State of social media mena 2016

State of Social 2016 at a Glance
Social media has transformed the way people interact across the web, and the Middle East is
no exception. This year Crowd Analyzer, in partnership with PAYFORT, has done a deep
dive into the trends and behavior that shape social media in the region.
Social media in the Middle East has amassed millions of active users and now takes up billions
of hours each year. There’s little doubt left that social media will play a dominant role in busi-
nesses of the future.
And that brings us to the purpose of this report; State of Social is meant to be a tool you can use
to not only navigate the social landscape, but actually excel in it. There’s an old saying
that "knowledge is power", and in the fast moving world of social media, this is truer than
ever.
Before you start exploring the report for yourself, we wanted to provide a brief overview to
help you understand why we covered what we cover in this report, and to whom it will
be most useful.
The Purpose of our research was to thoroughly examine the social trends shaping
the GCC/MENA region. We looked at user activity, key interests, and some of the major
events that shaped social media in 2016. We also incorporated ‘expert insights’ from some of
the region’s most prominent thought leaders to help paint a picture of the future social
landscape.
For this project we focused on three key countries that had the required social activity to
start drawing reliable insights; these countries were Egypt, KSA and, the UAE.
Why Egypt, KSA and, the UAE?
They all have highly active social network populations and a very high level of social media
penetration. Social media penetration represents the share of Internet users in selected
countries visiting social networking sites on a regular basis. Those three countries all rank
in the global top 30 for social media penetration with the UAE ranking 2nd (68%), KSA
ranking 25th (35%), and Egypt ranking 28th (30%).
These countries give us the best opportunity to really understand social trends and inside this
report you’ll find information that truly capture the state of social in 2017. Even if you don’t live
in one of the three countries above we know you will find something interesting inside.

Table of Content
Social Media Statistic for UAE, KSA and EGYPT in 2016
Population, Internet Penetration, Social Media Penetration
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
01
02
05
08
Social Media in 2016 and beyond - Top Trended Topics and Brands
Trending Topics- What mattered in 2016
The US Election: a view from the Middle East
Where does Instagram fit in 2016?
Video takes over social Media in 2016
MENA Social Media behavior
12
13
14
15
16
Social Intelligent Insights
Sharing Economy
Banking and Finance
E-Commerce
Telecom
Fintech
22
28
33
37
43
Experts' Predictions 2017
Crowd Analyzer Predictions48
About State of Social Media MENA
About the partnership
Methodology
Glossary
65
66
68
49 Hootsuite Predictions

Even before the launch of Facebook in 2004, Social Media was starting to transform the way we
interacted with content and each other across the web. Now, in the year 2017, the social landscape
is barely recognizable from the turn of the 21st
century. The simple, personal, and (let’s be honest)
addictive nature of Social Media has led to an explosion of users and new social platforms for us to
express ourselves.
Just like the rest of the world, the MENA region has embraced social media in a way that has
dramatically transformed the region. Millions of active users and billions of hours spent navigating
content mean social media represents the largest audience for brands and businesses in the region.
We’ve witnessed first-hand the impact social media has had on the region and we know how
important understanding this new technology is for businesses. That’s why this year we’ve
partnered with PAYFORT and Hootsuite, to bring you a comprehensive look at some of the region’s
largest countries and the social media habits of their residents.
Welcome to the State of Social Media MENA 2016.
SOCIAL MEDIA STATISTICS FOR
UAE, KSA & EGYPT IN 2016

The largest population of the countries studied is, by a large margin, Egypt. With over 90 million
people, the country has massive potential to become the region’s largest social user base in the
coming years. For now, however, low internet penetration of just 33% and even lower social
media usage means Egypt still has a lot of room to grow.
Both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have considerably higher internet penetration at
65% and 92% respectively, but when it comes to social media usage the UAE pulls far ahead with
68% of residents using either Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
Internet Usage in The Region
Population, Internet Penetration, and
Social Media Usage
93m
32m
9m
Total Population
31m
21m
8.5m
Internet Users
30%
35%
68%
Social Media Penetration
01

8,300,000
6,100,000
3,400,000
6,900,000
1,500,000
2,200,000
1,900,000
390,000
5,900,000
4,800,000
1,000,000
8,100,000
6,700,000
1,400,000
3,200,000
2,600,000
600,000
Active Users
English Language
Arabic Language
Male
Female
Generation X:
Generation X: Male
Generation X: Female
Millennials:
Millennials: Male
Millennials: Female
Smartphone Owners
Smartphone Owners: Male
Smartphone Owners: female
Online Expats:
Online Expats: Male
Online Expats: Female
Saudi Arabia has an active Facebook population of approximately 8.3 million
users, 6.9 million of which are male. Surprisingly, 6.1 million users in the country
use the service in English while only 3.4 million use the Arabic version.
Of the total Facebook population in Saudi Arabia, 26% are Gen Xers while 71%
are Millennials. Over 95% of Facebook users in the country are smartphone
owners and nearly 40% are expats.
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
02

5,300,000
5,000,000
930,000
3,900,000
1,300,000
1,500,000
1,100,000
410,000
3,700,000
2,800,000
880,000
5,200,000
3,800,000
1,300,000
4,500,000
3,300,000
1,200,000
Active Users
English Language
Arabic Language
Male
Female
Generation X:
Generation X: Male
Millennials:
Millennials: Male
Millennials: Female
Smartphone Owners
Online Expats:
Online Expats: Male
The United Arab Emirates
The UAE has the most active Facebook population with over 62% of the
population using the service. The country has an equal split of male (75%) and
female (25%) users, but the platform is still largely male dominated.
The Facebook population in the United Arab Emirates is also quite ‘young’, with
3.7 million Millennial users and only 1.5 million Gen X users. Nearly 85% of the
country’s Facebook users are expats and 5.2 million users have smartphones.
03

17,000,000
5,300,000
17,000,000
11,000,000
6,200,000
3,800,000
2,600,000
1,100,000
13,000,000
8,200,000
4,800,000
16,000,000
10,000,000
5,600,000
720,000
490,000
220,000
Active Users
English Language
Arabic Language
Male
Female
Generation X:
Generation X: Male
Millennials:
Millennials: Male
Millennials: Female
Smartphone Owners
Online Expats:
Online Expats: Male
Egypt represents the region’s largest Facebook population with 17 million active
users on the platform and interestingly it also represents the most equal
male/ female split of all three countries studied.
The Facebook population in Egypt has the lowest number of smartphone
owners, however smartphone owners still represent 94% of the user base.
Where Egypt differs the most from the others countries is its drastically lower
expat population; only 4% of the Facebook population is considered expats.
Egypt
04

Twitter is, without a doubt, Saudi Arabia’s most popular social
network with an incredible 11 million users. The platform is also
predominantly used in Arabic over English, with 7 million Arabic
users.
The platform is used primarily via smartphone with 6 million users
accessing the service via iOS, 5 million using Android, and only 843K
using desktop.
Active Users
11,000,000
English Language
923,000
Arabic Language
7,000,000
Male
5,000,000
Female
4,000,000
Desktop
843,000
IOS
6,000,000
Android
5,000,000
05

The United Arab Emirates
The popularity of Twitter in the UAE is considerably lower than Saudi
Arabia, but is still double the country’s Instagram population. Twitter is
used equally in English and Arabic in the country and has near equal
male/ female split.
As with Saudi Arabia, the platform is also used primarily accessed via
smartphone. Over 80% of users prefer to use a smartphone over the
desktop version.
Active Users
2,000,000
English Language
506,000
Arabic Language
498,000
Male
773,000
Female
661,000
Desktop
238,000
IOS
965,300
Android
686,000
06

As with the United Arab of Emirates, Twitter is less popular in Egypt.
The platform is primarily used in Arabic, however, there is a notable
English population. Android is by far the most popular OS to access
the social platform, with more users using Android than iOS and
desktop combined.
Egypt follows both the UAE and Saudi Arabia trend of a near equal
male/ female split though it skews slightly towards male usage.
Egypt
Active Users
2,000,000
English Language
419,000
Arabic Language
1,000,000
Male
1,000,000
Female
791,000
Desktop
418,000
IOS
446,000
Android
1,000,000
07

The Instagram population in Saudi Arabia is the largest of all three countries studied with 2.8 million
users. Females are considerably more represented on Instagram making up nearly 43% of the
country’s Instagram population.
Of the total Instagram population in Saudi Arabia, only 15% of users are considered expats and
surprisingly only 53% are smartphone owners.
Active Users
2,800,000
English Language
970,000
Arabic Language
2,300,000
Male
1,700,000
Female
1,200,000
Generation X
240,000
Generation X - Male
160,000
Generation X - Female
88,000
Millennials
1,300,000
Millennials - Male
780,000
Millennials - Female
490,000
Smartphone Owners
1,500,000
Smartphone Owners
Male
920,000
Smartphone Owners
Female
560,000
Online Expats
420,000
Online Expats : Male
260,000
Online Expats : Female
150,000
08

The UAE has the smallest active population; with just 970K users, it is the only regional platform with
below 1 million users. The platform is largely dominated by the younger generation with 590
thousand millennial users.
The Instagram population in the United Arab Emirates has a larger proportion of smartphone users
than Saudi Arabia at 73%. It also has a much higher concentration of expats users with 63% of the
users hailing from other countries.
United Arab Emirates
Active Users
970,000
English Language
790,000
Arabic Language
350,000
Male
520,000
Female
450,000
Generation X
150,000
Generation X - Male
76,000
72,000
Millennials
590,000
Millennials - Male
310,000
270,000
Smartphone Owners
710,000
Smartphone Owners
Male
380,000
Smartphone Owners
Female
340,000
Online Expats
610,000
300,000
300,000
09

