Social Affairs Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa seems to be fully aware of the importance for state officials to engage with social media trends, as she published her first post on her video blog, or vlog, last week.

In the vlog entry, called “KhofifahVLOG #1 Menengok Korban Tanah Longsor di Aceh Tenggara” and uploaded to the minister’s YouTube channel, Khofifah shared her experience helping to deliver social assistance to landslide victims in Aceh.

Wearing a white shirt, Khofifah opened her video by explaining the latest conditions in Southeast Aceh after flash floods and landslides hit the regency, destroying hundreds of houses.

The National Awakening Party (PKB) politician is the latest minister to join the vlogging trend among Cabinet ministers, who were apparently inspired by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, who has uploaded five vlog entries and garnered millions of views since he started vlogging in February.

However, the ministers may need to study the President’s videos more closely to learn about what makes a video attractive and interesting as, unlike Jokowi, their videos have received few views.

As of Monday, Khofifah’s first vlog entry had only been watched 477 times and liked 22 times.

A vlog entry uploaded by Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi on April 5 and featuring three other ministers — State-Owned Enterprises Minister Rini Soemarno, Agrarian and Spatial Planning Minister Sofyan Djalil and Public Works and Public Housing Minister Basuki Hadimuljono — had only been watched 781 times and liked 46 times as of Monday.

The entry, titled MENHUBVLOG #5 Kerjasama Untuk Indonesiasentris, was filmed by Budi just before they signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the acceleration of infrastructure development in Medan, North Sumatra.

While Jokowi has 254,543 subscribers, Budi only has 1,000.

Other than Khofifah and Budi, Research, Technology and Higher Education Minister Muhammad Nasir, Manpower Minister Hanif Dhakiri — who has vlogged about biking, his personal hobby — and Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati have also started vlogging.

Nasir, who has uploaded five vlogs in the last two weeks, is the most active of all.

“As research, technology, and higher education minister, I have to respond positively to technological developments,” he told The Jakarta Post recently.

He claimed that the video blog had helped him better communicate with the public and that his fellow ministers had noticed the benefits of vlogging.

“I was asked [by fellow ministers] yesterday about how to make a video blog, So I just taught them,” he told the Post.

Charta Politika executive director Yunarto Wijaya said video blogs were just another public relations tool, but the ministers had not been using the technology in the right way.

“They put out as much content as possible, but they fail to reach the targeted audience.”

The ministers’ Youtube channels are still far from catching up with the popularity of President Jokowi’s channel, which has generated a total of 9 million views from all of the videos.

“This shows a communication failure in which the ministers are just following trends without actually communicating with the public,” Yunarto said.

He explained that social media should be used by the ministers to give the public what conventional media could not provide. The ministers, he said, could give a more personal and emotional touch to how they communicate with the younger generation.

Rizal, a 24-year-old social media influencer said that what people looked for on Youtube was entertainment. “The ministers should not be too formal. To reach out to a large audience, they should make the vlogs more fun and with better production quality,” he said. (dis)

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