In this edition, Bima Marzuki, CEO and Founder of Media Buffet, tells us more about his agency and the achievements he's proud of.

What services does Media Buffet offer?
Media Buffet was born amongst the rise of the Indonesian startup ecosystem, from a specific need in building brands that also support business growth. Since day one, Media Buffet has been a company with a digital mindset. That is why we developed digital Public Relations, adapting from what was trending in the US since 2013. Our digital PR formula integrates conventional PR with SEO-focused digital marketing, and with community penetration. 

This method has proven to increase more than just awareness or reputation to some of our clients. With our integration of digital PR (PR + digital marketing) and community penetration, we are able to bring business growth in a form of leads, a highly educated potential market, and to some extent, conversion.

What size is Media Buffet?
Since 2017, our team has steadily grown to 19 people, consisting of PR, digital, and community teams. In total, we have 45 clients from the UK, USA, China, Netherlands, Japan and Malaysia, in addition to Indonesian companies. From these clients and internal campaigns, we have:

• Successfully earned media coverage from a total of 565 Public Relations activities (events, press releases, partnerships, community and digital content).
• Produced 10,918 digital content pieces including articles, social media posts and videos.

Where does your agency have an office?
Our HQ is currently in South Jakarta.

Do you have a particular area of focus?
During our first two years, 80 per cent of our clients were technology companies. Now, our clients range from the finance, technology, health and beauty sectors to oil and gas companies. Although our clients are not all technology brands, the most successful with Media Buffet’s digital PR formula are usually those who build their business around digital platforms.

Who is the founder?
I founded Media Buffet in 2017, at that time with my ex partner.

Tell us about the leadership team.
Media Buffet’s team is built from a combination of fresh, agile and passionate young blood who work together with experienced senior staff. This drives two ways of knowledge sharing - the younger team lead the way on digital adaptation, and the senior team provide wisdom from experience. We've also built our company culture and DNA around knowledge sharing. As per our digital assets, we are a company who is very generous in knowledge sharing, externally and internally. 

On top of that, while we’re developing a combination of young / experienced leaders, I am deeply involved in the organisation, leading the path to our long-term goal.

What is next for Media Buffet? What is the five-year goal?
We plan to expand our services into the South East Asia region. Hopefully, we will be able to help not only overseas companies planning to penetrate Indonesia but also Indonesian companies with global expansion targets.

In a sentence, describe your ideal relationship with a journalist.
For us, media relations is not only about building relationships with journalists, but also trying constantly to understand their evolving needs.

An example, for now, we could say that our press release dissemination success rate is above 70 per cent. This is not only because we're making a lot of good friends, but it also happens because we understand what news is valuable according to the journalists, i.e: SEO-friendly content, listicle and / or tips format of the press release. We study media, journalism and its industry as much as we study public relations.

Tell us about a campaign you are currently working on or are particularly proud of.
We’re particularly proud of our digital PR and community PR campaigns. With Shell Dealer Owned (DO) unit, we implemented our digital PR formula, integrating Public Relations, community penetration and digital marketing. 

This formula has proven to be able to educate a specific target market, and build awareness of a business model while at the same time improving the client’s digital platform presence on Google. As a result, our digital PR helped Shell DO maintain a 30% conversion growth during the pandemic. This proves that Public Relations does not only create impact through awareness, but also has the ability to further help the company.

Any key PR trends your agency is keeping an eye on?
We’re currently still developing digital PR while taking a challenging role in educating the Indonesian market about what this truly means. There has been a crucial misunderstanding amongst the Indonesia PR ecosystem, asdigital PR can be perceived as moving PR content from paper to social media, uploading announcements, and press releases to Twitter. I personally believe that if Indonesia's PR ecosystem eventually understands the right context of digital Public Relations, they will benefit as much as our clients.

What skillsets do you look for in new hires?
Critical and analytical thinking, excellent communication and an understanding of digital marketing especially SEO.

Telum is looking to highlight the diverse and vibrant agencies in the Southeast Asian PR agency landscape in upcoming editions of our PR Alert. We want to encourage networking, business opportunities, and to celebrate the great initiatives being worked on around the region. If you'd like your agency to feature, get in touch.