Social Media Marketing in The Middle East: Handbook: Compiled by The Socialize Team

Social Media Marketing in the
Middle East
[Handbook: Compiled by the Socialize Team]
Page 1 of 62 © Socialize (www.socialize.ae)

What is Social Media ?
In its most basic sense, social media
is a shift in how people discover, read
and share news, information and
content. It's a fusion of sociology and
technology, transforming
monologues (one to many) into
dialogues (many to many) and is the
democratization of information,
transforming people from content
readers into publishers.
Simply put, Social Media is people

connecting and sharing information
online. It is the space where your
customers and clients share
experiences, connect, make buying
decisions and create influence.

Web 1.0 was about Commerce.
We stand at crossroads where consumer generated content is the brand. It‘s all about us. We are
the online experience. We‘ve believed in: The "Great Man" theory of history is usually attributed to
the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle, who wrote that "the history of the world is but the
biography of great men." He believed that it is the few, the powerful and the famous who shape our
collective destiny as a species. That theory took a serious beating this now.
Today, it‘s no longer a story about conflict or great men – its communities and collaboration.
The new Web is a very different thing. It's a tool for bringing together the small contributions of
millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0, as if it were
a new version of some old software. But it's really a revolution. It's about the many wresting power
from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but
also change the way the world changes.
-- TIME Magazine, 2007
Web 2.0 is about People.

Traditional Marketing
• Customers found you through the yellow pages
• Word of mouth was spread by current customers
• Measuring Results meant tracking sales
• Marketing budgets went to radio, TV, newspapers
• Your business network was limited to people you met in
person
New Marketing
• Your customers Google you, research you, read reviews
about you, research your competition…before ever initiating contact with you
• Even if you are a local business, you are competing globally
• Word of mouth can be spread anytime, anywhere, by anyone…both the good and the bad.
• Measurable results means tracking sales, influence, page rankings, traffic, customer
experiences
• Customers DVR television shows to fast forward through commercials, they listen to iPods
to avoid commercials, newspapers are read online
• Your network is influenced by connections all over the world. You may not even know their
name, just their social media handle
• Your customers expect transparency and engagement

Interesting Numbers and
Statistics to Consider

Internet User Penetration in Arab States
From 2000-2009, Middle East has been the fastest growing region in the world (Internet
penetration) with a growth of 1648%, as compared to a world average of 380%.

Internet Users in Arab States : Income Groups

Internet Users in UAE: Purchase Decision Influence
Socialize along with YouGov Siraj has conducted a first of its kind survey, documenting social media
consumer behaviour in the UAE. More than 750 respondents took part in the survey.
Purchase Decision Influence
73
70
80
70
49 47
60 43
50
40
30
20
10
0
Source: Socialize UAE and YouGov

Internet Users in UAE: Interaction with Brands
Brand Interaction
81
90
80 65
70
48
60 43
40 43
50
40
30
20
10
0
Source: Socialize UAE and YouGov

Internet Marketing in UAE
IQPC, a Middle East events company asked 1,048 marketing
professionals across the MENA and GCC region 8key
questions about their role and their organisation‘s strategy
when it comes to digital marketing and its implementation.
When asked on how the global economic slowdown had

affected marketing strategies, and how far along they had
integrated digital and traditional marketing, 82% of the
respondents were going, or
were completely digital
while 87% said that they
integrated online and
offline marketing to an intermediate – advanced level !
Also, 84% of the respondents said that social media marketing is
an initiative that their company actively supports

Tools-Of-The-Trade
[ What they are and How to use them ]

Top Social Media Sites/Platforms as of 2008
Ranked by Unique Worldwide users
1. Blogger (222 million) 11. Baidu Space (40 million)

2. Facebook (200 million) 12. Friendster (31 million)
3. MySpace (126 million) 13. 56.com (29 million)
4. Wordpress (114 million) 14. Webs.com (24 million)
5. Windows Live Spaces (87 million) 15. Bebo (24 million)
6. Yahoo Geocities (69 million) 16. Scribd (23 million)
7. Flickr (64 million) 17. Lycos Tripod (23 million)
8. hi5 (58 million) 18. Tagged (22 million)
9. Orkut (46 million) 19. imeem (22 million)
10. Six Apart (46 million) 20. Netlog (21 million)

Social Tools: Dividing by category
Networking Bookmarking Video Sharing Photo Sharing Blogging
LinkedIn Digg YouTube Flickr Blogger
Facebook Delicious Blip.tv Picasa Wordpress
Myspace Stumbleupon Vimeo Fotolog Twitter
Friendster Reddit Metacafe SmugMug Tumblr
Hi5 Newsvine.com Stickam Zooomr Posterous
Google Profiles Friendfeed Photobucket Google Buzz
Foursquare Webshots
Google Wave
Social Directories – in some ways the simplest because it is the content focus is YOU. Each individual
creates a profile and the directory enables you to find and connect with people based on the information
they supply about themselves in that profile.
Social Bookmarking (also called Link Sharing) – these tools allow you to highlight and share individual
Web pages you like by sharing a link to them. People can "vote" on each link that has been shared and the
links with the most votes move to the top of the page making the site a portal to the "best" content as
filtered by the community.
Blogging – the content is your creativity, your voice. You post content on a regular basis whether it's text,
video, photos, podcasts or all of the above. Blogs enable you to be an individual publisher, and usually
enable readers to participate in the conversation by posting comments.

