Social Media Strategy for Mass Rapid Transit Jakarta as a New Public Transport Project

Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Jakarta, a new mode of transportation in the city currently in its construction phase, will be operational by 2019. To open this new transportation mode for public use, its construction phase requires massive public communication to gain support and build public interest. One of PT MRT Jakarta’s communication strategies is through digital channels: websites and social media. This study focuses on how digital communication programs, especially official social media, are used in public communication. This study adopts a descriptive qualitative approach and aims to determine whether the social media strategy undertaken by the company’s corporate communications division follows social media optimization concepts. This research also uses interviews to collect data. From this study, we describe social media communication strategies especially through PT MRT Jakarta’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts to communicate the project as a new public transportation in the city. This research found that PT MRT Jakarta has already optimized social media for persuasive communication as an effort to build public support for and interest in the project. Facebook is used for contextual topics and provides detailed information, Instagram is used for good visualizations to encourage public interest, and Twitter is limited to sharing some short fragments of information. However, one of this study’s limitations is that it has not seen the effectiveness of the content presented on public acceptance.