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Middle East bloggers on air!

Posted on 24 January 2011 by Alexander McNabb

Tomorrow’s DubaiToday radio show should be quite special – we’re bringing no less than seven respected bloggers onto the show to talk about how, why and what they blog. Blogging is beginning to wield more influence the Middle East and, as social networks now help drive demand for relevant local and regional content, we’re seeing an increase in the quality and variety of blogs across the region (also see Spot On’s Ten Middle East Digital predictions for 2011).

My co-host Suzanne Radford and I will be joined in the studio by SeaBee of Life in Dubai, Who-Sane, Bebhinn Kelly of Hellawafashion and Sarah Walton of Sandpit Diaries. SeaBee should need little introduction – he’s one of the longer-serving bloggers in the region, having founded the blog back in 2006, arguably the hey-day of UAE blogging (The UAE Community Blog was founded back in 2005). A voice of reason occasionally heard crying in the wilderness, his commentary on Life in Dubai is a must-read. Who-Sane’s original blog was deleted, which is a shame as it contains the full story of how a Jordanian blogger’s cry against injustice ended up in bringing His Majesty King Abdulla of Jordan into the frame. Sarah Walton is one of the newer bloggers on the block, her Sandpit Diaries mixing social commentary with a passion (and flair) for photography. Last, but by no means least, fashion blogger Bebhinn Kelly is a professional blogger whose Hellwafashio blog is the first, of what we think will be a growing number, professional blog in the region.

During the show we’ll be joined on the lines by Sara Refai, whose Ussa Nabulsiyeh blog documents her life as a volunteer teacher in Nablus. The blog also resulted in a spontaneous social media campaign last year that saved the life of a small Palestinian girl and showed the team behind charity the PCRF the way forwards in terms of online social activism. We’re also being joined by Micheline Hazou, whose MichCafe blog is a delightful personal account of everyday life, reminiscence and discovery. And then there’s Roba. Roba Al Assi is not only the person behind popular Jordanian blog And Far Away, she’s also the guiding intelligence behind Bayt.com’s new website and community for marketing professionals in the Middle East.

Altogether, I think you’ll agree, a stellar cast of Middle Eastern bloggers whose experience and wisdom on all things online should make a compelling two hours of radio!

Tune in Tuesday 10am UAE time

Tune in to Dubai Eye 103.8FM on Tuesday January 25th from 10am to 12 noon UAE time to listen to the show (11am to 1pm KSA). You can also listen to Dubai Today via Dubai Eye 103.8FM’s live audio streaming.

Follow Dubai Today show updates via Twitter by following hashtag #DubaiToday.

You can keep up to-date on topics for Dubai Today’s weekly ‘TechnoTuesday’ show by following the Spot On PR Facebook page.

Listen to the podcast

Dubai Today Blogger Special – Part I

Why do you blog?

Dubai Today Blogger Special – Part II

Blogging, social change & the media

Dubai Today Blogger Special – Part III

Blogging from Nablus (Blogger call-in live from Palestine)

Dubai Today Blogger Special – Part IV

Blogging, PR and objectivity

Dubai Today Blogger Special – Part V

The Jordanian blogosphere (blogger call-in live from Amman)

Dubai Today Blogger Special – Part VI

Censorship, the media and the future of blogging

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Posted in Blogging, Content, General, Internet, Middle east, social media | Tagged Alexander McNabb, Amman, Arab World, blog, bloggers, blogging, Content, Dubai, Dubai Eye, Dubai Today, Internet, Jordan, Middle east, online, radio, social media, UAE

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Should you outsource your conversation?

Posted on 19 January 2011 by Alexander McNabb

Are you real or is someone impersonating you?

"Hi! I'm Bob from Xcorp. Can I help you?"

There’s lots of stuff we do with clients building digital communications programmes, from SEO auditing through to setting up and populating social media platforms. But the one thing we recommend against is take the whole thing off your hands.

