Social Presence of Ruangguru in Social Media during Covid-19 Pandemic

Covid-19 Pandemic gives many social changes in society specially in communications study. One important policy made during Covid-19 is related to students who are required to study at home. Ruangguru is top of mind in digital based learning company, especially during this pandemic. Covid-19 and this policy made Ruangguru as Indonesia online learning company with the most followers, to adapt in giving online communication message, especially in @ruangguru (Instagram). This research aims to see the social presence of Ruangguru in social media (Instagram) during Covid-19 Pandemic through three dimensions of social presence, which are: social context, online communication, and interactivity. On previous research, it was mentioned that social presence relates to brand engagement. Brand's social presence in social media is important to be researched due to more brand using social media as primary communication tool to gain brand engagement. Method used in this research is case study with qualitative approach. Through Ruangguru's post on Instagram, researcher observes using three dimensions of social presence. The result of this research depicts Ruangguru as showing good social presence based on three dimensions of social presence during Covid-19 Pandemic in social media Instagram.


Introduction
President Joko Widodo on the March 2, 2020 issued official statement about existence of covid-19 transmission that infected two Depok, West Java, citizens and since then Indonesia admitted officially that crisis was happening. Various policies serve as countermeasures were issued, such as Physical Distancing, Work from Home, Study at Home, and Large Scale Social Restriction ('Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar' (PSBB)).
Those policies are conditions accelerated to force everyone to use digital network device. This acceleration is used to socialize, get information, fulfil primary needs, serve other people and perform various professional activities. This acceleration impacts education world with study at home policy. Incoming changes come so fast and are experienced by the society during Covid-19 Pandemic. Previously, learning was done directly in person, now it must be done at home with the help of digital media. This policy also makes formal education and many students adapt to the use of the digital medium, but not for online learning companies. As one of the non-formal education, online learning company which already applied learning through digital media is Ruangguru application.
Quoted from Ruangguru official website, Ruangguru is a company founded on 2014 and operates in non-formal education which focuses on education based service. Currently, Ruangguru has various technology based learning services, including virtual class service, learning videos subscription, online exams platform, private courses marketplace, and other educational contents which can be accessed through website and able to determine its product's distribution course with the purpose of ensuring its consumer.
Large scale social restriction regulation, especially how it requires teaching and learning activities to be done online, becomes a good moment for an online learning company, such as Ruangguru, to deliver the company's message via interactive content in social media. The purpose of this research is to understand how the social presence of Ruangguru in social media is perceived based on the content given to the public during Covid-19 Pandemic.
Traditional communication media, such as television, radio, magazine, and newspaper, have fulfilled the need of brands throughout generations. However, for these last few decades, there has been rising effort from brands to find a new media, something cheaper, organized, and potentially more effective than the existing media (Shimp & Andrews, 2013). Currently, digital media is the most interesting platform to reach people out effectively. Digital media is used to deliver information and important message, such as news, training material, and information. Digital media is effective because it brings harmony and proximity to modern communication (Khan, 2009).
Informative online social content enables the users to evaluate the content that they are interested in to be involved in social interaction where it can be shown with social presence theory (Chang & Hsu, 2016). Social presence theory highlights that the social presence of a media influences the receiver's (consumer) understanding of the content generated by the sender (media) (Chang & Hsu, 2016).
Concept of social presence initially develops from the use of telecommunication and grows even more by adopting CMC and online technology in education (Cui, Lockee, & Meng, 2013). On the next research Osei-Frimpong and Mclean, they propose a framework that explains the integration of social presence, brand's involvement and moderation effect of content and commitment of a company (Osei-Frimpong & McLean, 2018). In this research, it is important to know and to explain how a brand, particularly Ruangguru, shows social presence in social media Instagram related to Covid-19 issue.
Social presence was developed as independent subject in social psychology in 1970s (Cui et al., 2013). Currently the social presence concept is discussed widely in mediated communication context, but it is originally rooted in non-mediated interaction (Cui et al., 2013). In the beginning, it was developed by Short, Williams, and Christie (1976) to explain the effect of media telecommunication that can create communication (Lowenthal, 2009). They define social presence as level of interest between two communicators using communication media. Social presence shows relative significance of a relationship between two parties in interaction, and their argument also contributes to the development of media richness research and relational perspective in social presence field (Cui et al., 2013).