Despite its large population, Egypt is less active on Instagram than Saudi Arabia with 2.5 million
users. The user base in Egypt is equally split between male and female users and made up primarily
of Egyptian nationals.
The Egyptian Instagram population is dominated by the younger generation with 88% of users
identified as millennials. It also has the highest portion of smartphone users with 92% of
Instagramers in the country using a smartphone.
Egypt
Active Users
2,500,000
English Language
1,500,000
Arabic Language
2,400,000
Male
1,300,000
Female
1,300,000
Generation X
180,000
Generation X - Male
93,000
88,000
Millennials
2,200,000
Millennials - Male
1,100,000
1,100,000
Smartphone Owners
2,300,000
Smartphone Owners
Male
1,200,000
Smartphone Owners
Female
1,200,000
Online Expats
140,000
75,000
60,000
10

In 2016, the concept of social media being a business’ “New Front Door”, and with social
media adoption showing no signs of slowing down, this metaphor will only get stronger year
after year.
Understanding the topics that trend and the social platforms themselves form the foundation
for capitalizing on this evolving technology.
SOCIAL MEDIA IN 2016 & BEYOND
TOP TRENDED TOPICS & BRANDS

Trending Topics – What Mattered in 2016
2016 was a year of change around the world. Celebrity deaths, Brexit, the Olympics, and the US
election all found their way to the top of global social trends.
#Rio2016
#Euro2016
#Election2016
#Brexit
#Trump
#RIP
#BlackLivesMatter
#Oscars
#GameofThrones
#PokemonGo
US Presidential Election
Brazilian Politics
Pokemon Go
Black Lives Matter
Rodrigo Duterte &
Philippine Presidential Election
Olympics
Brexit
Super Bowl
David Bowie
Muhammad Ali
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
#7
#8
#9
#10
12

The US Election: A View from The Middle East
Across both Facebook and Twitter, the US presidential election was an incredibly important topic all
around the world. And the Middle East was no exception…
BETWEEN
NOVEMBER 1ST
& DECEMBER 31ST
THERE WERE
67%
of interactions
were from male
users
25%
were businesses
12%
were female
+56k
Mentions of the election.
9.7b
impressions related
to election content
Social Activity in the region peaked on election day
In the region, most discussions related to the election
AR took place in Arabic, not English
13

Where does Instagram Fit in 2016?
Despite some challenges, Instagram continues to evolve as new
features, such as Stories and Instagram for Business, change the way users
and brands interact with the platform.
Instagram suffered a trend of
users ‘quitting’ the service after
Justin Bieber publicly left the
platform.
Instagram played a notable role
in the 2016 election with both
candidates announcing their
nominations on the social
platform.
The top ‘branded’ hashtag on
Instagram in 2016 was #VSCO
with over 100 Million users, more
than double the second place
#OneDirection.
14

Video Takes Over Social Media in 2016
2016 saw a dramatic rise in video content across all social platforms. Larger data allowances and
faster speeds on mobile have made video the most popular form of social expression.
Adele Carpool Karaoke Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen
/PIKO-TARO
What's inside a
Rattlesnake Rattle?
Nike Football Presents:
The Switch ft.
Grace VanderWaal:
12-Year-Old Ukulele player
Water Bottle Flip Edition
Dude Perfect
The $21,000 First class
Airplane Seat
Brothers Convince Little Sister
of Zombie Apocalypse
Channing Tatum & Beyonce's
Run The World
Donald Trump: Last Week
Tonight with John Oliver
Candace Payne,
Chewbacca Mom
Ted Yoder, Soundscapes
Buzzfeed, Countdown to the
next presidential election
NBC News, Election results
Atlanta Buzz, People are
lining up to hug police
officers in Dallas
Viral Thread, Population
count from US to CA
CNN, Election results
on Empire State building
Dena Blizzard, Pokemon Go
for moms “Chardonnay Go”
Super Deluxe,
Election map
Under the Hood,
Video of a truck completely
carved out of wood
15

MENA Social Media Behaviour
The MENA region continued to embrace social media through 2016 and users are quickly becoming
a high profile audience for marketers.
136M
monthly Active Users and
127M
of those users accessing
the platform via mobile.
97%
of users watch at least
one full video each month
5.3 million
daily users on average
8.7 million
18 million
Instagram’s global average usage reached
around 42 percent in 2016 increasing from
24 percent in 2014.
The UAE and KSA pulled ahead of global
averages, with 60% of UAE residents and
82% KSA residents using the service.
The broader MENA region is still catching
up however with 22% of residents using
Instagram
Global use of Snapchat has nearly doubled
from 12% to 23% since 2014.
20% of the global Snapchat audience is
located in the MENA region with the UAE
and KSA markets tripling in the last 2
years.
Approx. 9000 snaps are shared every
second on the platform.
Ramadan proved to be one of the
year’s top trending topics in the Arab
world, with tweets being viewed
over 10.7 Billion times.
There was a wide range of trends
across the UAE that reflected the
diverse nature of the country:
• World Government Summit
@WorldGovSummit
• Global Women's Forum
@Womens_Forum
• Dubai Tour @DubaiTour
In KSA Football and TV are the
major drivers of traffic on the
platform with
and
topping the trends.
Egypt saw a broad range of topics
reflective of the large population:
#pokemonGO
#rio2016
‫#ﻋﻤﺮو_دﻳﺎب‬
‫#دوري_ﻋﺒﺪاﻟﻠﻄﻴﻒ_ﺟﻤﻴﻞ‬
‫#ﺳﻴﻠﻔﻲ‬
16

The Region’s Most Social Brands…
Taking a look at some of the region’s top performing social brands provides some insights into
what local consumers are interested in…
Vodafone Egypt 0% 45.8% 8.3% 45.8%9,469,227
Orange 4.2% 58.3% 8.3% 29.2%8,740,177
Etisalat Misr 0% 62.5% 25% 12.5%8,280,387
AWOK.com 0% 95.8% 0% 4.2%1,348,314
Etisalat UAE 0% 87.5% 12.5% 0%1,164,378
Carrefour UAE 0% 16.7% 37.5% 45.8%600,933
Panda 0% 29.2% 4.2% 66.7%1,649,248
Jarir Bookstore 0% 58.3% 8.3% 33.3%1,529,612
STC 4.2% 62.5% 33.3% 0%1.386.218
On Facebook, it seems text based content is nearly dead with virtually all top brands opting to
abandon this post type. Instead, visual content appears to be king with photo and video content
proving the most popular.
EGYPTUAEKSA
LOCAL FANS TEXT PHOTO VIDEO LINK
17

Twitter is drastically more popular in Saudi Arabia then UAE and Egypt. A particularly
interesting trend with Saudi Arabian businesses is their extremely low ‘following’ counts.
Vodafone Egypt 1,656,935
Etislalat Misr 1,336,297
Orange 1,026,694
Etisalat UAE
DU
DIFC
Mobily |
9,010 491,515
16,315 270,084
2,631 139,162
1,817,369
1,486,253
853,189
7,446 88,996
5,772 112,190
218 5,058
3,212,087
3,149,968
1,592,698
9 163,316
11 565,916
2 31,781
EGYPTUAEKSA
FOLLOWERS FOLLOWING TOTAL TWEETS
‫اﻟﺴﻌﻮدﻳﺔ‬ ‫اﻻﺗﺼﺎﻻت‬
‫ﻣﻮﺑﺎﻳﻠﻲ‬
‫ﻟﻠﻌﻮد‬ ‫اﻟﻌﺮﺑﻴﺔ‬
18

Vodafone Egypt 145,309
SUBSCRIBERS VIEWS UPLOADED VIDEOS
Orange 148,781
Etisalat Misr 180,334
The du Channel
Emirates
Etisalat UAE
STC
Mobily
‫ﻟﻠﻌﻮد‬ ‫اﻟﻌﺮﺑﻴﺔ‬
YouTube is still a developing platform in the region, but a few brands have started to leverage
the potential of video content. The trends show that a number of videos produced correlate
with total views.
169,197,307 598
4.2% 58.3%
0% 62.5%
56,976
188,554
30,538
95,310,188 1,119
91,652,892 389
56,931,523 179
428,182
322,897
61,736
289,121,570 823
134,483,343 280
58,759,638 187
EGYPTUAEKSA
19

…and What You Can Learn from Them
In the world of social media, Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So what can you learn from
the region’s top brands?
Got something important to share?
Pin It! Keep announcements, new
campaigns, and project launches in
the limelight longer by pinning on
Facebook and Twitter.
Videos drive engagement; top
brands create thoughtful videos
with their audience in mind rather
than just sharing other videos.
Emojis are the fastest growing language
in history; think about how you can
include them to better express
your brand(s) story.
Your products and services don’t
need to steal the show; try to
create content that will entertain
your audience and encourage
them to interact with your brand.
20

The influence of social media continues to grow and it is having a big impact on how
businesses evaluate their success. Interactions, engagement, and overall sentiment can tell you a
lot about how your organization is performing.
In order to get meaningful insights, however, you need to know how you compare to
other organizations in your sector. That’s why we’ve collected deeper data on the region’s
leading businesses across six unique sectors. This data can serve as a benchmark for your business
and help you better set goals for 2017.
SOCIAL INTELLIGENT
INSIGHTS

Sharing Economy
67%
12%
KSA Egypt
9%
UAE
2%
Jordan
1.4%
Qatar
1.4%
Kuwait
.71%
Lebanon
Activities in each Country
Most Active Networks
(excluding brands' posts)
Interactions/Day
2,653
The number of comments
and retweets captured.
Active People/Day
1,537
People who posted original
content, comments, or
retweeted posts.
Engagement Rate
28.81%
The percentage of original
content receiving at least one
interaction
Sentiment Score
-0.222
How people feel
towards the post.
Neutral, negative or
positive
Buzz Overview
Ride-sharing and the broader sharing economy is continuing to gain popularity in the
Arab region based on current social trends. The topic saw considerable engagement
throughout 2016 with posts and discussions garnering over 970K interactions and 28.8% of
all content receiving at least one interaction.
Facebook Twitter Instagram
15% 74% 11%
22

