Crowd Analyzer, the Dubai-based data intelligence provider and social media monitoring platform, has released its ‘State of Social Media 2019’ report that examines social media trends and usage, derived from over 180 million users across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
The annual report was created in collaboration with the Middle East’s leading communications, digital and social media experts – Hootsuite and APCO Worldwide.
Using concrete research methods, the study provides an in-depth overview of the languages used, gender participation, sentiment analysis and location analysis across various industries, including automotive, telecommunications, finance, banking, fintech, ride hailing, media and e-commerce. These translate into enormous amounts of intelligence that businesses can use to enhance their social media skills and thus gain a better understanding of their audience.
Speaking on the report, Ahmed Saad, CEO and Co-founder of Crowd Analyzer, said: “Our findings from this year’s report offer readers fascinating insights on how social media continues to shape the way people use, share and access content. Relevant data, information and knowledge are fundamental drivers of business success in this part of the world and are the keys to understanding audiences. Our analytics and statistics equip our clients with the tools they need to thrive and make an impact in this region.”
“One of the most digitally-centric regions for media consumption, the MENA region has some of the highest penetrations of mobile and social media use. Whether it’s a mobile app, a short film, a website or a VR experience, it is important to organize and analyze audiences and environments in the digital landscape. It is equally essential for a brand to leverage the latest technologies to stay ahead of the game and express messages in the most compelling way”, says Imad Lahad, Senior Director and Head of AI Comms Lab, APCO Worldwide.
The automotive industry was the most talked-about sector across all social media platforms, accounting for 60.7 million interactions out of the total 172.8 million interactions analyzed. In second place was the telecommunications industry with 38.4 million interactions, followed by the media industry with 22.8 million interactions. The fintech sector came in last with only 5.1 million interactions.
Out of the three analyzed categories – males, females and businesses – the last one was the most interactive, with 51.9% of businesses engaging in conversations related to fintech and 26.3% discussing the automotive industry. Conversations revolving around the telecommunications and banking sectors were mainly led by men at 79.9% and 78.8% respectively, whereas women dominated conversations about e-commerce with 14.8% and the media industry at 14.2%.
An analysis of the languages used showed Arabic to be the dominant language across all industries with the exception of fintech, where English was more commonly used. Findings revealed that 90% of posts were in Arabic, compared to only 10% in English. However, when broken down by country, the statistics present a different story – while 82% of users in Egypt and 96% of users in Saudi Arabia opted for Arabic, in the UAE, 60% of users actually preferred to post in English.
A study of the most followed social media influencers indicated that the UAE’s interests lie predominantly in culture and nationalism, with users expressing interest in leaders and artists. In Saudi Arabia, users mainly showed interest in religion, nationalism, social development and culture, whereas in Egypt, they were interested in a much broader variety of topics, including politics, religion, sports and social development.
The report also brought to light other interesting insights. For example, in the telecommunications industry, the internet was one of the most talked-about topics, but there was little interest in 5G technology, suggesting that it is still not well known in the monitored countries. Furthermore, in the media industry, horror movies took the lead when it came to on-demand TV conversations, and Twitter emerged as the most popular platform for discussing TV series overall.
“Social media platforms today are one of the highest performing customer engagement channels that meet a brand’s objective and organizations are always on a lookout looking to better understand the impact of their social strategies. The partnership between Crowd Analyzer and Hootsuite is based on a strong technical integration between the 2 platforms to create a unique unified view of the customer so marketers can deliver personalized content and messaging on the most relevant channels to achieve their greatest ROI”, said Oliver Cohen, Regional Director of Hootsuite
Crowd Analyzer uses groundbreaking technology, including artificial intelligence, proprietary machine learning and natural language processing. Spanning 10 Arab countries, the company’s client base includes major names such as Dubai Media Group, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Expo 2020, Huawei, Souq.com, DHL and Uber. In July 2018, the data intelligence provider received US$1.1 million in pre-series A funding from four leading venture capital (VC) firms in the region – Wamda Capital, Arzan Venture Capital, Faith Capital and RAED Ventures.