Utilization of Micro Influencers and Engagement in Social Media to Gain Cadet Candidates

Abstract

Since COVID-19 hit the world, Shipping Colleges and schools around the world have experienced severe disruption. One of the challenges that arises is how to attract people back to register themselves as seafarers as a career choice in the future. To solve this problem, Poltekpel Barombong conducts comprehensive activities by mobilizing public relations and utilizing social media platforms such as Instagram. This research is participatory with qualitative descriptive methods. The subjects used were 226 prospective cadets who were declared to have passed the selection for cadet candidates at the Poltekpel Barombong throughout 2022. The results showed that the use of social media is very good to be implemented in the future with various things that must be maximized: 1) there needs to be continuous cooperation with influencers; 2) development in the presentation of content in accordance with the times; 3) investment in much more up-to-date equipment with competent resources to operate it. The use of social media in socializing the selection of prospective cadets has various advantages such as relatively cheap costs, but there are also various disadvantages including not reaching underdeveloped, frontier and outermost areas.