Sharing Economy
Demographics
Ride-sharing was largely discussed by male users
in all countries studied. This was followed by
female users, and finally, business users in all
countries with the exception of the UAE where
female and business discussions were equally
split.
The majority of the discussion took place in Saudi
Arabia, with 67% of all activity coming from that
country. Egypt and the UAE made up most of the
remaining activity with the broader Arab
countries showing less interest.
UAE was the only country which had females
activities equal to business activities with
represented 23%. KSA had the least active
business accounts participating with the sharing
economy topic.
Moreover, males in Saudi Arabia and Qatar are
the most active in the Middle owning 79.5% of
KSA’s and 47.3% of Qatar’s activities, respectively.
Lebanon had the least percent for female
participation with 46%. Female participation was
at its best in Lebanon with 31% followed by UAE
with 23%.
Gender by Location
KSA Egypt UAE Jordan Qatar Lebanon Bahrain
80%
15%
6%
65%
21%
14%
54%
23% 23%
67%
21%
12%
74%
15%
10%
46%
31%
23%
65%
20%
15%
Male Female Business
Most Active Genders
per Network
Facebook
73%
26%
1%
Twitter
74%
20%
7%
Instagram
57%
33%
10%
Gender overview
Business
8%
Male
71%
Female
21%
23

Sharing Economy
Language and Dialect
Discussions around Ride Sharing across all countries analyzed took place primarily in Arabic with
only 11.7% of interactions analyzed occurring in English. This is a strong indication that this
industry is fostering meaningful communities in the Arab world and producing content that
connects with the Arab population.
Languages per year based on
1,034,440
activities
ArabicEnglish
12%(121,000)
88%(913,440)
English represents 11.7% out of
the total investigated activities.
Arabic is the dominant language is 2016 when it
comes to talking about Careem & Uber in the
Middle East.
24

Sharing Economy
Sentiment
Overall sentiment for Ride Sharing solutions was slightly negative, however, it should be noted
that with the exception of Saudi Arabia, other countries had a favorable opinion of the services.
Instagram was the only social platform where these services received overall positive feedback,
with both Twitter and Facebook leaning negative, a trend that was true for both male and female
users.
KSA Egypt UAE Jordan Qatar Lebanon Bahrain
12%
24%
64%
22%
14%
65%
35%
12%
53%
30%
13%
57%
27%
14%
60%
30%
11%
59%
18%
16%
66%
Sentiment per Country
Genders’ Sentiment
14%
19%
67%
15%
21%
64%
Positive Negative Neutral
25

Sharing Economy
Sentiment
per Network
Sentimental Activities
per Male Per Network
per Female Per Network
10%
16%
74%
16%
20%
64%
11%
78%
11%
9%
14%
76%
18%
28%
54%
11%
84%
5%
14%
24%
62%
10%
15%
75%
11%
79%
10%
26

Sharing Economy
Mentions Overview (Online Users Only)
Users in the Middle East mentioned the most popular Sharing Economy based companies 40
times per hour on average.
Online users actively engage with Sharing Economy companies' Twitter accounts an average of
36 mentions per hour. Same companies were mentioned in 788 news articles every month on
average.
Type
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
Blogs
Forums
News
Hour
36
1
1
0.5
0.1
1.1
Day
867
13
36
13
2
26
Week
6,100
88
252
92
13
182
Month
26,432
382
1,091
397
56
788
Type
Mentions
Conversations
Active People
Interactions
Likes
Comments
Retweets
Interactions on
blogs, forums,
news websites
Hour
40
11
6
242
133
54
52
3
Day
956
262
153
5,802
3,197
1,290
1,250
65
Week
6,726
1,847
1,077
40,840
22,504
9,079
8,800
457
Month
29,147
8,004
4,667
176,973
97,518
39,343
38,133
1,979
27

Banking and Finance - The United Arab Emirates
Interactions
The topic of finance and banking in the UAE saw 149.5K interactions received
throughout 2016 and achieved an impressive engagement rate with 1 out of every
2 posts made receiving at least one interaction. This strong engagement indicates
a mature industry that produces the right content for its audience.
Interactions/ Day
409
Active People/ Day
185
People who posted
original content,
comments, or retweeted
posts.
Engagement Rate
53.32%
The percentage of
original content receiving
at least one interaction
Sentiment Score
0.61
How people feel
towards the post.
Neutral, Negative or
Positive
UAE
93%
KSA
2%
Egypt
1%
28

Demographics
UAE banking and finance companies are primarily discussed by male users, who are responsible for
nearly 50% of all interactions. This compares to businesses which made up 33% while female users
accounted for the final 17%.
Unsurprisingly, the majority (93%) of the discussions for these UAE-based companies took place in
the UAE, with Saudi Arabia and Egypt representing the next two most active markets.
Most Active Gender
(excluding brands’ posts)
Male
50%
Female
17%
Business
33%
29

Banking and Finance - The United Arab of Emirates
An analysis of over 65,000 users showed that despite being based in the Arab region, English was
actually the more common language for social activities relating to this industry. With 68.2% of
engagements occurring in English and the remaining 31.8% taking place in Arabic, the impact of
expats on the industry is clear.
67,818
activities
ArabicEnglish
68%(46,263)
22%(21,555)
68.2% of users’ activities with UAE banking social accounts in 2016 were in English.
30

Sentiment
Overall sentiment for banking and finance companies in the UAE was positive, this was true across
both male and female demographics and was particularly true for business users.
Banking Sentiments
26%
11%
63%
30%
7%
63%
44%
4%
52%
31

Banking and Finance - The United Arab of Emirates
Online users mentioned UAE banks accounts 24% times more in twitter than Facebook. Banking
Social accounts in UAE receive on average 881 mentions per month where only 315 (35.8%) gain at
least 1 interaction. On average 8 unique people engage with banking social account every hour.
People are actively engaging with posts more than just liking it with 64.4% of the activities made on
online users’ posts with banking social accounts in UAE was comments. Online users’ posts on
banking social accounts received on average 14 comments per hour.
Active Interactions per Network
Mention per Network
Type
Twitter
Facebook
Hour
1
1
Day
16
13
Week
1300
91
Month
483
393
Type
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
Hour
2
11
1
Day
55
274
24
Week
386
1,928
171
Month
1,672
8,354
742
32

E-Commerce
(excluding brands’ posts)
57%
KSA
15%
UAE
11%
Egypt
4%
Kuwait
.91%
Oman
.89%
Qatar
.74%
Iraq
Buzz overview
The topic of e-commerce saw very strong engagement in 2016
receiving 3.7 million interactions related to Souq, Namshi, and
Jumia, which translates to 422 interactions per hour through the
year. This strong level of engagement is a very positive sign for
the e-commerce industry in Arab countries and further confirms
its continued adoption in the Middle East.
Interactions / Day
1,450
Active People / Day
1,468
retweeted posts.
Engagement Rate
14.39%
interaction
Sentiment Score
0.03
How people feel towards
the post. Neutral, Negative or
Positive
Most Active Networks
Interactions Mentions
18%
92%
28%
.66%
53%
4%
33

E-Commerce
Demographics
E-Commerce activity for the 3 online stores mentioned was once again primarily driven by male
users, accounting for over half of all activities, Businesses made up 33% and female users accounted
for roughly 15%.
The majority of the discussion took place in Saudi Arabia, with 57% of all activity coming from this
country. The UAE and Egypt also have a considerable impact on overall activities accounting for
14.7% and 10.8% respectively. Broader Arab countries such as Oman, Iraq, and Qatar were
considerably less active which may indicate that e-commerce is still developing in these countries.
Gender overview
Male
52%
Female
15%
Business
33%
80%
34

E-Commerce
An analysis of over 714,000 activities that Arabic was the dominant language for social activities
relating to e-commerce with 87.4% of engagements occurring in Arabic. This is a positive sign for the
industry and a strong indicator that these three companies are focused on addressing the unique
needs of the e-commerce landscape in the Middle East.
Languages - Analyzing around
714,660
activities
ArabicEnglish
13%(90,400)
87%(624,260)
Arabic is the main language
used in E-Commerce mentions and interactions.
35

Sentiment
Overall sentiment for the e-commerce industry largely neutral across the countries studied. Social
campaigns promoting offers and discounts were the main contributors to positive sentiment, while
complaints made up the majority of the negative sentiment.
E-Commerce
36
Users’ Sentiment
17%
67%
16%

Telecommunication - Egypt
Interactions
The topic of Egyptian telecommunication companies
was the most popular topic studied earning a very
impressive 3.04 million interactions in 2016. Posts
related to Egyptian telecom companies also saw a
strong engagement rate with nearly 57% of all posts
receiving at least one engagement.
Interactions/Day
8,309
3.04m
Active People/Day
2,349
859.56k
retweeted posts.
Engagement Rate
56.74%
interaction
Sentiment Score
-0.31
How people feel towards the
post. Neutral, negative or
positive
37

Demographics
Egyptian telecom companies are almost exclusively engaged with by male users representing
nearly 87% of all interactions. Businesses were nearly non-existent in this space making up only 0.3%
of all interactions, female users rounded out the remaining activity. This appears to indicate that
current content is not interesting to female users, companies that recognize this gap may be able to
gain an edge in the marketplace.
Gender overview
Male
87%
Female
13%
Business
0.3%
80%
38

An analysis of over 1.3 million activities showed that Arabic was virtually the only language used to
discuss telecom companies in Egypt. Out of all activities studied 97.5% were carried out in Arabic
while only 2.5% occurred in English.
1,309,552
activities
ArabicEnglish
3%(32,131)
97%(1,277,421)
English represents only 2.5% of the total
activities in Egypt
39