At first, social presence concept developed from the use of telecommunication and has been developing more with CMC adoption and online technology in education (Cui et al., 2013) which is also extended to social media research to explain the concept of social presence (Chang & Hsu, 2016). According to Tu, social presence is level of feeling, perception, and reaction connected with CMC to other intellectual entities (Tu, 2002). Social presence in social media is important, because when someone communicating through a medium feels having a distance with his/her communication pair and not feeling real, then the medium is considered as impersonal, cold and unfriendly (Hasanuddin, Pramudibyanto, & Hermawati, 2012). In the end, social presence asses the quality of a medium in conveying social symptom. Therefore, the communicator can see its communication partner as real as multidimensional living creature (Hasanuddin et al., 2012). According to Tu and MsIsaac, there are three dimensions of social presence which can be used as theoretical framework in research, such as social context, online communication, and interactivity (Tu, 2002).
Social context is built based on characteristic of CMC user and their perception about CMC environment (Tu, 2002). It is also related to social impact of changes in society, including large area of population impact, community and organization setting, community in transition, individual and family impact, and infrastructure need of community. In the aspect of social marketing, social context is a belief, attitude, value, and application, which related to 'reality' of targeted group where social structure is related to obstacles and changes that happen (Cowan, 2006).
Online communication is a language used online and online language application, CMC attribute, computer literacy ability, online proximity, and online language ability (Tu, 2002). Terminologically, communication refers to the process of conveying a communicator, either with direct communication or using signs as communication symbol or helping tools to deliver the message through online media. Therefore, if it is to be examined further, online communication dimension relates to definition of medium quality as basic standard in determining social presence degree which can be seen from how communicator presents the message to the communication partner.
Interactivity includes the active communication and learning activities, in which CMC users engage, and the communication styles that they use (Tu, 2002). In CMC, there are two kind of interactions, which are asynchronous (different time) and synchronous (real time). Response that happens in asynchronous CMC (different time) needs time to get response from other parties. In other words, interactivity is 'design' and strategy to stimulate social presence.
There has not been many research about social presence of a brand in Indonesia on social media, so through this research, researcher aims to give benefits to brand in showing social presence based on three dimension of social presence mentioned previously. Social presence theory is usually used to discuss online learning activity. Now, social presence is also used to discuss about the relationship of brand and consumer. Previous research of Osei-Frimpong and Mclean in 2018 said that there was a strong relation between social presence and brand engagement.
This research will study social presence dimension of Ruangguru in social media Instagram seen through symbolic interaction showed on Ruangguru's post. The essence of symbolic interaction is human activity, which is communication or meaningful exchange of symbol where symbolic interaction perspective try to understand human behaviour from the subject's point of view (Pranata, Latif, & Fanani, 2019). The novelty on this research is it researches symbol on social media post using social presence dimension.
Type of post refers to content of the message has three categories called ICA (Information, Community and Action) (Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012). First category, information, involves the spread of information related to the activity or organization of a brand. This category is one way where no dialogue interaction is expected from public to the brand or organization. Second category, community, expects dialogue from public to brand that aims to create a relationship and network to build a community. Last category, action, aims to make the public to do something for the organization. Actions This category is two way, the function is to build dialogic relationship and to create network with the public. There are two aspects in this category, which are dialogue and community building (Saxton & Waters, 2014). Dialogue aspect aims to make direct conversation between the organization and the public. Meanwhile, community building aspect aims to strengthen relationship with the public. Action Action category is a guidance for the public to do something for the organization via promotional message and mobilization. This category is one way. For example, invitation to come to an event, give donation, or to visit specific website.
Note: Type of post refers to content of the message has three categories called ICA (Information, Community and Action)

