Social Media on the Move

Dubai: One of the Wow factors of the Social Media Enterprise conference was the stats on the popularity of social media in the Middle East and North Africa.  The most striking thing is that mobile exceeds ADSL subscriptions by a long way, so people are interacting on the move and they love it.  There are over 1.6m mobile accounts in Saudi Arabia alone.   There are 900 local social media sites in Saudi and 6 months ago, Arabic domain names in Arabic script became available although delegates were not sure what impact this would have -  Facebook remains the big player here.   But in many parts of MENA, it's considered inappropriate for women to post pictures of themselves, and there remains big concerns about the propriety and safety of women using social media.     Many companies are successfully using social media in MENA, including Burger King, Ethihad and even Viagra.  But it's clear you need the help of local agencies who understand the cultural and religious differences of consumers here.  In Saudi male social media users exceed female users three to one, for example.

The other big topic at the conference was how companies are using Foursquare to market themselves in MENA.   People here, like everywhere else, like a bargain or special offer! This application detects your location and finds venues or shops which are very close and wish to tempt you in with special discounts or offers.  Restaurants and cafes are using this very successfully.

Across the world there are 5.3bn mobile cell subscrptions (some people have more than one of course) and nearly 1 billion people in 143 countries use 3G.  Loads of potential for growth.  And over 55s useage of mobile networking is up 12 per cent year-on-year defying stereotyping.  And as was pointed out at the conference, companies are waking up to the fact that this age group have money to spend.