Social Technographics:
Your Customer‘s Social Technology
Behaviours
Social Technographics is constructed,
not as a segmentation, but as a profile
(that is, the groups overlap). That's
because the actual data shows that
people participate in multiple
behaviours, and not everyone at a
higher level on the ladder actually
does everything in the lower rungs.
Conversationalists are interesting, as
they're 56% female, more than any
other group in the ladder. The data
from this survey continues the trends
from the last two years -- Spectators
are maxing out at around 70%,
Joiners are still growing rapidly, and
Creators are still growing slowly.
Source: Forrester Research 2009

How Social Media Works
--By iCrossing
Let‘s take a look at each of the main types of social media, and how they work. These explanations
are intentionally very general, because with social media every rule seems to have an exception.
In fact, among the defining characteristics of social media are the blurring of definitions, rapid
innovation, reinvention and mash-ups. Each explanation also has a section on how to try out that
form of social media yourself, with pointers on both how to find social media that‘s relevant to you
and how you might go about creating it. If you want to really understand how social media works,
there‘s no better way than to take part in it.
Mash-ups: the combination of two or more pieces of content (or software, or websites) is one of
the phenomena in social media that make it at once so exciting, fast-moving and sometimes
bewildering. Mash-ups are possible because of the openness of social media – many websites and
software developers encourage people to play with their services and reinvent them. There are
literally hundreds of mash-ups of the Google Earth service, where people have attached
information to parts of the maps. For instance there is a UK rail service mash-up where you can
track in real time where trains are on the map. Fans of the TV series 24 have mapped locations
from the shows‘ plotlines on to a Google Earth map.
How social networks work: Social networks on the web are like contained versions

of the sprawling blog network. People joining a social network usually create a profile and then
build a network by connecting to friends and contacts in the network, or by inviting real-world
contacts and friends to join the social network.
In 2007, Facebook, a social network that originated in US colleges, became available for public use
in the UK. Its popularity quickly rocketed. Part of Facebook‘s success is its creators‘ decision to
‗open up‘ and allow anyone to develop applications and run them on Facebook - without charging
them. This has seen Facebook users able to play each other at Scrabble and Chess, compare each
others‘ tastes and send ‗virtual gifts‘, among any number of new ideas vying for attention.
Perhaps the most ‗grown-up‘ of the popular networks is LinkedIn, which allows users build their
business and professional contacts into an online network. It has been criticised for not being open
enough and for charging for too many of its services – but next to Facebook it is still the most
popular online social network among people aged 25 and over. The huge success of the ‗opening
up‘ of Facebook, as mentioned above, could be a challenge to LinkedIn‘s ‗closed‘ approach in the
future.
HOW BLOGS WORK: At its simplest, a blog is an online journal where the entries are
published with the most recent first. There are a number of features that make blogs noteworthy
and different to other websites:
Tone: Blogs tend to be written in a personal, conversational style. They are usually the work of an
identified author or group of authors.
Topic: Blogs tend to define what it is they are writing about. They can be as specific as a blog
about a book in progress or as wide in scope as my musings on life and stuff.

Links and trackbacks: the services people use to write blogs make it very easy for them to insert
links to other websites, usually in reference to an article or blog post or to provide further
information about the subject they are writing about.
Comments: each blog post has a comments section, effectively a message board for that article.
On blogs with large audiences the debates in these sections can run to hundreds of comments at a
time.
Subscription: Blogs can be subscribed to, usually via RSS technology, making it easy to keep up
with new content. Blogs are easy to set up using any of a number of services.
Reading blogs: The easiest way to read blogs is to subscribe to ones you find interesting using
the Bloglines, Google Reader or Newsgator newsreader services. A newsreader is a website or piece
of software where you can go to read a newsfeed that you are subscribed to via RSS. All blogs and
most news websites have RSS feeds attached to them. You can find blogs on topics that you‘re
interested in by using search engines like Technorati or Google Blog Search. If you find a blog
which is particularly interesting or relevant to you, have a look for its ‗blogroll‘ (list of
recommended blogs) – it‘s a great way of exploring the networks of blogs.
Local UAE Blogs: http://blog.grapeshisha.com/ - http://uaecommunity.blogspot.com –

http://dubaithoughts.blogspot.com – http://englishmanindubai.wordpress.com
HOW WIKIS WORK: Wikis are websites that allow people to contribute or edit content on
them. They are great for collaborative working, for instance creating a large document or project
plan with a team in several offices. A wiki can be as private or as open as the people who create it
want it to be.