Sentiment
Overall sentiment for Egyptian telecom companies studied was negative across male, female,
and business users. Twitter was home to the most negative users with just under 30% of
users expressing negative sentiment, while Facebook and Instagram saw a lower 15% of
users expressing negative sentiment. Having strong community managers who can address
concerns and resolve conflicts should be a top priority for these companies.
Users’ Sentiment
9%
16%
75%
10%
18%
72%
8%
12%
80%
40

10%
15%
75%
8%
36%
56%
8%
34%
58%
9%
15%
76%
10%
27%
63%
8%
15%
77%
Most Active Genders
per Network
87%
12%
1%
77%
21%
2%
79%
19%
2%
9%
15%
76%
8%
30%
62%
8%
14%
78%
per Female Per Network
per Male Per Network
Sentiment
per Network
41

Telecommunications in Egypt is a highly competitive market and it shows on social media. Between
each telecom brand receiving at least 8 mentions an hour and a sentiment score of -0.31 last year,
telecommunications in Egypt is an analysis goldmine.
Mention per Network
Type
Twitter
Facebook
Hour
8
11
Day
204
258
Week
1,436
1,814
Month
6,222
7,859
Active Interactions per Network
Type
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
Hour
27
187
4
Day
654
4,497
104
Week
4,602
31,651
734
Month
19,940
137,152
3,179
42

Fintech
Interactions
The topic of FinTech is still quite new but it still received considerable attention globally
with 464K interactions. The novel nature of FinTech in the Middle East contributed to a
rather low engagement rate of just 31.5%, on par with other emerging industries such as
ride-sharing. New industries need to experiment with a wide range of content to better
understand what their target audience is interested in.
Interactions
2.54k
Active People
1.06k
retweeted posts.
Engagement Rate
31.58%
interaction
70%
UAE
17%
Jordan
6%
Saudi Arabia
5%
Egypt
.82%
Qatar
.61%
Lebanon
.34% .31% .24% .14%
Kuwait Bahrain Morocco Libya
43

Fintech
Demographics
New content was most frequently produced by businesses, with male users representing the most
frequent commenters. Female users showed some interest in the topic, but made up just under 20%
of all commenters.
The majority of content around Arab Fintech organizations occurred in the UAE, with international
content also penetrating the market. This again highlights the novel nature of these companies with
just 34% of new content coming from an Arab country.
Gender overview
Male
32%
Female
8%
Business
60%
44

Fintech
The topic of Fintech is still largely discussed in English across the Arab region, which once again
shows that the industry is in its infancy. Of all new content released during our study only 5% was in
Arabic. This represents a clear opportunity for Arab FinTech companies who want to capture local
consumers; by creating engaging content in Arabic, local companies can gain an edge over their
international competitors.
ArabicEnglish
6%(85)
94%(1,380}
Fintech Startup founders and marketing executives need to
establish more engaging content in Arabic. Otherwise missing
an untapped opportunity.
45

Fintech
Sentiment
Even though the industry is quite new, overall sentiment is positive to neutral. This is a promising sign
for future growth and with more effective education, the industry will likely continue growing in the
region.
Users’ Sentiment
13% 1%
86%
46

Social media is rapidly evolving across the Middle East and it can be challenging to keep up with
the latest trends. If you’re not working on the frontlines day to day, it’s easy to miss out on new
opportunities and see how the landscape is changing.
That’s why Crowd Analyzer and Hootsuite are sharing their predictions and luckily for you we’ve
got some of the region’s leading experts to share their insight on the State of Social media and talk
about the trends they’re seeing today. Understanding the social media landscape is becoming
more critical each year and these expert insights will help you capitalize on this new frontier.
SOCIAL MEDIA
PREDICTIONS 2017

Predictions
Why Social Media Monitoring is the one thing to do in 2017?
When Crowd Analyzer was launched in 2013, Social listening was next to none-existing as a culture in the
Middle East business sphere. If one had to monitor a social media campaign or do some online market
research, it had to be done and checked and double checked manually based on the interpretation of the
person performing the research.
This is where social listening excels, it takes the human “interpretation” element out and inserts Natural
Language Processing, Machine Learning, Data Science and other ground-breaking technology to make
machines as linguistically proficient as humans yet mixing the qualities of human-felt sentiment with the
neutrality of machines.
Imagine this, if someone were to tell you something in the presence of a group of people, you find it hilarious
yet your best friend is offended, who is to judge? And can you afford that sort of judgement when the same
statement affects your business and brand reputation?
Social Listening is pretty much truly synonymous with social intelligence. As in, you need to intelligently look
at Social Media and not just at your brand’s own account but your competitors’ accounts, keywords that may
touch on an upcoming campaign or product and accounts you may even want to take inspiration from.
What to look for? That is an excellent question.
In a region as emotionally involved in every aspect as the Middle East, Sentiment is a must. Whether someone
has negative, positive or neutral feelings towards a mention of yours is very important, one negative
statement has been proven to incite a horribly damaging PR campaign. One negative tweet can, in fact, make
or break your business’ reputation.
Since the Middle East is essentially a hub of many cultures, Arabic language is not as unified as one might
hope. Whether in Egypt, Levantine areas, Gulf or with content producers using standard Arabic, it is essential
to be able to tell the dialect behind each mention. Not only does this bring you unprecedented insights, it
also can easily direct content creation, AD targeting and assist you in weaving stories your exact
demographic would read and more importantly, interact with.
The topic of relevancy, however, will again take you back to the seemingly long battle between humans and
machines, who understands language more? Relevancy algorithms, in Social Listening, not only look at words
verbatim but at whole sentences; also, factoring in cultural backgrounds based on location and dialect to not
only look at keywords but at context, syntax and topics.
Finally, Gender and Location demographics are essential to look at. You need to see which demographic is
rich in interaction so you can build the relationship further and which demographic is untapped so you can
go in and make them yours.
Social media monitoring and intelligent social listening and management is your gateway to better products,
stronger marketing, a wholesome PR strategy and an everyday guide to taking any sort of brand to the next
level. If there is one thing we want you to do in 2017, it is to listen and listen carefully.
48

The largest population of the countries studied is, by a large margin, Egypt. With over 90 million people, the
country has massive potential to become the region’s largest social user base in the coming years. For
now, however, low internet penetration of just 33% and even lower social media usage means Egypt still
has a lot of room to grow.
Both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have considerably higher internet penetration at 65% and
92% respectively, but when it comes to social media usage the UAE pulls far ahead with 68% of residents
using either Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
Check out their insights on the biggest trends to watch in 2017 below.
Predictions
Social catches up with search for discovery
Search remains king when it comes to consumer research and evaluating products or
services, but social is starting to rival search when it comes to discovery. This trend is
especially strong among younger consumers, something that needs to be considered by
brands interested in targeting millennials. Global Web Index found that 37 percent of all
internet users turn to social networks to research brands or products, and also found that
50% Snap chatters and Instagrammers research products on social media.
Social commerce shows new promise
Social commerce has been hyped before. However, adoption in APAC along with new
features introduced by Instagram and Pinterest makes this trend an inevitable evolution in
consumer behavior. As KPCB’s Mary Meeker 2016 Internet Trends Report found, there’s been
a 106 percent year-over-year growth in users who have made a purchase from WeChat.
Dark social rising
Fueled by mobile and messaging, dark social is gaining ground. Dark social is critical for
marketers to understand as if you only track social traffic with traditional web analytics,
you’re drastically underreporting the value social delivers to your business. A study by the
digital advertising company Radium One found that 82 percent of content shared on mobile
is done through dark social.
Video ignites social advertising
Last year, we saw social video begin to dominate the social landscape. The next evolution is
to combine the emotional power of social video with the scale and reach of social
advertising. A May 2016 study by Animoto found that 70 percent of marketers plan to use
social video advertising in the next 12 months with Facebook the platform of choice.
Organizations turn to connected workforces
Organizations are increasingly investing in the online reach and customer influence of their
own workforce by leveraging employee advocacy, social selling, and digital skills training.
Ninety percent of brands surveyed by the leading research firm Altimeter plan to pursue
employee advocacy solutions in 2017.
49

Social Network Developments
Moments in time. Customer experience and service.
Twitter will focus on being where consumers go to experience, create, and report
on moments in time. From cultural events to breaking news, Twitter’s focus will be on
real-time moments. Businesses will continue to use Twitter to create shareable
customer experience moments, increase loyalty, and quickly serve their customers
on social.
Driving conversions. Social marketing.
Facebook will remain the top network marketers use to drive conversions from social. But
businesses know they need to pay-to-play on Facebook. With the success of Facebook Live
and new features like Facebook Marketplace, expect to see more opportunities to advertise
as well as a continued push for social commerce.
Brand awareness. Community building and discovery.
In North America, Instagram hasn’t been as successful as driving purchases as Facebook. But
as retail brands such as Warby Parker and Kate Moss show Instagram works well for brand
awareness and engaging your community of customers, advocates, and supporters. Brands
will come here to inspire customers and fuel social discovery of new products and services.
Content distribution. Audience engagement.
Snapchat has matured as social marketing channel. But there’s a greater focus on content
than other networks. Brands such as MTV, National Geographic, and Vice have been
successful at using Snapchat to distribute content. Universities have been using Snapchat to
engage students on campus. And celebrities are rewarding their fans with special content,
exclusive access, and fun visual experiences.
Content platform. Social selling and peer-to-peer influence.
With the acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft in 2016, expect LinkedIn to continue to invest in
their content platform as they try to become the single place professionals go to stay on top
of things happening in their network, industry, and profession. LinkedIn will also invest
further in social selling, helping sales teams tap into the power of peer-to-peer connections
in LinkedIn. This means LinkedIn isn’t where brands blast messages. But rather where your
content has to spread through your workforce—shared by sales teams, amplified by
employees.
$
50