There’s a problem with outsourcing your conversation, you see. It simply doesn’t work.

We’ll happily work alongside a client’s internal team and help to provide a content stream on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, but any agency would be simply irresponsible to take the whole thing on board without active client participation. Why not?

For a start, it’s a conversation. When customers think they’re talking to Xcorp, they really should be talking to Xcorp and not an agency pretending to be Xcorp. You wouldn’t give us your business cards and send us to an industry conference to speak for you, would you? For a conversation to work, we’ll need to be able to answer all those questions – which means escalating queries internally and answering them in ‘real-time’. And here we hit something of a brick wall question – if you’re not prepared to commit resources, i.e. headcount, to the social media programme, are you really going to be prepared to commit to traffic managing requests internally, escalating and answering them at the sort of speeds that Twitter demands?

It boils down to the issue of buy-in, in my humble opinion. Buy-in means the client team being willing to invest care, resources and time in building social media platforms for the brand that really count. Simply giving it to an agency to make it go away is a symptom that this buy-in is lacking, usually at C-level and often in the marketing team, let alone the harried and busy operations teams who’ll have to find time to answer all those pesky questions.

If the company’s staff can’t give some of their time to Tweeting, status updating, participating in creating content (agency assisted, or not) or whatever other odd behaviours the campaign demands, the company probably isn’t ready to use social media.

Want to read more?

If you liked reading this post about social media campaigns, you might also like:

Is social media really that important for marketers in the Arab World? (October 2010)

10 social media myths exposed (May 2010)

Are you engaging with the right fans? (May 2010)

The coolest agency in the world (February 2010)

Social media measurement (November 2009)

Social media isn’t socialist media (November 2009)

Social media takes time (November 2009)

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Watch Spot On PR’s Youtube channel

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Posted in Content, CRM, Customer care, Customers, Facebook, General, Internet, Middle East marketing, Online marketing, public relations, SEO, social media, strategy, Twitter | Tagged communications, conversation, CRM, engagement, Facebook, Internet, Internet marketing, marketing, public relations, social media, social media marketing, social networking, transparency, Twitter

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Can we say Twitter revolution now? Can we?

Posted on 16 January 2011 by Carrington Malin

Somewhat predictably, scarcely had President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali boarded his plane to exile when pundits began writing about Tunisia’s Twitter revolution. There’s already been quite a lot written about the role of social media in the ousting of Ben Ali and, with so much still hanging in the balance, it is probably premature to weigh up how social media might have changed the fortunes of the Tunisian people as a whole. What we can say about the protests and departure of Ben Ali, is that new media have become a pervasive part of the world’s media and the era of censoring media to supress vox populi (and so maintain unpopular authoritarian regimes) are over. Brute force remains a powerful deterrent, but any state’s ability to effectively censor the information that its population shares is severely limited these days: this is proving to be as true for the most powerful states in the world (i.e. the recent Wikileaks disclosures of secret US diplomatic cables) as it is for the states that exert the highest level of control over the media.

According to press freedom advocates Reporters Sans Frontières and others, Ben Ali’s regime was one of the greatest enemies of media freedom in the world, trying to maintain a stranglehold on Tunisian media and strictly control the country’s media environment. The regime extended its restrictions on media freedom to the web early on and was one of the first countries to persecute bloggers. Zouhair Yahyaoui, arguably the first key online media figure to be arrested in Tunisia, was detained in 2000 and sentenced to two years in jail for spreading ‘false news’. Many others have been threatened, detained, prosecuted and / or jailed since. Facebook was also added to Tunisia’s list of blocked websites briefly in 2008, while Youtube has been blocked since 2007. The past two years saw a sharp increase in the state’s monitoring, censorship and persecution of online media, bloggers and cyber-activists. In parallel, the past two years have also seen an increase in social media adoption. Nearly 20% of Tunisians are Facebook users, even though only 35% have Internet access to start with (still less read, by the way, are the nation’s newspapers).