Wikipedia: The most famous wiki is of course Wikipedia, an online encyclopaedia that was
started in 2001. It now has over 2.5 million articles in English alone6 and over a million members.
In 2005 the respected scientific journal Nature conducted a study7 into the reliability of the
scientific entries in Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica. No one was surprised that
Encyclopaedia Britannica was the more reliable of the two – what was remarkable was that it was
only marginally more accurate. The Encyclopaedia Britannica team issued a 20-page rebuttal of
the study a few months later. Others observed that while Encyclopaedia Britannica had no entries
for wiki, Wikipedia has a 2,500 word article on Encyclopaedia Britannica, its history and
methodology. But Wikipedia is more than a reference source. During a major breaking news story,
especially one which affects large numbers of people directly, such a natural disaster or political
crisis, Wikipedia acts as a collective reporting function.
Popular Wikis – http://wikipedia.com – http://wikihow.com – http://wikibooks.com –

http://wikinews.com – http://wiktionary.org
HOW PODCASTS WORK: Podcasts are audio or video files that are published on the
internet and that users can subscribe to. Sometimes ‗vodcast‘ is used to specifically describe video
services. It is the subscription feature that makes a podcast so powerful as a form of social media.
People have long been able to upload audio content to the web, but the subscription feature means
that people can build regular audiences and communities around their shows. It effectively puts
private individuals or brands on a level playing field with traditional media organisations when it
comes to competing for people‘s attention with AV content online.
Podcasts, like personal video recorders (PVRs), are part of a shift in media consumption patterns,
which increasingly sees people watching or listening to content when and where it suits them. This

is sometimes known as time-shifting. When a new
podcast is posted to the web, all the subscribers‘
podcast services
(such as iTunes) are automatically notified and
download the programme to their
computer‘s hard drive. The podcast can then be
either listened to on the computer or
downloaded onto an MP3 player, such as an iPod.
UAE Podcasts - ShuffleGazine –

GateKeepersUAE.com - http://mideastyouth.com
HOW FORUMS WORK: Internet forums are

the longest established form of online
social media. They most commonly exist around
specific topics and interests, for example cars or
music. Each discussion in a forum is known as a
thread, and many different threads can be active
simultaneously. This makes forums good places to
find and engage in a variety of detailed discussions.
They are often built into websites as an added
feature, but some exist as stand-alone entities.
Forums can be places for lively, vociferous debate, for
seeking advice on a subject, for sharing news, for
flirting, or simply for whiling away time with idle

chat. In other words, their huge variety reflects that of face-to-face conversations. The sites are
moderated by an administrator, whose role it is to remove unsuitable posts or spam. However, a
moderator will not lead or guide the discussion. This is a major difference between forums and
blogs. Blogs have a clear owner, whereas a forum‘s threads are started by its members. Forums
have a strong sense of community. Some are very enclosed, existing as ‗islands‘ of online social
activity with little or no connection to other forms of social media. This may be because forums
were around long before the term ‗social media‘ was coined, and in advance of any of the other
types of community we associate with the term.
Local Forums – http://t-break.com – http://araboo.com – http://uaeforums.org –

http://bmwclubuae.com
HOW CONTENT COMMUNITIES WORK: Content communities look a bit like social
networks – you have to register, you get a home page and you can make connections with friends.
However, they are focussed on sharing a particular type of content.
YouTube is the world‘s largest video sharing service, with over 100 million videos viewed every
day. Members of YouTube can upload videos or create their own ―channels‖ of favourite videos.
The viral nature of YouTube videos is enhanced by a feature that makes it easy for people to cut
and paste videos hosted by YouTube directly into their blogs. As well as thousands of short films
from people‘s own video cameras, webcams and camera phones, there are many clips from TV
shows and movies hosted on the service. Some people also use the service to record video blogs.
YouTube started as a small private company, but was bought by Google for $1.65 billion in October
2006.