30 Expert Talks: Predictions for Social Media 2017
I’d have to say that Microsoft purchasing LinkedIn
was the most notable moment in social media for
2016. LinkedIn has grown to be one of the region’s
most influential social platforms and with the added
resources Microsoft can bring to the table, I’d expect
this growth to continue over the coming years. I think
LinkedIn still has a way to go before it reaches its full
potential but once it does it will be a powerful player
in the Middle East’s social landscape.
I’d have to say that Microsoft purchasing LinkedIn
was the most notable moment in social media for
2016. LinkedIn has grown to be one of the region’s
most influential social platforms and with the added
resources Microsoft can bring to the table, I’d expect
this growth to continue over the coming years. I think
LinkedIn still has a way to go before it reaches its full
potential but once it does it will be a powerful player
in the Middle East’s social landscape.
Along with LinkedIn, both Facebook and Instagram
appear to bring the most value to our business. I think
that the social channels you use will always depend
on the sector you’re in but for us these three are
having a big impact. With that said the
overwhelming popularity of Snapchat with the
younger millennial generation means businesses will
need to start considering the platform.
What’s quite amazing to me is the continued decline
of Twitter in the region, it seems as though every
month the platform loses more and more ground to
Instagram and other up and coming social media
platforms.
Overall I think the drop comes from the way users
interact with brands on Twitter, more and more it is
becoming a customer service channel rather than a
marketing channel. People prefer to use it to
complain or ask questions rather than find new and
exciting products.
We’ve been lucky to have quality social media
monitoring in place that helps us stay on top of these
trends and adjust our strategies accordingly. It’s
something that is still in its infancy in this part of the
world but it makes a big difference in how you
market with social media. Based on the data we’ve
collected, we are looking towards the millennial
generation and how they use social media to inform
our future strategies. They are going to be the
biggest digital consumers in history and
understanding their behaviour is the key to
capitalizing on it.
Enaam Ali
Social Media Manager
Centric DMCC
Twitter - @enaam_ali
The most notable moment of 2016 has got to be the
Mannequin Challenge, what started off as a simple
high school event in Florida went on to be the most
viral trend of 2016 and was picked up by everyone
including Sporting teams, Government
organisations, Brands and celebrities. Unfortunately,
unlike the ice bucket challenge it didn’t represent a
cause or a mission, I’d say it represented virality in
the modern digital era.
Monitoring or social media listening has brought in
fantastic results for us and we are all about offering a
helping hand to potential customers; they know that
we are looking out for them even if they haven’t
directly asked us. It’s definitely something the region
shies away from, but that’s due to the fact that a lot
of brands here don’t run social media in “real-time”.
Ali Khalid Rana
Marketing Manager
Jadopado
Twitter - @jadopado
51

While it’ll take a bit to dislodge Facebook from its
perch, I think Instagram has the potential to do it,
which is incidentally the social media I would
prioritise as a business owner as well. Based on the
awesome set of features it has including
Instagram Stories & Instagram for Business - it
definitely has the potential to be the next big thing.
Influencer marketing in the region is not as well
established as it is in the globe, in my opinion it
requires a lot of real time engagement & detailed
KPIs to generate result. Currently, all that you can
accomplish from influencer marketing is brand
awareness & brand association. I’d like to hold on to
the point where influencer marketing starts driving
real time results.
I wouldn’t specify a generation, all of the
generations could be a target and should be
marketed to their needs and likes; basically for you
to be a great brand/organisation you need to
ensure you are not eliminating any of your
customers and are keeping them in the loop with
tailored content.
On YouTube the content was almost always thought
out, edited, and polished. Next came Instagram
which still had an element of polish, but forced users
to express themselves quickly, limiting storytelling.
Snapchat continued the short snippet model but
also added an element of urgency, forcing users
share content that was happening today. The logical
conclusion was always going to be live streaming
and now we are there with platforms like Periscope,
Facebook live, Instagram Live. Live content is
everywhere!
With this evolving trend better social monitoring is
going to become crucial. Currently I think the
market isn’t capitalizing on the potential of social
monitoring, and truth be told they aren’t really taking
full advantage of social marketing either. If
companies want to connect with users, they need
to know what their customers are talking about,
looking for, and interested in. As the time frame to
capitalize on social trends gets shorter and shorter
social monitoring is really the only way to keep up.
Another thing that social media monitoring helps
with is identifying what social networks a business
should be focusing on. Depending on who your
customers are and where they’re located, the ‘best’
social network for your business is going to change.
For now, I think that in terms of raw reach, Facebook
will remain the number one platform in the Middle
East for the foreseeable future. They’ve done such a
good job at hooking their users and are quickly
taking over the mobile space.
Twenty sixteen had so many interesting moments
on social media that it’s hard to say which was the
most notable, but if I had to choose I think it would
be the huge trend towards live streaming content. It
represents one of the biggest changes to how
people interact and consume media and shows the
desire we all have for immediate and unfiltered
content.
Interestingly, this trend isn’t all that surprising as
long as you’ve been paying attention. Look at
how video started…
Sara Shabana
Regional Social Marketing
Manager
Souq.com
52

Do you know what your customers really want? If you
are aiming to delight and retain your customers, it’s
key to build a clear picture of their expectations. The
new mega trend that drives revenue is not products
or brands, it’s customer experience. The challenge for
companies lies in the fact that this experience is now
being impacted by customers on a public, visible
platform that is out of their control – or is there a way
to control it?
We are often asked by brands: how can we
accelerate growth, while making it sustainable? The
EY point of view is that brands should listen to their
customers, put them at the center of their business,
and consistently deliver to their needs. This will allow
businesses to build trust. We call it "The EY trust
revolution." Three key questions that companies
need to ask themselves to build trust are:
1. How are you retaining your customers?
Customers are dissatisfied when they perceive that
they are not receiving value for their money.
Dissatisfied customers will not only choose against
interacting with the brand again, but they will also
discourage others. The effort and cost it takes to
reconcile broken trust is much more than the price
companies pay to keep their customers happy. EY
research shows that it costs five times more to
acquire new customers than to retain an existing
customer.
2. Are you listening to your customers?
Customer experience is the next competitive
battleground. Nowadays customers are informed,
empowered and not necessarily loyal to a particular
brand. Customers usually treat social media either as
a platform to complain or as an outlet for satisfaction.
They post as they experience, making social media a
real-time accurate database for their voice. EY uses
social media as a baseline to uncover critical
customer insights and the root causes for business
performance challenges, as well as to identify
improvement areas.
How does the voice of customers impact you?
One mistake or bad experience can go viral in
seconds, influencing the perception of brands and
resulting in a brand reputational disaster. There have
been many instances of company revenues being
significantly impacted as a result of reputational
damage that occurred in a matter of hours.
It is imperative that brands recognize the voice of
their customers and respond to them in a timely
fashion. Ask yourself today - Do you know what
customers are saying about you? And are you doing
something about it?
Sherwette Mansour
Social Media Intelligence
Lead
EY MENA
Twenty sixteen was certainly a busy year for social
media across the Middle East and around the world
with large events such as #Euro2016, #RioBrazil2016,
and the #Oscars showing just how powerful social
media can be. In Egypt, it is becoming clear that
brands need to start focusing on social marketing.
Throughout 2016 interest in digital media, and in
particular, social media influencers took off at an
accelerated pace.
In Egypt, Instagram and Snapchat have been gaining
a lot of attention from the most ‘tech savvy’ users,
however Facebook and YouTube continue to
dominate the market in terms of overall reach and
engagement. It’s sad to say but I really don’t feel
optimistic that Twitter will succeed as a platform for
social marketing. We are seeing brands spend less
and less on the platform and it just doesn’t deliver the
Samer Aly
Digital Marketing Senior
Supervisor
Orange Egypt
53

The prevalence of social media has greatly assisted in
the transformation of word of mouth (WOM) into
electronic word of mouth (eWOM). This
transformation has given consumers from all
backgrounds the chance to strike up conversations,
not only intimate and private ones, but also
brand-related. These continuous conversations have
surely generated numerous insights, on which
brilliant campaigns were built on and probably the
lives of thousands if not millions were touched.
We have witnessed the rise and fall of traditional
media, when digital became the convenient
alternative to traditional. Would dark social become
the alternative to traditional social media? I am not
arguing that dark would completely kill of traditional,
yet traditional is bound to lose a lot of its ground to
dark social channels. Dark social is simply the creation
and sharing of content that occurs outside of what
can be measured by web analytics, specifically
through online chat and email. It is a fact that active
monthly users on platforms like WhatsApp
Mohamed Abu Gabal
Social Media Executive
OMD Media
results brands need to see to justify the investment.
The ROI of a certain social channel is the key factor
that decides whether a brand chooses to continue
and with Twitter, for most brands it’s just not there.
As you can imagine this increased interest in social
media marketing means businesses are scrambling
to better understand how these platforms work and
what users are interested in. This is where social
media monitoring has become invaluable, in
telecommunications and a range of other industries
you need to know what’s being said about your
brand; it’s no longer a luxury it’s a necessity. Brands
can be destroyed on social media by a single
incident if it’s not handled properly.
or Facebook Messenger have surpassed 1b each,
and since no normal commercial tool is able to
access those conversations (as far as we know)
hence the term ‘dark social’ was coined. When
Facebook acquired WhatsApp for a whopping $16b
in 2014 it was not done vainly. It all became clear in
summer 2016 when WhatsApp’s new T&Cs allowed
user data to be shared with Facebook. A smart move
by a data giant that survives on users’ eyeballs and
most importantly their data.
If traditional social media channels are a data and
insights gold-mines, think of the treasures you can get
by electronically eavesdropping on 42b messages in
53 different languages per day, and this is only
WhatsApp. I am a great advocate of user privacy and
I admit that I can be obsessed with it sometimes, yet
I fully understand that we (marketers) cannot be
locked out of such a deep mine of priceless treasures.
We have the option to go down the wicked path and
devise methods to hack into those conversations, or
better yet and to avoid the legal hassle, come up with
ways to bring those conversations into the light,
where we can listen to them and derive workable
information out of them.
I believe that this is our greatest challenge for 2017
and beyond. We need to constantly work on content
that initiates more meaningful conversations in the
open. More personalized content that would make
fans feel special and maybe enticed to take their
conversations to the public. Perhaps emerging
technologies could leverage this potential, especially
the everlasting developments in the smartphone and
wearable category. It is also a possibility that the
doors would tighten further and we will never have
access to the dark side of social, nor succeed in
bringing them to the light, but always remember the
barriers that we, humans, were able to pass.
How brilliant minds came up with bright
game-changing ideas. Keep dreaming, keep
working.
54