Methods
Approach used in the research is qualitative approach. Qualitative research intends to understand its object, not to generalize but to make extrapolation of meaning behind the object (David & Sutton, 2004). Method used in this research is case study. Case study is a method that investigates specific unique attached system (Baxter & Babbie, 2004). In study case research, thorough investigation to a situation or occasion is done using systematic method to observe, gather data, analyze information, and report the result. The research uses descriptive approach that does not intend to look for relationship or to test a hypothesis. Descriptive research aims to give aspect or character description of a message or text (Eriyanto, 2011).
In this research, researcher uses primary data as @ruangguru Instagram post which was uploaded related to Covid-19 Pandemic during February to April 2020. There are two observation methods, which are structured and non-structured. This research uses structured method, where structured method needs fewer data gathering since researcher only needs some data from the incident or interesting and relatable aspect that relates to the research subject being observed (Slack & Rowley, 2001). To conclude, qualitative research is a research that aims to understand phenomena about what the research subject went through in terms of behaviors, perceptions, motivations, or holistic actions described by words and language (Moleong, 2017).

Results
This research  First, social context, as mentioned before that this is influenced by changes that happen in the society. As messenger, @ruangguru Instagram account adjust the content 185  P- ISSN: 2086-1559, E-ISSN: 2527-2810 Jurnal The Messenger, Vol. 12, No. 2., July 2020, pp. [180][181][182][183][184][185][186][187][188][189][190][191] corresponding to the condition during Covid-19 Pandemic. In Figure 1, Ruangguru gives information to respond the covid-19 situation, they open free online school for students.  Figure 1 is information, it gives information about ruangguru's program corresponding to covid-19 which requires student to study at home. Ruangguru gives solution following the change that happens when learning method is accelerated from direct in person to indirect mediated by digital media. This program is accurately and quickly delivered through Instagram.
Social presence of Ruangguru is strengthened in social context with information and action kind of post consist of invitation to use ruangguru application and Telkomsel, Indosat, and XL phone number users can get free quota to access ruangguru application to support the free class program. Situation (source: Instagram.com/ruangguru) The above post consists of information that Ruangguru will hold an online seminar entitled 'Brain Academy Mega Seminar Online.' Caption used on this post corresponds to Covid-19 situation where learning activity is done at home with caption: "It's been 24 days #studyingathome you must be bored? Even some people feel they are confused about what to do anymore." This kind of post figure 3 accommodates all kind of post mentioned previously where it consists of information related to online seminar and also action to invite people to participate in the seminar. Through Instagram, public response can be seen through comments given on comment column of the post, considering there are many cities that cannot join the seminar. Not only through verbal, Ruangguru also uses visual communication, such as using public figure, for example, Nashwa with 1.9 million Instagram followers. Finally, online communication is built properly between Ruangguru and the public regarding the online seminar.
Third is interactivity, which is an active communication activity from communicator inviting the CMC public user to join in the communication being used. Ruangguru utilizes social media to increase social presence during Covid-19 Pandemic by giving mask as a bonus after subscribing Ruangguru. Afterwards, the followers who have mask are invited to create a challenge to take picture with the mask. Ruangguru (source: Instagram.com/ruangguru) As depicted in previous explanations through three kind of post in social media, which are information, community, and action; social presence of Ruangguru can be seen through three dimensions of social presence. The three dimensions in the end depict how social presence of Ruangguru can be seen during Covid-19 Pandemic to get trust from consumer. Consumer's trust is no longer vertical, where marketing campaign can easily influence consumer's psychology. In horizontal approach, where one consumer is seen as a part of various community, social factors, such as family, friendship, network in social media become the most determining factor in influencing consumer's perception of a brand.
Based on it we can see that consumer is always mentioned as having big influence. Moreover, these days consumer is no longer loyal to one particular brand. Once the experience element of brand involvement gone, in many cases, the emotional connection, that consumer has with the brand that gives them unique experience, will follow (Llopis, 2014). Consumer can no longer be seen as a collection of data that moves up and down from time to time and passive, but consumer is seen as a group of people with soul, emotion, and thoughts that interconnected. Brand that can build communication by implementing the three dimensions of social presence will get attention from consumer so the messages conveyed will be more effectively conveyed, especially during Covid-19 Pandemic period.
Along with the social restriction implementation, there is an increment on the use of digital media, especially in social media. Therefore, social presence is important for building brand engagement with consumer. Brand must understand and influence engagement, which will help brand to grow consumer's loyalty and will be impacted to business development. Ideal customer in digital era does not have to be a person who buys much (Chaffey & Smith, 2017). Ideal customer can be influencer who can buy in small amount inconsistently, but can also give values and reviews which can be seen and influence other people. Engaged customers might be fanatic to the brand if they are keep being involved, thus creating motivation to do action to brand.
The limitation of this research is on the dynamism of social presence of Ruangguru during the pandemic that is not over yet. There are more social presence applications that can be done by ruangguru or other brands, considering the pandemic is not over yet. On the next research, research related to social presence can also be applied more deeply to the relation of brand and consumer, not only in the context of Covid-19 Pandemic issue.

Conclusion
Social presence of Ruangguru in social media during covid-19 pandemic is elevated well through three dimensions, which are social context, social communication, and interactivity. Ruangguru can adapt to the change that happens in the society when it needs to accelerate learning online by adjusting the information and message that they give to the public through @ruangguru Instagram account. In the end, social presence of Ruangguru is used competently to do program promotion that they have by adjusting the context during Covid-19 Pandemic. This research depicts how social presence of Ruangguru in social media is related to context of Covid-19 Pandemic. Researcher hopes that research about social presence can be developed in other social context along with the advancement of technology and communication medium that will continue to innovate in the future.

Conflict of Interest
The researchers certify that there is no conflict of interest with any financial, personal, or other relationships with other people or organization related to the material discussed in the manuscript.