Digg is a news and content community. Members submit links to news stories that they think will
be of interest and these are voted on by other members. Once a story has garnered about a critical
number of votes (the number varies according to how busy the site is) it will be moved to the front
page where it will receive wider attention from members as well as more casual visitors to the site.
Digg claims to receive 20 million unique visitors every month, and certainly the volume of traffic
via popular links from the service is so great that it can cause smaller companies‘ servers to crash.
As with other social media platforms, rumours of acquisition deals and massive valuations for the
service are flying around, but it remains independent and relatively small in terms of the number
of employees (around 40).
HOW MICRO-BLOGGING WORKS Micro-blogging is tool that combines elements of

blogging with instant messaging and social networking.
The clear leader in the micro-blogging field is Twitter. Other notable micro-blogging players
include Pownce and Jaiku, which offer various different features, but for the purposes of this e-
book it makes sense to focus on the Twitter format. Twitter users can send messages of up to 140
characters instantly to multiple platforms. 90% of Twitter interactions12 are not made via the
Twitter website, but via mobile text message, Instant Messaging, or a desktop application such as
Twitterific.
Its flexibility is further enhanced by the ability to subscribe to updates via RSS.
Uses of Twitter vary. It‘s popular among homeworkers and freelancers, who use it in
part as a ‗virtual watercooler‘. Other people use it simply to stay in touch with a close
network and share thoughts or start conversations. Its suitability as a vehicle for breaking news
has encouraged the BBC and CNN to introduce Twitter feeds. Even candidates for the US

Presidency have taken to Twitter (for example, Barack Obama). An important feature to note is
that Twitter can be indexed via Google. As with so much on the web, it‘s a public platform, so it‘s
worth remembering that as such your use of it may become part of your ‗permanent record‘.
Facebook
If Facebook was a country, it would be the 4th most populated country in the world, with over 350
Million Users (who have returned within the last 30 days)
5 Reasons to use Facebook for Business

1. Network: Facebook is no longer for college kids. Your friends, customers, JV partners and,
of course, your competitors are there too and Facebook
users are open to connecting.
2. Build Relationships: By engaging in conversations
with your prospects and customers, you can better adapt
your marketing and business services to meet their
needs.
3. Raise awareness about your brand: By consistently
and congruently showing up, posting relevant
information, and being a thought leader, you can increase
visibility and credibility as the expert in your area.
4. Facebook FanPage: Create a Page for your business and
share information with your fans, at no cost. Pages are
indexed and help with your businesses search engine
positioning.

5. Facebook Ads: With Facebook Social Ads, you can test out extremely targeted advertising
for minimal cost.
For your Facebook Fanpage:
 It may sound trivial, but fill in the profile of the fanpage completely. Your fanpage is
indexed by search engines for this content and it also provides as a source of information for
users. Moreover, an incomplete fanpage is just shoddy.
 Connect multiple social platforms and a hub from the brand website, to help funnel
consumers throughout the network.
 Offer something to consumers to join, that can help build a large community. Some
examples of things to offer: Coupons, free shipping, weekly deals.
 Don‘t take over unsanctioned Facebook fan pages, instead, reward the dedication of your
fans and thus, inspire others. By empowering the fans to keep their fan page, your brand
can ensure a passionate page owner
 Consider Setup a ―Landing Page‖ which is the first thing users see when they come to your
page.
 Pick a few of the many applications available to build interaction points with your users.
These applications enhance the quality of your fanpage, many fold. Click here for a list of
essential Facebook Apps for your business.
 Get a Vanity URL (Facebook.com/companyName) – it becomes easier to share and
remember by your fans.
 Understand what your fans are interested in and put content up around that. Not all content
needs to be about your company/product/services.Click here for the Facebook for business:
Super guide (All the resources you‘ll ever need!)

Twitter
Total unique visitors have grown from 475,000 in February 2008 to eight
million in the last months of 2009 and it‘s not just for kids, In February
2009, adults ages 35-49 had the largest representation on Twitter – almost 3
million unique visitors from this age group.
3 Ways companies can use Twitter for Businesses

1. As a direct marketing or public relations channel. Companies can tweet
about corporate accomplishments, distributing links to press releases or
promotional Web sites, and respond to other Twitterers' comments about the brand.
Click here for examples of how some of the big brands use Twitter.
2. As an indirect channel, when the company's employees use Twitter to enhance and
extend their personal reputations, thereby enhancing the company's reputation
Click here for example of the people behind the brands on Twitter
3. To “listen” to the customer chatter online. Twitter streams provide a rich source of
information about what customers, competitors and others are saying about a company.
Have a look at these simple tools to get started: Twitter Search, TweetDeck, Twendz

Twitter Interaction Ideas and Cautions
 Give : If you are trying to extend your influence on Twitter, you have to be willing to give
something of value away (vouchers, coupons, advice, information, products) without
expecting anything in return. If you do it right, you'll get get a following.
 Transparency: Don‘t try to hide who you are, if you‘re running a corporate accounts, or at
least be transparent about it when asked. Individuals power social networks, not faceless
corporations.
 Listen before talking: Following conversations on Twitter is like following conversations
at a lively social event. Talk about the things people care about, not yourself.
 Add context: Context in social networks is everything. If you come out of the gate talking
about your products out of context, you'll come across as self-serving and get tuned out.
Offer value first and take time to soften the ground before inserting the product.
Click here for Mashable‘s all-you-

need-to-know-about-Twitter guide
for Businesses.