In some ways, the Middle East is so far ahead of the
rest of the world with regards to social media, and in
so many critical ways, we are still lagging very far
behind. Our audience are all using it. They are
spending their lives with it. So where is the
disconnect I believe the brands in this region are
struggling to come to terms with how to approach
social media. We are allowing the Facebook and
media agencies of this world to convince us that it is
all about media spend.
The more you spend the more you achieve. Which
makes us lazy when it comes to creating disruptive
and innovative content. When you look at other
more progressive markets, they understand social
media. They understand that people on social media
are not trying to move further down the
consideration journey to purchase a chocolate bar, or
even change their behaviour with regards to the
fabric conditioner they use. No. They are trying to
watch funny cat videos. They are trying to see the
latest ‘Barbes’ & ‘Catch me outside’ meme. I expect
middle Eastern brands to start taking more risks in
2017, to develop a stronger sense of humor and
sense of purpose within the channel, and ultimately
have more fun. If we are having fun creating the
content, then our audience will more than likely have
fun watching it.
Ayla de Moraes
Planning Director
Grey Digital
One of the biggest social media moments in 2016
had to be MadfooatCom’s revamped digital
marketing strategy. The company was able to
achieve results far above expectations with their
Facebook page reaching 143,772 followers. This
boost to MadfooatCom’s digital presence led to an
increased awareness for our brand, we’ve noticed a
considerable change in customer behaviour and a
more positive outlook regarding bill payments. This
increased customer engagement means we are
better able to understand our organizations strengths
and weakness, and as a result we’ve been able to
create a better overall product.
These positive results would not have been
achievable without effective social media
monitoring, it really is a critical element for our
marketing efforts. eFAWATEERcom is an online
service that allows people to pay their bills online, this
means that our customers are far more likely to reach
out through our social media channels. If we aren’t
monitoring our brand and the topics that our
customers are discussing, we’re missing out on
opportunities.
From our experience, most of our customers reach
out to us through Facebook and we expect that will
continue into the future. With that said, LinkedIn has
also captured our attention. As LinkedIn is a social
network dedicated to professionals while still
offering targeted advertising, we believe it has a lot
of potential to reach a completely new consumer
segment and further expand eFawateercom’s reach.
We also feel that Instagram is an important tool to
enhance customer awareness about for our brand.
We use it quite frequently to promote our services
however when it comes time for consumers to
interact many revert back to Facebook.
Fawateer.com
Looking forward we think some of the major trends
brands need to be aware of in the social media
space are live video content (Facebook, Snapchat,
Instagram) and the rise of Facebook bot. It seems as
though the days of social media being exclusively
people is coming to an end and the companies that
leverage Facebook bots will have a huge advantage
over competitors.
55

It is expected that Brand Advocacy will drive
consumer trust and long term loyalty affecting each
part of the purchasing funnel. The rise of AI lenses,
chatbots and more specifically customer service
chatbots will continue - coupled with the decrease of
social media automation vs social media
management. Marketing insight driven by data and
analytics will be at the heart of decision making
across brands.
Tarik Amin
CEO
Digital
@Adline Media Network
Social media is part of real life, all our lives. Pop culture
used to be determined by TV and movies. Now it's
determined by social media. Pop culture matters
since it drives consumer decisions. Pop culture is
cyclical -things become cool, mainstream adopts,
then fade away as cool kids move on to next thing.
With social media, these cycles have become faster
and faster. Its crucial for businesses to understand
how these cycles form and even predict the next one
to be able to capitalize on trends. In 2017, more
people will use social media thus increasing the
effect of this on businesses and modern life as we
know it.
Zak Nassar
Product Manager
Dubizzle
The explosion in social media new features and the
fierce competition in 2016 was amazing. we have
been talking about the social media in many aspect
of life for years now, even we talked about Banking
2.0. However we are much closer to conducted full
financial transactions through different social
platforms after they approved themselves in
marketing, reputation and business customer
targeting"
Alaa Adel Zidan
Social Media Lead
DMI
The announcement of 2030 vision was the most
notable moment in 2016. It represents the change.
When there is a change you will normally have two
teams, one to fight against it, and another one to
support it.
I believe social media monitoring is extremely
important to us. It helps us to control any problem
for our client before it goes on public. The demand
and awareness for the importance of monitoring is
raising in the region.
Albraa Hamada
Operation Team Supervisor
Smaat
56

I still expect Facebook to remain at Number 1 in the
Middle East, but it will never be in the GCC.
I think the most notable social media network for
2017 is Twitter. It is so popular in Saudi Arabia. The
King and the crown prince are using it to speak to
public.
I love using influencers for marketing campaigns of
course, I will choose them according to the type of
the campaign. They create so many creative ways to
promote your product and mostly in indirect ways.
Top 2016 Social Media Win for me is Snapchat
and Top 2016 Social Media Fail in the Middle East
for me Tumblr.
The industry I expect to win in Social Media in the
Middle East in 2017 is Entertainment for sure. We just
started it in Saudi Arabia.
Leveraging the power of social media has been
growing exponentially in the past few years. The
facilitation of an open two-way communication
between consumer and business, generated a
wealth of valuable data that in some cases
revolutionized businesses and industries. 2017 will be
the year of ‘battle of knowledge’, so be ready to see
more efficient analytics, actionable insights and
manifestation of AI in the field
Youssef Shalaby
Regional Head of Reasearch
& Analytics
Hug Digital
Lots of businesses still think of social media as a
marketing tool, but the reality is that it’s quickly
remaking the entire customer lifecycle, often in
unexpected ways. The biggest trend for the year
ahead: change. Platforms are poised to continue to
evolve in accelerating, unexpected ways. The one
constant that businesses can depend on is that social
media itself isn’t going anywhere. As attention spans
shrink, legacy media outlets splinter and traditional
ads lose their mojo, social media is increasingly the
one reliable place to reach consumers. The tools and
channels may shift but the cultural sea change
instigated by Facebook more than a decade ago is
here to stay. And you don’t need a crystal ball to see
that.
Ryan Holmes
CEO
Hootsuite
57

As social media is disrupting many things around us,
with the ongoing demand for now data (live feeds),
and the ongoing “share “share on the web is
overwhelming! and increasing we cannot miss the
connected people around the hour demanding
answers and views marketers are lost in this
translation this year people will take more advantage
of the available tools and their influence on brands,
Retail growth online is a scene will learn a lot from,
people are back in public relations not companies
anymore.
I completely feel that social monitoring/listening is
underused in the region, there are plenty of suppliers
who cater for this however businesses have recently
started understanding the power of beyond social
listening and with that said I am talking about “Social
Insights”. Listening is present but insight isn’t. Today
everything is content led even on all your social
platforms but how much impact is this content
delivering on your business objectives.
Facebook is always a driver due to the continuous
ad/creative innovations which fits multiple business
objectives
My top advice to business owners is to use Instagram,
the power of visual and creative speaks louder. The
more creative yet simpler you can get with
delivering your message the easier your
consumer will find you credible.
It is important to tell your “Story” right!
Instagram stories, even though the app is trying to be
everything at once it still has a stronger reach across
multiple markets where most businesses operate in
in our region. Snap is getting there but due to the
limited operation of the markets and coming in late
they have missed on the earlier party!
I would Unfortunately use influencers yet personally I
am not a big fan of influencer marketing as it has no
specific measurement on the impact it has on a
specific campaign or product! Brands are
spending crazy amounts on these celebrity
influencers (As I would like to call them) while I would
rather maximize my reach/engagement on a
Facebook or on Instagram.
Hind Ahmad Al-Nahedh
CEO
Socialobby.com
The most notable social media moment in 2016 on a
global scale is #LastSelfie as one of the best social
executions on a new platform. The reason
behind this is simply using a new social/
camera tool (Snapchat) to deliver a message for
a good cause through your mobile.
www.justforthis.com
The campaign is all about delivering a selfie that
disappears within 10 seconds of endangered
species (Using the snapchat platform). The
campaign was made to raise awareness
around endangered species through an interactive
mobile screen.
Karim Refaat
Group Account Manager
Social Middle East &
North Africa - MEC Global
58