The Tunisian state significantly ramped up efforts to curtail online dissent and activism in December, following the tragic self-immulation of 26 year old Mohammed Bouazizi, who sold fruit and vegetables illegally in Sidi Bouzid until police confiscated his wares. A new wave of arrests of journalists and online activists included bloggers Slim Amamou and Azyz Amamy, which friends and online contacts found out in almost real-time via Twitter. It was also alleged that the government had begun a program of hacking into the Facebook, Google and Yahoo accounts of dissidents, journalists and bloggers.

Thankfully, a significant percentage of Tunisia’s Internet censorship has been lifted during then past few days and websites that have been inaccessible for years are now open to Tunisian Internet users, including Youtube and French daily newspaper site Le Monde. Hundreds of Facebook pages blocked by authorities during the past few weeks are also now accessible. Best of all recently arrested journalists Nizar Ben Hassen and Wissem Sghaier, and bloggers Slim Amamou and Azyz Amamy have been released. Let’s hope that media access and press freedom continues to improve.

So, with one of the strictest media and Internet censorship policies in the world, just 35% of the population online and all the necessary institutions to maintain a totalitarian police state, why did social media get the better of Ben Ali? Well, the simple answer is that it didn’t, but it undoubtedly played a key role. Social media is now part and parcel of our global media environment and together with online news media, email, mobile telephony, satellite television and, let’s not forget, word of mouth in all its forms, it has helped to make news, the media and public opinion pervasive. Traditional media lagged in covering the news story almost until the tide had turned irreversibly against Ben Ali. However, today’s media channels offer the public so many different ways to make their voice heard that where there’s a will there’s a way. The people’s voice was heard and no number of government-endorsed newspaper stories or national TV broadcasts were going to stop it being heard.

Here is our pick of commentary on the role of social media in Tunisia’s regime change:

Tunisia and the New Arab Media Space (Marc Lynch, Foreign Policy)

The limits of silencing Tunisia (Bassam Bounenni, Foreign Policy)

The first Twitter revolution (Ethan Zuckerman, Foreign Policy)

Tunisia, social media and the politics of attention (Evgeny Morozov, Foreign Policy)

Was What Happened in Tunisia a Twitter Revolution? (Gigaom)

In Tunisia, Cyberwar Precedes Revolution (Forbes)

Mid-East bloggers hail change in Tunisia (BBC)

The #Tunisian Revolution Wasn’t Televized, But You Could Follow It On Twitter (Techcrunch)

Not Twitter, Not WikiLeaks: A Human Revolution (Jillian C. York)

Tunisia: A media led revolution? (Aljazeera)

The limits of a Facebook revolution (Jerusalem Post)

Video That Triggered Tunisia’s Uprising (New York Times, blog)

Note: we may well be adding to this list later!

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Posted in Disintermediation, Facebook, General, Internet, Middle east, Newspapers, social media, Twitter | Tagged activism, Arab, Arab World, blocked, blogging, censorship, Facebook, government, hacking, Internet, journalists, media, media law, Middle east, new media, newspapers, North Africa, online, press freedom, social media, Tunisia, Twitter

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Ten Middle East digital predictions for 2011

Posted on 4 January 2011 by Carrington Malin

Well, 2010 was quite a year for digital marketing in the Middle East. Under pressure from global economic turbulence, many brands were forced to look for more cost effective ways to market themselves and although 2010 didn’t result in the digital marketing bonanza that some hoped for, we believe the year was successful in engaging more of the region’s marketing community in discussion and taking the Internet a lot more seriously. Looking at the flurry of digital marketing activity against the backdrop of macro-economic trends in the Arab world’s largest economies, higher Internet penetrations, new regional e-commerce options and the increasing influence of social media across the Middle East and North Africa and it all starts to look quite exciting!

So, what can we expect from 2011? Here is Spot On’s digital marketing forecast for 2011. Some of our predictions may seem a little obvious and some may seem a little extreme, but we hope they provide you with some food for thought for your own communications and marketing planning.