A strategic approach to using Twitter
Adapted from: Ogilvy‘s 360 Degree Digital Influence group

New to Twitter? A List of nice Dubai tweeps to follow:
@chiragnd @Komal_Nishka @DavidTusing @wildpeeta

@malizomg @sanjive01 @itsdgc @ben_flanagan
@naseemfaqihi @adamflinter @faisalkhatib @amolkadam
@pkgulati @HishamWyne @zooberry @catboy_dubai
@masarat @jayinthedxb @nagham @jadhindy
@moneymunot @DubaiWriter @abhamalpani @jamesed_me
@wajihasaid @mnystedt @reuven_p @silv3rglee
@NikitaTJM @daddybird @mita56 @ shru_
@whitecrayon_ @mich1mich @DrBaher @purplenano
@presch @tomgara @ghoonk @njashanmal

Twitter Etiquette
Do
 Fill in your complete bio with a profile picture. People like to connect to people.
 Be sincere and have a personality.
 It is okay to follow / @reply people you don‘t know. Twitter is a very welcoming platform.
 ReTweet content you think your followers may find interesting. Spread the love.
 Respond to as many people are you can, helps you build relationships.
 Use hashtags and links when necessary – helps add context to your tweet.
Don’t
 Don‘t use slang, excessive misspelling and unnecessary abbreviation – it's considered
immature.
 Don‘t use profanity – don‘t say anything you wouldn‘t want your mother reading.
 Don‘t tweet too often too quickly – Spread your tweets out. Quality over quantity.
 Don‘t use twitter as a tool to just push out ‗press release‘ tweets – Twitter is a platform to
engage and not hard-sell.
 Don‘t use twitter to only post mundane details about yourself – talk to tweeps about them
instead.
 Don‘t go over the limit – If you can‘t find a way to say 140 characters then revaluate whether
you should be posting it on Twitter.

4 types of Twitter Personalities
1. The Purely Corporate Account
The purely corporate account posts corporate related content all the time.
The account itself will be named after the corporate brand itself and is used
to provide details like company achievements, special offers, news,
customer service etc. It is seen as an extension of the firm‘s PR activities.
There is no individual whose name is connected to this account, which is
seen as a corporate entity.
Example: @DuTweets: DuTweets offers latest updates, customer support

and regularly posts online coverage of local telecom provider Du.
Pros: The account is managed by a team, so you can have multiple heads working on it.
Similarly the account can stay active for longer hours, as the team works on shifts.
Cons: The account can be viewed as just an extension of a PR campaign held by the corporate,
which could result in any updates being drowned out in Corporate White Noise.

2. The Corporate Account with a Persona
Similar to the first, this kind of account also provides details like
company achievements, special offers, news, customer service
etc., and is also named after the brand itself. However the key
difference lies in the fact that there is a clear indicator as to who
is the person behind the account. This then translates to about
80% of corporate content with 20% personal content.
Example: @WildPeeta: The Twitter account of the popular

fusion shawarma store is handled by the proprietor, Mohammed
Parham, who also uses it as his personal account. He tweets mostly Wildpeeta related
issues, but occasionally comments on how his kickboxing classes were.
Pros: This kind of account humanizes the corporate entity on the internet, which allows for
easier trust building and confidence gathering.
Cons: Because it‘s only managed by one person, you limit yourself to human elements like
time and capabilities. Also, it raises the question of what happens if the person behind the
account leaves the firm

3. Employee With Corporate Association
Moving towards the other end of the spectrum of twitter accounts,

this kind of account is a personal account where 80% of content is
personal and the remaining 20% of the content is corporate
related. This is the most common sort of account found on twitter.
It represents both the person‘s individualism and also his
corporate identity.
Example: @mnystedt. Managing Editor of Dubai-based

Shufflegazine – an Apple Lifestyle Magazine – and Administrator
of EmiratesMac.com, Magnus tweets regularly and frequently about
technology news and new gadgets. However he does have a lot of content on his work as
editor of Shufflegazine and share links from the website. Seen as an authority on everything
Apple in Dubai, Magnus has built a solid personal brand around himself which is strongly
connected to Shufflegazine.
Pros: A very organic approach to twitter, this is a great way to build a network based
community that share personal and professional interests
Cons: While a person may claim that, ―my views are my own and do not represent my
firm,‖ observers will still translate content into a view held by the firm.