The main focus for businesses should be the need to
work on stories and the only way for this to happen
effectively is to listen to their prospect and current
audiences.
Also, online advertising is not as effective as it was
before, it was becoming noisier and cluttered which
calls for more personalized customized engaging
content as opposed to generic and cluttered online
ads.
Mustafa Othman
Regional Growth
Marketing Lead
Middle East & Africa - UBER
The social media space is one of the fastest moving
industries today; one feature rolled out by Facebook
has the potential to alter entire marketing strategies.
To remain on the edge of social, here are some of the
future trends I expect to boom in 2017.
A surge in professional networking: With the growth
of Slack, Microsoft buying LinkedIn, Facebook
Workplace, and most recently the announcement of
Facebook Jobs, companies must start leveraging
professional networking in order to promote their
transparency, harness employee advocacy, hire
exceptional talent, and market their services to other
businesses (B2B marketing).
Instagram is turning into another Facebook:
Instagram is no longer the simple platform it once
used to be. Facebook continuously loads it with more
features and ad formats to make it more attractive to
marketers, thus becoming more lucrative for
Facebook. For better and for worse, Instagram is
quickly becoming a full advertising solution.
Social commerce: Instagram’s buy-button will soon
hit the Middle East, and Facebook’s dynamic ads
already exist to promote product catalogs. This will
especially benefit small businesses to directly sell
their products through channels their customers
already exist on, removing barriers to conversion.
Soon, conversion will start happening within
Facebook, as opposed to a shopping cart on a
separate website.
Video: If you haven’t hopped on the video
bandwagon yet, be sure to start now. Facebook
expects 75% of the world’s mobile data traffic to be
video in 2020.
Snapchat vs Instagram Stories: It’s silly to start thinking
Instagram is a “clear winner” over Snapchat — it’s
simply too early to tell. Stories have affected
Snapchat’s growth globally, more so in the Middle
East. However Snapchat hasn’t only filed for IPO, but
the company has also just opened an office in Dubai,
clearing saying they’re invested in the region. I’m
interested to see how they push for growth here.
Only their constant ability to innovate will help make
them soar, so time will tell if Snapchat will deliver.
Data & analytics: As data has become indispensable
for any business, every person in the organization
should be empowered to access digestible
information they can take actions upon. And because
the market in the Middle East has extremely high
potential, it’s important to understand the people
who live here and their habits to truly add value to
their lives. Tools like Crowd Analyzer help break this
barrier by providing features such as automated
sentiment analysis in a variety of different Arabic
dialects, making it easier for businesses to penetrate
the region with more success.
Social media is reaching full maturity in the Middle
East. Most businesses have already adopted social
and are seeing highly positive results. The future
developments in 2017 will only make social a better
investment.
Momen Al-Adl
Data & Analytics Lead
MO4 Network
59

1. What was the most notable thing about social
media in 2016?
As an industry we’ve been talking about being
“always on” for years. Whether it’s real time
responses, real time reactions, real time campaigns,
real time engagements, real time listening, the phrase
“real time” has never been far from a meeting room,
brainstorm or strategy document. Our favourite
social media platforms collectively took this to a
whole new level in 2016, when they went “live”.
2.What does it represent?
Going “live” means that once again we have to
re-think our rules of engagement. Our small “real
time” window of opportunity to produce
client-approved digital content, created by agile
behind-the-scenes teams, has been snatched away.
Now we have to think and act like live news teams,
presenters and producers. We have to prepare for
every eventuality, with the client reviewing the final
creative execution live as it happens!
3.How important is Social Media Monitoring for
your business?
Social media monitoring is incredibly important to
our agency and clients. Balancing the ideal
requirements with technological ability and client
budget, can often be a challenge.
For global brands, social listening is an Indispensable
tool to garner insights on what consumers are saying
and how they are interacting with their brands. It also
gives them the opportunity to understand local
cultures and pick up and mitigate any potential issues
or crisis.
Kiera Doherty
Head of Digital
Weber Shandwick MENA
4. What are the primary social media channels you
feel are the most rewarding for your business?
The visual nature of Instagram, coupled with the
press media’s enthusiasm for sharing social images to
illustrate stories, has been a big opportunity for us.
We have had some great client success stories where
content we have posted on Instagram has made
headlines.
LinkedIn has continued to prove its value as the go-to
platform for leaders and professionals in Dubai, and
across the region. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al
Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the
UAE and Ruler of Dubai, used the platform to give his
followers greater understanding of the new cabinet
he’d recently appointed. His LinkedIn Influencer post
titled, ‘Why Ministers for Happiness, Tolerance, Youth
and the Future?’, was viewed more than 300,000
times in its first 48 hours and made media headlines.
Sheikh Mohammed also utilized the platform to
celebrate the upcoming 2017 Year of Giving, share his
opinion on what ‘giving’ is, and call on his followers to
find ways to give, either personally or professionally.
Alongside Sheikh Mohammed, official LinkedIn
Influencers from the UAE, of which there are only
around 500 in the world also include, HRH Princess
Haya Bint Al Hussein, and Her Excellency Noura bint
Mohammed Al Kaabi.
5. Do you expect Facebook to remain at number 1 in
the Middle East in 2017?
We rely on Facebook for many of our B2B and B2C
client campaigns. Its ability to reach and engage with
highly targeted mass and niche audiences has made
it crucial for our clients - it’s certainly not a platform
we plan to ignore in 2017. That being said, it can be a
highly competitive space, which requires constant
financial investment to generate cut through and
engagement. We are constantly looking for new,
innovative ways to be more creative, generate stand
out, and spark engagement on other platforms, as
well as Facebook.
60

Brands should re-reconsider using social media
monitoring not just for crisis alerts. The winner brands
will capture insights and signals to transform trends
into consumer's needs.
Hesham Shata
CEO
Think Marketing Magazine
Egypt
Influencer marketing is currently under utilized across
the region to a large extent. Most brands make
decisions on which influencers to use based on social
following and reach, the bigger the numbers the
better without much emphasis towards looking at
real impact. If your brand has an online marketplace
look into developing a program that requires
influencers to drive conversion, monitor closely and
reward accordingly. Sometimes influencers with
tight, close communities will perform much better
than big number, expensive alternatives.
Tarek Nasr
Managing Director
The Planet
Our reality is today more than ever before greatly
influenced and shaped by the ideas and content we
create, view, share and discuss online. Social media
has become not only the definitive reflection of the
state and evolution of brand-kind, it has become the
barometer of the state and evolution of man-kind.
Next year will see more profound integration of
digital technology and products into our daily lives
and brands will further expand on their roles as
content publishers.
Mohamed Yousri
Leo Burnett
Social Media has become the new TV for brands. If
you’re not sharing interactive video content on your
social media accounts, you’re doing it wrong. The
prevalence of live video and "consumable one-day
stories" in 2016 will only continue to grow with all the
Mohamed El Daly
Sr Social Media Manager
1000 heads
the new disruptive options that offer a better
audience experience. If you’re not using Snapchat
and Instagram Stories already, you’re definitely
missing out on reaching an easily-engaged target
audience that consists of mostly millennials,
especially with a high penetration rate among the
GCC's top markets, such as KSA and UAE.
In 2017, artificial intelligence and dark social will start
gaining more ground, mostly due to the
ever-growing rise of mobile and messaging options.
Chatbots and programmatic media buying are two
things that every brand needs to think about as not to
get left behind. Since Facebook has switched to a
pay-to-play approach, dark social will play a huge
part in driving conversion. Marketers need to start
using Facebook's (and now Instagram's) advanced
targeting and growing list of ad types as a key
strategic element for social commerce.
61

2016 was massive for social. Facebook videos really
picked up - I even remember auto-play entering the
Egyptian marketing and all of the metrics going
berserk. Microsoft acquired an ugly, counter-intuitive
website called LinkedIn for over $25bn in cash, mind
you. And Instagram introduced a unique feature that
they totally invented entirely on their own: Stories.
Indeed, Facebook is gaining lots of grounds,
especially in this part of the world. Although not as
fresh and exciting as it used to be a couple of years
ago, Facebook's growth is phenomenal and its
targeting capabilities are unmatched. That's why it's
ideal for any business. Yes it lacks organic reach. And
yes it's cluttered with every piece of content on the
face of the Earth, and doesn't allow its users to
immerse themselves to properly consume said
content, but it's still the best starting point for anyone.
The days of the free and fair internet for everyone are
over. So for everything else, there's Facebook. With a
bit of time and effort into video content, and some
cash behind the distribution, brands and content
creators can reach their target audience and build
communities around their messages. I definitely
prefer the old days of the independent blogs and the
community forums, though.
And speaking of acquisitions, perhaps Snapchat
should've sold when both Facebook and Google
came knocking. Although an interesting experiment
that broke all expectations, I personally think
Snapchat is no longer hot, and is being taken over by
Instagram. It's not just about have photography and
videography with filters in one place, it's also about
the discovery, the personlization, and above all, the
targeting capabilities offered to hose high-paying
sponsors.
While Snapchat rolled out an experimental API to
allow brands to access users with minimal
information, Instagram leverages Facebook to let
advertisers get to exactly those they're looking for.
There's just no comparison.
And as for twitter, I'm not really sure how long they're
going to be eating into their funding, before the first
major shareholder realizes that there's no hope for
revenue, let alone profit, and then pulls out, and the
entire company starts to crumble, potentially bursting
the complete tech bubble along with it. That's not
going to be fun.
Tarek Shalaby
Co-Founder & CEO
Mintrics
62
2017 will be a remarkable year. We will see changes
on how social data is perceived, collected and
analyzed. This year we will witness a stronger
approach towards video content. Most social media
platforms already started to go down this path in the
past two years, and now we will see how heavily
video content will be integrated into everyone’s
marketing efforts. If the content is King, then videos
will become the Emperor.
Mohammed Ayyad
Sr Specialist Digital Comm.
Abu Dhabi Airports Company
Social media's purpose will be to drive digital
transformation and fit within an eco-system of
integrated systems, apps, websites, devices,
marketing landscapes and big data that transport
customers through the path-to-purchase, and
post-purchase.
Elie Bassil
Chief Strategy Officer
Mirum MEA