1. Broadband penetration in the Middle East will grow strongly, supporting social network growth and e-commerce development.

The demand for multimedia Internet applications, social media usage and digital television will continue to drive broadband demand at home. In more advanced markets, broadband growth is pushing broadband prices down (albeit slowly) and lower broadband prices will, in turn, drive social media usage and increased social media penetration rates. However, many countries across the region will not achieve their broadband growth potential due to price barriers.

2. In 2011, many more marketers will embrace mobile apps spurring on local application development.

The future is bright for mobile apps in the Middle East and North Africa. 41% of 7,400 MENA mobile Internet users surveyed by Effective Measure and Spot On during November* had downloaded a mobile application, with 24% of those saying that they’d actually paid for a mobile application. As smart phones continue to gain market share we can expect mobile applications to move from early adopter audiences to the wider market. Marketers are already starting to latch on to mobile app opportunities, creating specialised apps for their own key mobile audiences. iPhone’s funky, but Blackberry and Android are the ones to watch.

3. Tablet adoption will rise quickly in the region as multiple devices enter the market, creating new content opportunities.

Forty-odd tablet devices are already out there supporting Google e-books, Adobe DRM, not to mention commercial and retail applications. All the technology in the world is no use unless people buy it, but this is a device that people really seem to want to own. 49% of MENA Internet users surveyed by Effective Measure and Spot On PR during November* said they planned to buy a tablet device during the next three months.

4. Facebook will open up new opportunities for Arabic language marketing.

We’re not trying to tell you that Facebook is the end-all for digital marketing in Arabic, but its growing usage in the region and the way that it makes sharing Arabic content with your friends so easy makes Facebook a powerful force. Facebook added 5.7m Facebook Arabic users since March last year (December 2010 figure), when Facebook introduced its Arabic interface. Today’s Facebook Arabic users account for about 28% of all users in MENA, while users of Facebook’s Arabic interface crossed the 50% mark in Saudi Arabia a few months ago. By the end of 2011, we believe over 40% of all Facebook users in MENA will use Facebook’s Arabic interface, meaning that the number of Facebook Arabic users alone will outnumber the region’s combined newspaper circulations.

5. The swelling numbers of consumers online across MENA will force more consumer brands, retailers and consumer service companies to embrace digital.

Seems a very obvious assertion, but what we’re talking about is moving past the point where many brands can survive without an online strategy. Whereas the vast majority of consumer marketers in the region still lack a structured digital strategy, we do see consumer brands moving online and developing digital strategies, if only to ensure that they have some virtual real estate staked out for the future. As social media marketing becomes more mainstream, e-commerce develops further and the number of social media users in the region becomes overwhelming, many consumer brands will be forced off the fence and will invest in online programs.

6. The Arab world’s online shopping market will become broader-based, providing consumers with new choice and web ventures with new opportunities.

We are already seeing the emergence of e-commerce sites in the region, with established retailers offering online shopping and expanding their offerings. With over 1.8 million consumers in the UAE alone shopping online, the revenue currently being spent on overseas retail sites will be augmented by more revenue spent locally. Payment options such as PayPal are also opening up in the region, taking us beyond cash on delivery.

7. Online Arabic language content will remain an issue of concern for the region, but opportunities for Arabic content will continue to grow, perhaps faster than ever before.

Millions more Arabic users will share content via Facebook, changing the way Arabic content is consumed and, by the way, inspiring more users to use other online tools to share content that interests them. Existing and new web ventures will add new ways of creating, aggregating and sharing user generated content in Arabic. We believe all these factors will create a growing demand for Arabic content is being created, even if quality online Arabic content has lagged so far.