4. Pure Personal Account
This account type hosts purely personal content and almost no

content related to corporate or corporate brands. While the
person may post something about, ‗work,‘ no specific details are
given out, rendering the brand unknown.
Example: @NaseemFaqihi. While she is highly opinionated on

food, clothes and politics, no one knows where Naseem works.
Why? She never says. (We know: She holds a managerial role in
an international bank)
Pros: No tie to brand, rendering all previous cons moot.
Cons: Because you have no branding, you risk reducing the evangelistic opportunities for
your own personal brand.

LinkedIn
A business networking platform with a user base of 21 million people, who on
average are 41 years old and earn about $110,000 a year. Executives from all
Fortune500 companies are members. In fact, 499 of them are represented by
director-level and above employees.
Top 3 reasons and ideas to use LinkedIn:

1. Market Research: Do market research and gain knowledge with the Polls
application and share survey results with your contacts. You can also answer
questions asked by other users and show expertise without a hint of self-promotion.
2. Network: For example, find experts in your field and invite them as a guest blogger
on your blog or speaker at your event or Find vendors and contractors through
connections. Grow your network by joining industry and alumni groups related to
your business.
3. Increase search engine results: LinkedIn allows you to make your
profile/company information available for search engines to index. Combine your
social media approach: when someone asks a question in Twitter, respond in detail
on LinkedIn and link to it from Twitter.
Must-Do’s : Make sure your profile is a 100% complete, after all LinkedIn is your resume
on steroids. Recommend others, 8 out of 10 people you recommend will recommend you
back.

Foursquare
Geo Social Networking: Services that let users interact based on their physical location at a
given time.
Foursquare:
 Brings up a list of venues around you based on your
location (determined by your phone‘s GPS or cell tower)
and lets you ‗check-in‘ to them
 Lets you add a venue to the database too
 Awards points based on the frequency of the check-ins.
 Active users are awarded virtual ‗Badges‘ and the user
who checks in to a venue more than anyone else is
crowned ‗Mayor‘ of the venue
The Business Case for Foursquare:
 Restaurants reward customers who check-in frequently
 building loyalty and incentivizing users to check-in online
 helps promote the restaurant to the customer‘s followers/friends
 Location specific ‗Tips‘ and ‗Recommended‘ places help increase exposure

Tips for using YouTube for Viral Marketing
-- By David meerman scott
Ready to try out your production skills and post some hopefully buzz-generating content on
YouTube? Here are some things to keep in mind:
1. Creating a video is easy, and posting on YouTube is free.
 Shoot the video using a digital video camera and copy it to your computer. You can then
either upload the video to YouTube as is or edit it with software such as iMovie or Windows
 Movie Maker to add titles and special effects. You might shoot from different angles with
one or more cameras and then piece together the footage to create a unified final product.
 But remember, less is usually more when it comes to special effects. When you‘re ready to
upload the video, you just need to create a free YouTube account and follow the directions
to add the video.
Homemade is just fine.
 You don‘t need to hire a professional. A homemade-quality video can work well and is
sometimes preferable. We‘re bombarded with overproduced TV commercials all the time—
so often that we usually just turn off our minds when they come on. An authentic and
interesting video (rather than a slick and polished one) in which your personality shines
through can make people notice. But plan ahead and shoot several takes to get it right.
3. Your video should be no longer than three minutes (preferably shorter).
 Think very short. When people watch video, they have extremely short attention spans.

 There are millions of videos on YouTube, and it‘s very easy to click away from yours.
 Although YouTube will accept videos shorter than 10 minutes (smaller than 100 MB), try to
make yours between thirty seconds and two minutes. If you have more to say, consider
creating a series of videos rather than making one too long.
4. Make your description clear and specific.
 A critical component of your video will be its title—the name the world will associate with
your work—so think carefully about it. Make it descriptive and unique. To best promote
your video, create an accurate and interesting text blurb. Use descriptive keywords and
language that people will use when they search for videos like yours. And use the correct
categorizations on YouTube so people can find it.
5. Don’t attempt “stealth” fake customer insertions.

 Some companies attempt sneaky stealth insertions of corporate-sponsored videos made to
appear consumer-generated. A typical case might feature happy twenty-something‘s at a
party having fun while using products of a certain brand. The YouTube community is
remarkably skilled at ratting out inauthentic video, so this approach is likely to backfire and
cause harm to a brand. Remember, if your video is worth watching, viewers won‘t care that
it was submitted by a company.
6. Consider inviting your customer communities to submit video.

