Holland campaign that was launched in the end of 2007 was to sustain the promotionof higher education among international students, also Indonesian. Study in Holland with itstagline “in English for sure” was promoted using various printed media, education fair and alsoonline media.Most students (31.6%) that filled in the questionnaires heard about this campaign from HollandEducation Fair that is regularly organised every year in some big cities in Indonesia. This figureis followed by 22.4% of the respondents that heard from Neso Indonesiawebsite (includingstudyinholland.nl). Others (19.3%) heard about it from their friends, family or experts. Although Neso Indonesia realises the emerging of online media, it has not yet done its best tomeet the students online. Neso Indonesia has studyinholland.nl (a website that is part of Study in Holland campaign); it is also available on several social media, such as Facebook, Friendster,and Youtube. However, to be successful on social media, Nuffic has to go beyond beingavailable; it has to be visible.
Study in Holland: What’s Next?
Being visible means being proactive: getting involved in online conversation, answering need of the students. The majority of the respondents need a better, more user-friendly studyinholland.nl website. Moreover, students want (objective) reviews about university orcourses they were about to enrol (or to take). Students want to see comments or opinions fromother students, alumni or, maybe experts. Not only about the university, or study in general, butthey also want information about life in Holland: life as a student.Finally, Study in Holland weblog is definitely on the top list. Students want a weblog, in whichthey can search for more objective information, sharing from other students or alumni, casualinformation, and fun applications, such as video, photo sharing, or chat room.
Recommendations
Communication Objective
To be able to understand the need of the students and be available and visible on social media inorder to maintain two-way communication with Indonesian students.
Six Steps to a Better Social Media Strategy 
Social media is about understanding people, what they want, which information they need, and which social media they participate. It is definitely worth investing on social media, becausesocial media is not temporary trend.Therefore, the writer provides 6 steps to enhance the use of social media to communicate withstudents in Indonesia:
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Continuous observation is needed.
 
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Nuffic needs to monitor the rise and fall of social media sites. Go into the socialmedia and the blogosphere to understand the most influential places within thesocial web. Neso Indonesia has to be alert with what is going on online: the trend,new tools and applications.
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Students’ online behaviour. Their behaviour is influenced by the trend, whatother people in another part of the world are doing, and existing trend inIndonesia. Neso Indonesia has to be alert, too, to be able to develop strategy tocommunicate with them.
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Jeroen van den Hoeve
, from Kobalt Media Agency, suggested that Nuffic needs tomake its (web) content as portable as possible. This means Nuffic should not rely onhaving information on the corporate website (studyinholland.nl or nesoindonesi.com)only because the target group is simply not spending time on these websites, yet on otherplatforms such as Google, Facebook, or MSN. Providing ‘share link’ button or RSS feed.
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Neso Indonesia needs to recruit:
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 A group of people, bloggers, online groups that want to talk about Neso andStudy in Holland, maybe alumni or current students, or celebrity bloggers orfamous local celebrity. This step has to base on the previous step (observation). What Neso Indonesia did in the past with Raditya Dika, Indonesian writer, was agood attempt; it could be repeated in the future. (Further recommendation fromJeroen van den Hoeve related to this topic is available at Appendix 2)
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 A group of staffs who can control and monitor what happen online. EstablishingStudy in Holland campaign online is not a one night effort; it happenscontinuously.
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Linking Knowledge Worldwide – Nuffic’s motto should reflect in its communicationstrategy for enhancing the use of social media. Linking prospective students, alumni,experts, and universities in Holland, for instance, is a positive effort that should beavailable soon.
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Neso Indonesia has to consider building relevant content that will get people coming,talking, and responding. According to the questionnaire, there are some requests comingfrom the students:
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 A better, more user-friendly website (studyinholland.nl)
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Interactive content (with reviews and feature news) on the website (includingmultimedia)
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Scholarship search engine
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Study in Holland weblog (which has just recently been published:studidibelanda.com)
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More appearances and active on social media
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Finally, improve! As the social media is dynamic, Neso Indonesia has to be even moredynamic. Make it better. Make it more convenient, more useful, friendlier, and morerewarding.
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