8. Independent online media launches will continue, whilst traditional media continue to procrastinate about online.

Gaps let open by or not properly covered by newspapers and other print media will continue to encourage new online media start-ups. Spot On expects both broad-based news and vertical online media ventures to launch to cater to the Arab world. Some will succeed, some will fail. And sadly, the majority of newspapers in the MENA region will continue to see Internet ventures as a less viable for their content as they continue to struggle with publishing economics.

9. A new generation of specialised blogs will emerge in the Middle East.

In fact, it’s already starting to happen, but we expect to see Middle East blogging rise in influence in 2011. Social networks are driving demand for relevant content for social media users to share with one another and in the Arab world, demand for a wider variety of editorial content is growing, including demands for specialised content. This new generation of bloggers are focused on their own chosen subject matter, specialisations or vertical interests will capitalise on their social media fan bases by launching specialised blogs. Consumer, community, professional and socio-political interests that have so far been underserved by bloggers in the region will encourage a greater breadth and depth of blog coverage.

10. We will see more social change and social initiatives driven by online media, with people finding new ways to work together to achieve community objectives.

Lessons learned from social media activism in Iran and Egypt caution against pitting social media users against governments, security forces and the rule of law. However, the last two years have seen an increasing number of social initiatives in the MENA region driven by (or heavily supported by) social media usage to include charity work, volunteering and community initiatives. Using a wide variety of new free-to-use social media tools, ordinary people can help raise awareness for issues, drive fund-raising, garner widespread support for a cause and ultimately make a difference by postively affecting an outcome that they believe in. We’re going to see more good work done online during 2011.

Best wishes to all our readers for a happy, prosperous and socially responsible 2011!
Alexander, Carrington & all the Spot On PR team

* research report will be published this month by audience measurement specialists Effective Measure and Spot On PR.

Want to read more?

If you liked reading this post about MENA Internet users, you might like some of our other Internet demographics and habits surveys:

MENA Consumer E-commerce Habits Survey (September 2010)

MENA Internet Habits Survey (July 2010)

15 Million MENA Facebook Users – Report (May 2010)

Twitter & Customer Service Survey (March 2010)

Spot On PR’s MENA Twitter Demographics & User Habits Survey (2009)

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Posted in Applications, brand marketing, Content, E-commerce, Facebook, General, Internet, Internet research, Marketing, Middle east, Middle East marketing, Middle East Public Relations, Mobile, Newspapers, Online marketing, public relations, Publishing, research, social media, strategy | Tagged 2011, Arab World, communications, digital marketing, Facebook, marketing, MENA, Middle east, Middle East marketing, North Africa, public relations, research, social media, social networking, statistics

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GITEX 2010 Social Media Dashboard

Posted on 15 October 2010 by Carrington Malin

Our GITEX LIVE 2010 Social Media Dashboard

Our social media dashboard for GITEX 2010

Its GITEX time again and GITEX 2010, the Middle East’s biggest regional IT show, takes place October 17th through 21st. So, just for a little fun, we’ve created a dashboard of social media updates using one of our favourite social media services, Netvibes: http://www.netvibes.com/gitex

Netvibes can be a really useful tool and we often set up Netvibes pages when starting with new clients so that we have one real-time go-to page for all their news and updates. You can add RSS feeds, custom Google and Twitter searches and there is a library of Netvibes widgets that provide different services that you can drag and drop onto your page.

Our GITEX LIVE 2010 dashboard aggregates user generated content from Flickr, Twitter, Youtube and other sources that has been posted with the tag GITEX. As a result you can see a wide range of social media updates live as they are posted by GITEX attendees and picked up by search engines and/or added to our GITEX playlists.

Good luck to all those marketing themselves at GITEX!

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Posted in Internet, Middle east, Middle East marketing, social media, Twitter | Tagged computers, Dubai, Flickr, GCC, GITEX, GITEX 2010, ICT, IT, marketing, MENA, Middle east, Netvibes, news, social media, social networking, Spot On PR, Spot On Public Relations, Twitter, UAE, YouTube

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Is social media really that important for marketers in the Arab World?