 One of the most effective ways to use video to drive viral marketing is for companies to
develop a contest in which users submit their own video, which then is made available for
others to see. The best would-be directors are given prizes, and their videos are usually
showcased on the company site. In some cases, the winning videos are also played on TV as

―real‖ commercials. For example, more than 100 people submitted videos for a Mentos
contest seeking the best customer-created videos of geysers made by combining the popular
mints with Diet Coke.
7. Try a series of similar videos to build interest.

 Sometimes a series of videos, such as those from Blendtec, a small company that makes
household blenders, works well. Blendtec created a huge hit with their series of YouTube
videos called "Will It Blend?"
8. Tell everyone about your video!
 When you upload your first few videos, you are likely to hear a deafening silence. You‘ll be
waiting for comments, but none will come. You‘ll check your video statistics and be
disappointed by the tiny number of viewers. Don‘t get discouraged—that‘s normal! It takes
time to build an audience. When you‘re just getting started, make sure people know it‘s
there and can find it.
 Create links to your video from your home page, product pages, or online media room.
 Mention your video in your email or off-line newsletters, and create links to your video as
part of your email signature and those of other people in your organization.
9. Make sure bloggers know about the video.
 Sending bloggers a link to the video or commenting on other people‘s blogs (and including a
link to your video) is a good way to build an audience. If you comment on blogs in the same
space as yours, you might be surprised at how quickly you will get viewers to your video.
However, when commenting on someone else‘s blog real estate, make sure you‘re on topic

and genuinely contributing to the conversation in addition to linking to your video. Don‘t
just spam bloggers with your link without adding value.
Above all, have fun! Don‘t be afraid to go out there and experiment. Video content on the Web is
still very new for marketers and communicators. But the potential to deliver information to buyers
in new and surprising ways is greater when you use a new medium. And while your competition is
still trying to figure out ―that blogging thing,‖ you can tap into the world of video and leave the
competition behind
Social Media Policy

A social media policy lays out guidelines and principles for employees to follow when
communicating in the online world.
“Companies have existing communications policies, directives that spell out the company’s
expectation when employees use the phone or email.
Since the conversation has moved to the Web, it’s important for organizations large and
small to acknowledge that and extend their existing communications policies to include
online sites.”
Scott Monty, Ford Motor Company
Resources / Sample Policies
http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php
http://123socialmedia.com/2009/01/23/social-media-policy-examples/

10 Reasons to use Social Media Marketing in
the Middle East
The Middle East, and the UAE in particular, has mostly been a retail intensive industry. Since
manufacturing has limited opportunities here, majority of the goods sold in the region are
imported FMCGs. Coupled with the fact that the services industry has seen a dramatic climb in the
last 10 years, you can safely say that the end consumer has always been the focus
This raises the question of how to pro actively engage your end customer. In a market where
traditional forms of marketing are saturated by competitors, a platform where your reach to the
end consumer would be direct and unsaturated would be ideal. With the advent of Social Media in
the last few years, a vast majority of end consumers are now on popular Social Media platforms
like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
According to Arab Media Outlook, 75% of the population of Lebanon & the UAE use Social Media
platforms. For firms this translates as an untapped marketing prospect. Thus, amongst the many
advantages of Social Media, a few that come to mind are:

1. Establish a Firm Foothold in a Young Market
In the Middle East, Social Media marketing is young. Consumers are socially active online, but
firms in the Middle East are still hesitant to tap into this market. This is could be credited to
general lack of information on how to optimize Social Media usage. By any measure, being the first
on any platform is advantageous. Thus, establishing an early foothold in Social Media in the
Middle East will have positive, long term ramifications.
2. Capitalizing Rapid Growth Rates
According to the Internet World Stats, in the last few years, the Middle East has seen a growth of
1,648.2% in internet usage. The world average for internet penetration is 25.6% whereas the
Middle East average is 28.3%, the highest in the world. This makes the present an interesting time
for firms as the steep climb in internet usage can be capitalized, and monetized, by firms willing to
explore the cavern of treasures provided by Social Media. Firms have to understand that the
consumer is already there, whether they irrespective of their online presence.
3. Flexibility in Marketing Approaches
Traditional marketing tools make switching between mass, concentrated and differentiated
approaches cumbersome and eventually cost-ineffective. The simplicity behind Social Media
platforms allows a firm to seamlessly switch between these approaches in marketing a product or
service. Thus, Social Media allows a unique flexibility for marketers wishing to reach different
segments individually, yet cater to your entire target audience.