Because of social media, an opportunity is being
prevailed by creating dialogues between brands and
humans, which has allowed brands to be more
human than ever before. Social media put the power
in the hands of consumers allowing brands to listen
to them and adapt to their needs. Brands are
expanding their main purpose of existence by being
more of an added value rather than just a money
absorber. Social media made people way more
connected, keeping businesses constantly under the
radar; the more human your brand is, the more
successful it will be. It provided a platform for the
consumer to be heard and respected, whether it is
through their suggestions or their feedback. Brands
can now speak through a humanistic perspective to
connect to their consumers.
Sherif Rafik
Digital Director
Leo Burnett - MENA
Social, especially in 2017, is going to be owned by
content in the form of proper storytelling which
emotionalizes information. We are living an
extremely fast paced time in the world social and
some brands might lose focus on that and fall in the
trap of the details versus segmentation of where their
efforts should be, i.e. where their customers live and
how to reach them. I call this era the survival of the
fastest and the relevant, to both brands and social
sites."
Hussein M. Dajani
COO
Hug Digital
Simply put, 2017 will be the year of mobile,
personalization, and privacy. With users – especially
millennials – becoming more conscious about the
content they choose to consume, brands must move
away from bulky, one-way, ad-like content in favor of
a more targeted and transparent one-to-one
communication system.
Here’s why:
55% of millennials unfollow brands that post images
that looks too much like ads (Chute). Not only that,
but 55% of consumers of all ages trust customer
photos more than branded or professional photos.
Brands need to adjust by posting more genuine
content, namely, UGC. They need to focus on
building long-term brand advocates rather than
hiring one-time influencers.
As users shift more to private, ephemeral content
gains in popularity. Apps such as Snapchat – and
copycats Instagram Story and WhatsApp status – will
continue to attract users looking for
low-maintenance/ commitment-less ways to share.
Private messaging apps are outperforming social
networks. In the UAE, WhatsApp is the most active
social platform (GWI), followed closely by Facebook.
Brands need to level up their communication in the
same way. Don’t be afraid to invest in Chatbots. Make
it personal. Get on Snapchat and Instagram Story,
show your brand’s “true face”, be transparent, and
engage with the audience (especially millennials) in a
real, personal and open manner.
Brands and marketers need to understand that
content that isn’t mobile friendly, is not worth posting.
With 80% of internet traffic in the ME region comes
from mobile users (GWI), brands need to focus on
vertical, mobile-specific content, and short-form
videos that can be seen on the go, both on mute and
with sound.
Sandra Khawand
Client Strategy Manager
1000 Heads
63

Facebook is the only channel that marketer can see
the number of customers that clicked on ad on
iPhone but later converted on desktop or the
number of people that saw an ad on desktop and
later converted on android tablet!
Also, Facebook is the only channel today that able to
do very accurate cross platform (App & Web)
re-targeting!
The first thing you should consider when choosing a
social media platform is whether or not your targeted
audience are there. The size and type of audiences
vary from platform to platform, but as a small
business owner you want to go to where your
people are. For small recruitment agency that does
not have a big budget, Linkedin should be their only
social channel to invest in.
I get asked to choose between Instagram Stories and
Snapchat, each has a base of loyal users and even,
and I can see today that users are confused between
where to devote their time, should they share their
video to both or cut one completely, but I guess after
Instagram launched the live videos and Whatsapp
got the stories, users will start cut Snapchat and focus
on Facebook properties.
Finally, each industry in need of social media
marketing but industries that touch user's day to day
lifestyle will always win like the Telecommunications,
Transportations, Food…etc
What was the most notable social media moment in
2016, in your opinion?
There are many moments to mention but If I must
mention one, it’s the "Pokemon Go". It shows how
social media can move any business quickly and help
growing an initiative to make $200 million in net
revenue globally in no time!
As for social media monitoring, Social media content
in our region is huge and we are in need for the
monitoring tools to analyse this content, listen to our
consumers and show what's happening in simple
reports and metrics but if you want to start adding
value to these insights, so add a layer of intelligence
where all your stakeholders will benefit, for example:
HR can use it to understand attitudes towards the
brand, technology can use it to know what features
your product needs to improve the service, CS can
use it to understand the type of support people want
most, advertising team can use to understand how
much impact their messaging is having on their
audience and benchmark that against the
competition and optimize for better ROI.
What are the primary social media channels you
feel are the most rewarding for your business?
Depending on the business type and country
you are targeting, and the audience you want to
target, social media channels rewarding for your
business. For example, if you are pushing fashion
so Instagram is #1 channel, if you are focusing on
Egypt market so Facebook is #1.
Facebook will remain always #1 not only because
they have the largest number of users but because it
has all type of content in one screen, its targeting,
delivery and conversion measurement is unique.
Heba Badawy
Group Portfolio Marketing Head
Souq.com
64

Crowd Analyzer have gone through literally millions of interactions and conversations on social networks such as
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, blogs, forums and news sites in order to bring to you in unprecedented
groundbreaking insights about the Middle East through State of Social Media for the year 2016, a collaboration
with PAYFORT and Hootsuite.
About Crowd Analyzer
The leading Arabic Focused Social Media Monitoring Platform in the Middle East. With clients spanning 8
countries and a team of native Arabic speakers, the platform brings unprecedented social insights such as
sentiment, dialect, relevancy, gender and location demographics and influencer mapping with the highest rates
of accuracy and coverage, changing the way businesses view social media every single day.
About PAYFORT
The most trusted Online Payment Gateway in the Middle East working with Businesses, Governments, and
Startups to maximize online payment acceptance. PAYFORT is regional expert in payment processing technology
and solutions across major markets in the GCC & Levant countries.
About Hootsuite
The most widely used platform for managing social media, offering Social Listening, Social Marketing,
Social Customer Service, Social Selling and Social Advocacy among many other solutions.
Authors
Amira Abou Shousha
Radwa Rashad
Mohamed Elsherif
About the Report
Production
Seham Syed
Mohamed Sayyed
Contributors
Ahmed Saad
Nardeen Ehab
Hootsuite Predictions Section
Ian Healey
Anina Grostern
About the Report
65

Methodology
Crowd Analyzer with PAYFORT team dived deeper to produce such an in depth report about the social media.
The Purpose of this research is to examine the GCC/MENA in terms of volume, interests and overall trends in
2016.
Section
Social Media Stats: (per country/channel)
Why UAE, KSA and UAE?
Among Top 30 active social network penetration in all countries as of January 2016.
This statistic displays the share of internet users in selected countries visiting social networking sites as of January
2016. Based on a comparison of the number of active accounts on the top social network in each country to the
population, South Korea ranked first with a social media usage penetration of 76 percent while UAE - 2nd
(68%),KSA - 25th (35%) & Egypt - 28th (30%).
We collected the data from the most popular social media advertising platforms i.e. Facebook, Twitter &
Instagram. We have specifically analyzed advertising related country profiles on these platforms to reach
cohesive insights of social media usage in the countries researched in this report.
Top Trended Brands and Topics
We gathered a lot of data from different social media network and analyzed the numbers in 2016 cross
referencing with GCC/MENA Trends and numbers while digging deeper in the most trending topics and
illustrated all these data in an incredible infographic taking you through what happened in 2016 and what people
shared on social media MENA.
Social Intelligent Insights:
Crowd Analyzer will dig deeper into the top Industries winning social media in 2016. Every Interaction and
conversation will be analyzed by Crowd Analyzer in terms of the following: (Topic/Social Account (Monitored for
30-60 Days) - Number of Impressions - Number of Interactions - Demographics- Gender and Location –
Sentiment-sentiment score-SOV- Languages/Dialect).
Sharing Economy:
Modules such as Ride Hailing applications (Uber/Careem) & others such as (Shezlong, Mumm, etc.)
Banking and Finance:
GCC/MENA reviews, demands and complaints related to all banking and finance modules as well as top
competitors per region as ranked by users.
66

Methodology
E Commerce:
Digging deeper into social media mentions, conversations and statistics related to E Commerce portals in the
Middle East (namely Souq, Jumia and Namshi) considering reviews, demands, complaints and marketing
campaigns impact and reception.
Telecom:
Digging deeper into social Telecom providers in Egypt (namely Vodafone, Orange and Etisalat) considering
reviews, demands, complaints and marketing campaigns impact and reception.
Fintech:
Digging deeper into social Fintech companies in MENA considering reviews, demands, complaints and marketing
campaigns impact and reception.
Interested Audience: Ecommerce /retailers/ Payment service providers companies and banks.
Social Media predictions 2017
Crowd Analyzer Predictions:
Crowd Analyzer touches down on major social media related news and their potential effect on Social Media in
2017 and giving you some predictions on social media monitoring and proves why it’s the one thing to do in
2017.
Hootsuite Predictions:
Hootsuite is one of the largest social media tools in the world supporting 1000s of businesses across 100s of
countries. As the social media presence in the Middle East and the broader MENA region continues to grow,
Hootsuite is uniquely positioned to comment on what the future holds and give insights on the biggest trends to
watch in 2017.
30+ Expert Talks: What is expected and needed for fruitful social media monitoring and marketing cohesively in
the Middle East for industry experts.
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• Mentions:
New posts sent about the monitored topics in social media. The new posts could be sent on social accounts
(Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram), news, blogs, or forums.
• Interaction:
Any activity made by users on a post. It can be a like, comment, share, or retweet.
• Conversation:
Any new post that has at least 1 interaction.
• Engagement Rate:
The number of conversations / the number of new posts.
• Sentiment Score:
(Total Positive Posts- Total Negative Posts) / (Total Positive Posts+ Total Negative Posts).
• Net Sentiment Score:
(Total Positive Posts- Total Negative Posts) / The total number of posts captured.
• Active Engagement:
Posting new stories, commenting, sharing, or retweeting posts. In other words, all activities except likes which are
considered passive engagement.
• People Engaged:
The number of unique users who sent new posts or interacted with any posts.
• Sentiment:
How people feel towards the post. Crowd Analyzer has automated state-of-art algorithms that categorize posts
automatically, with the ability to edit them manually to, neutral, negative or positive.
• Response Rate:
The number of people who received a reply from the company on their posts or comments divided by total
number new posts and comments sent.
• Activities:
News posts or comments.
Glossary
68

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State of social media mena 2016

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