Posted on 12 October 2010 by Carrington Malin

Surely, you can't be serious?

We’re now quite used to people looking at us aghast as we talk about the importance of social media in communications and marketing strategy. Reactions often include incredulity, annoyance, perplexity, anger and even, occasionally, well-reasoned disagreement. How can we have such certainty in the critical role of social media and in the Arab world, of all places, where the Internet has so much catching up to do and television undeniably reaches more people? Surely, if it was so important we would have seen bigger social media campaigns by now?

Well, to tell the truth, it helps a great deal that Spot On isn’t a lone voice. The Internet has been changing fast to incorporate new ‘social’ dynamics for a few years now and there are plenty of well-respected marketing experts that now agree fundamental changes are taking place (a couple of years ago, many did not!).

The greatest changes are not actually technological ones, they’re psychological and of the greatest importance to marketers are the changes in consumer expectations. It would be, perhaps, foolish to claim full credit for social media in changing consumer expectations, but there can be little doubt that the movement of opinion over online channels, many of them ‘social media’, has acted as a catalyst, helping to galvinise consumer attitudes in a very public way.

Customers now demand that brands become more open, more responsible and more responsive to their needs: and those needs are increasingly not limited to product and service characteristics. Many customers now want to have some belief in the company behind the brand. Is it fundamentally good, honest, responsible and showing a level of respect for the world around it? Today’s social web has become both the litmus test for this consumer sentiment and an amplifier of it, creating fast-moving consumer trends frequently outside the control of brand marketers.

Spot On strongly believes that these changes are taking place in the Middle East and North Africa, although at a different pace in different markets, and that the early efforts of brands in the region to engage with consumers via social media have shown that consumers respond positively. Regardless of regional marketing and customer service activity online, millions of Internet users in the Arab world are flocking to join Facebook and other platforms and being exposed to how companies do business over the Internet in other parts of the world. For example, it’s hard to imagine that the consumer expectations of the MENA region’s 17 million Facebook users are not beginning to change somewhat as a result of their exposure to other users, advertisers and marketers around the world.

Consumer attitudes are changing at a faster rate than many people realise and although it’s true that the Internet doesn’t reach everyone, these days the region’s Internet users are an influential bunch. For all their faults, there’s still a lot of mileage left in the Arab world’s traditional media. However, can brands really still safely assume that consumer sentiment towards their offline marketing isn’t now influenced by online sentiment?

The Arab world now has at least 60 million Internet users. So, if just 50% of those are affected by brand recommendations online, that’s 30 million people in the region that are listening to the voice of the consumer online. With another 20 million Arab consumers expected to come online by 2014, this voice is going to become increasingly important to marketers as times goes on.

Notes
i) Facebook figure quoted is September 2010.
ii) New research of US Internet users shows 4 out of 5 consumers verify product recommendations online before purchasing. We couldn’t find an equivalent statistic for the region, but the Effective Measure | Spot On PR August-September Internet habits survey found that 32% of MENA Internet users actually purchased online, so the assumption is that online recommendations exceed that. Spot On PR’s March 2010 Twitter survey found that 88% of Twitter users recommend products / services.

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Posted in brand marketing, competition, Customers, Disintermediation, E-commerce, Facebook, General, Internet, Middle east, Middle East marketing, Newspapers, Online marketing, public relations, social media, strategy | Tagged advertising, Arab World, brand marketing, brand sentiment, Carrington Malin, communications, consumers, Content, customer service, data, demographics, Facebook, Internet, Internet marketing, Internet users, marketing, MENA, Middle east, online, Online marketing

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The Sustainable Corporation

Posted on 27 September 2010 by Alexander McNabb

I’m doing quite a lot of conference speaking thingies this Autumn, so apologies in advance to anyone who suffers in one of those audiences. I’m particularly looking forward to the MediaME Conference in Amman on the 8th and 9th November, I’m genuinely pumped (but retained as a consultant by, so please take a pinch of salt) about the MENA ICT Forum taking place in Amman on the 10th and 11th October and I’m speaking on a panel thingy tomorrow at the Global Arab Business Meeting in Ras Al Khaimah.

There’s more, but I’ve forgotten them. It’s not arrogance, I’ve just got a brain the side of a dried pea.

I think tomorrow might be interesting. I’m a panellist on the topic of The Sustainable Corporation - “How the corporate sector may embrace socially responsible strategies” and I’m planning to set a cat or two among the pigeons. You see, I think the Middle East’s corporate sector must embrace socially responsible strategies or die – but I’m not talking about giving a few thousand Dinars to some centre that’s backed by an influential figure. Believe me, I have seen enough of ‘ana mudhir’ companies doling out cash to well supported causes (which they laughingly call ‘CSR’) to last me a lifetime, and railed against it every time I’ve encountered it (often to little effect). I’m not talking about that tomorrow. I’m talking about true social responsibility.

Try this on for size:

Be transparent.

Your ability to obfuscate and dissemble is being limited day by day because of the sharing and access that the Internet is driving. We know much more about you than you think – and we share a lot more opinion about you than you’d like. That movement of opinion, that tide of consumer-driven feedback is actually becoming increasingly important.

Be truthful.

If there’s a leak, you can not longer go out and say “there is no leak” and depend on a mendacious PR company and a compliant media. We’re sharing the video of people sloshing around as you’re pretending there is no problem (Sorry, ‘issue’). When you need people to believe in your integrity, you’ll find that you’ve already undermined it.

Be honest.

Companies make profits. It’s what they do. We don’t believe for one second that your move to expand your operations is driven by a commitment to the market or a clear response to the needs of the community. It’s about profitability and that’s okay. But stop trying to dress up clearly commercial decisions as community commitment. And you can stop the greenwashing stuff right there, buddy. Oh, and one more thing. I’ll buy a mobile network based on price and quality of service, bess. Your “giving back to the community” lip service is not a factor for me. If you were a true and active member of my community, now that’s interesting. But you’re not, you’re just bankrolling stuff.

Be responsible.

We all make mistakes (as the hedgehog said, climbing off the toilet brush). You can actually engage with communities, your customers, and explain why you made a decision (get a spine) or why you made a mistake and how you’ll put it right. We expect no less. When you don’t do this, your customers with gather together and talk about what weasels you are.

Be led by your customers.

Too many companies in the Middle East splosh ‘customer-centric’ in their brand values and then go on to treat customers like dirt. Take a close look at the telco sector and you’ll see how those organisations have been punished by customers. God knows, I’ve taken diabolical glee in every piece of work I’ve done breaking a telco monopoly and you would not believe how low that fruit lay every time. You’re a monopoly? Play nicely, because winds of change are abroad and they can change things a damn sight faster than you think.

Last but by no means least – be digital.

What do I get when I Google you? Do you know? TripAdvisor makes hoteliers sweat, but many other Middle East businesses are unaware of the flow of opinion – and are not searchable, responsive or digitally competent. Which is a shame, because an increasingly large number of your customers are. You can assert what you like about your company, it’s products and brand. But you are no longer in control of the process of communication – your customers are talking on a wonderful scale. Your assertions are being tested by third parties with more reach than you have.

That’s all I’ll have time for – and believe me, my list is a sight longer than that. But I’m looking forward to the reaction…

This piece originally appeared on Alexander McNabb’s personal blog ‘Fake Plastic Souks‘.

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Posted in Customers, General, Internet, Middle east, Middle East marketing, Online marketing, public relations, social media | Tagged Alexander McNabb, blog, blogging, communications, Conference, conferences, CSR, Internet, online, policy, PR, public relations, social media, speaking, sustainability, transparency

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32% of MENA Internet users buy online

Posted on 21 September 2010 by Carrington Malin

Hampered by a lack of online payment infrastructure and the high cost of broadband, e-commerce has been slow to develop in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and although there are some notable e-commerce pioneers, few online ventures in the region encourage Internet users to buy online. However, as the region’s consumers spend more and more time online, online shopping is one of the activities that one would expect to increase in popularity. As usual, facts and figures are still a bit thin on the ground and so we made online shopping the focus of this month’s Media Consumption & Habits of MENA Internet Users Survey from Effective Measure and Spot On PR.

Our survey drew responses from nearly 7,000 Internet users across the Middle East & North Africa and provides some baseline data on online shopping habits for those trying to make sense of the region’s consumer e-commerce market. Overall, 32% of MENA Internet users surveyed admitted to buying products online, with the GCC states being the most active region. Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates lead the region in having the most active online shoppers, with 47.5% of Internet users in each country buying online.

Here are some more key points from the survey:

- 32% of all Middle East & North Africa Internet users surveyed buy products or services online, compared with 62% in the UK (UK ONS August 2010).

- 43% of Internet users surveyed in the GCC bought products or services online, 11% higher than the MENA average, with 11% shopping online more than 3 times per month.

- 20% of Internet users surveyed in the Levant (Jordan, Lebanon & Syria) have bought products or services online.

- 19% of Internet users surveyed in North Africa have bought products or services online.

- 28% of male Internet users in our MENA survey shop online, compared with 25% of females in the survey.

- While all online shoppers surveyed share similar online buying habits, there are differences in habits such as an increased preference for buying clothing and accessories by female shoppers and for buying electronic equipment by male shoppers.

- Airline tickets, hotel reservations / tourism services, computer software, books, electronic equipment and clothing / accessories were the most popular categories of online purchase among MENA Internet users during June, July and August.

Survey Downloads

Download the full survey report (PDF)

Download the press release (English, Word doc)

Download the press release (Arabic, Word doc)

- – – -

Media Consumption & Habits of MENA Internet users by Effective Measure and Spot On Public Relations is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Want to read more?

If you liked reading this post about MENA Internet users, you might like some of our other Internet demographics and habits surveys:

MENA Internet habits Survey (July 2010)

15 Million MENA Facebook Users – Report (May 2010)

Twitter & Customer Service Survey (March 2010)

Spot On PR’s MENA Twitter Demographics & User Habits Survey (2009)

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Facebook adds 1 million more Arabic users

Posted on 31 August 2010 by Carrington Malin

Technology news site Arab Crunch posted some interesting Facebook statistics yesterday from InsideFacebook’s most recent Gold Report (read the ArabCrunch story here). According to InsideFacebook, Facebook’s Arabic language interface is now the fastest growing language version inthe world, growing by 18% per month. According to Spot On’s research, Facebook’s Arabic platform in the Middle East & North Africa added about 1 million new users during the past three months (accounting for about half of all new users in the region) and the momentum that the Arabic platform has is changing the Facebook demographics for countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt for ever.

Language preference of MENA Facebook users (as percentage)

As expected, the language bias for Saudi Arabia’s Facebook users has now switched from English to Arabic. During the past three months the percentage of Facebook Arabic users in Saudi Arabia has crossed the 50% mark and now stands at 53% of total users of the platform. It’s a change of a few percent, but it’s going to be increasingly important for marketers as Facebook reaches new demographics of users, perhaps previously put off by having to user its English language interface.

Numbers of Facebook users by country (in millions)

Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Morocco added the most new Facebook users during the past three months, with Egypt adding 641,000 new users. Egypt also added the most Arabic language users during the past three months, which accounted for 57% of its total new users added to Facebook. However, 81% of all new Saudi Facebook users were adopters of the Arabic platform. At this rate, we could well be looking at a 60:40 percent ratio of Arabic to English Facebook users in Saudi by the beginning of next year.

Overall, Facebook users in the Middle East and North Africa grew by 15% over the past three months adding some 2.2 million new Facebook users and bringing the total MENA Facebook population to 17.3 million.