4. Conversation
While ads are effective in delivering a message, any seasoned businessman will tell you that
nothing sells better than familiarity. When a company has a conversation with a potential client,
over and above business relations, it breeds familiarity between the firm and the end consumer.
Social Media allows firms to have genuine conversation with their customers and to create a loyal
community around your brand.
5. Optimizing Internal & External Brand Culture
A common mistake made by most firms is assuming that the brand is what the firm makes it out to
be. While a marketing guru can argue that his brand is the greatest, if the end consumer disagrees,
the argument is moot. Social Media tools let you communicate your brand effectively to your
customers through your employees. Using Social Media platforms makes your employee feel more
like a brand ambassador, as they can now visibly see the fruition of their marketing efforts.
Synergizing the internal and external brand culture can only be profitable.
6. Generate Feedback and Steer Opinions
Good Marketers want to be able to measure and gauge customer behavior. Social Media lets you
monitor real – time opinions of your brand both good and bad. Having a negative is not
necessarily a bad thing, because it provides you feedback on your product/services, which can then
be used to create a positive. The ROI (Risk of Ignoring) doesn‘t lie in getting negative feedback, but
it lies in not investing or learning from it. With Social Media, it becomes easier and quicker to turn
a negative into a positive, allowing that ever-great first impression to be a good impression.

7. Constant Change; Genuine Interest
Traditional marketers will complain about the short attention span of the end consumer and how
it‘s tiring to maintain their interest. An ad campaign if too short may not pique the interest of a
potential customer, but one which is longer than necessary may have negative ramifications.
Today‘s evolving social media tools and technologies allow firms to keep the conversation fresh.
It‘s always changing and continually seeking new outlets. Constant change allows for newer, varied
campaigns on a regular basis, persistently intriguing your end consumers.
8. Customer Service Documentation & Showcase
Quite simply, Social Media let‘s you unveil a new genre of customer service. Catering to today‘s,
‗Wired,‘ generation, where every other person is connected to the World Wide Web in some way or
another, it just provides firms with another avenue to serve their end customers. Providing real
time customer service on Social Media platforms is just another plus, in the veritable bonanza of
its advantages. Traditionally, firms are not able to showcase their customer service skills to other
consumers, so another advantage is that Social Media allows firms to document and exhibit their
levels of customer service to their target audience.
9. Real Time Research
Consumer Behaviour Insight is vital. Sometimes waiting to create, conduct, collate & compare
traditional questionnaires/surveys might not be considered inefficient. In a world of instant
gratification, consumers demand that they be gratified with near light-speed responses. Instead of
looking up a phone book or even an online database, doing a quick search for key words on Social

Media platforms provides them with the answers they seek. Social Media can create polls,
campaigns, and questionnaires almost instantly. And if you want even faster responses, you can
directly ask your consumer as to what tickles their fancy.
10. Cost Effective
Leaving the best, and most glaringly obvious, point for the end, Social Media is cost effective. Most
platforms are entirely free of cost with only few charging amounts that would barely trouble the
books. Social Media provides you the opportunity to host an online presence that caters to a
majority of your consumers at just the cost of a Happy Meal. Or just the apple pie.

Personal Branding
[ Leveraging Social Media to create
thought leadership and build a Personal
Brand ]

Personal Branding is the process by which we market ourselves to others. While many may
advocate envisioning yourself as a corporate brand, one cannot take the exact approach; after all
we need to include the human element. You wouldn‘t really attach a cheesy tagline to your name,
now would you?
We‘ve included a few tips below to get you started on Personal Branding. We hope you get a
better idea as you work through them.
15 Tips for Personal Branding

1. Be consistent with your personal brand. Your name is most likely to be your unique
proposition. If you‘ve decided to have a variant of it, stick with it everywhere.
i. Have a similar but not same bio across all platforms. Variants become
necessary to adapt it to the style and setting of the platform in question.
ii. Use the same profile picture across different networks to be easily identified.
2. Listen and monitor what is being said around your Personal Brand.
i. Do regular Google and Twitter search around your name.
ii. Setup Google alerts to be notified of any mentions of your personal brand on
the web.
3. Build a ―home-base‖ – your blog / website. If you don‘t have the resources to build a full-
fledged website, get a Tumblr / Posterous / Wordpress account and use that as your home
base. Also try creating a Google Profile Page, it‘s easy to setup and lets you link to your other
online profiles. Build a detailed ―About‖ page on your home base, with a detailed bio about
you and your business.

4. Create content around your area of expertise. If you don‘t have time to create content
regularly, share interesting and relevant content on your home base.
5. Get a domain name around your personal brand. It doesn‘t have to be a .com – the domain
can be directed to your home base. For .ae accounts, consider Instra.com
6. Comment frequently on blogs (both local and international) in the industry of your expertise.
The more you participate in conversations, the more credibility you build around yourself.
Moreover blogs/websites let you include a link with your comments, these then link back to
your home-base
7. Sign up for and maintain a LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn pages are highly ranked on Google and
the platform is a useful tool for developing and maintaining your professional network.
8. Get onto Twitter:
i. Follow and connect with local and international tweeps.
ii. Tweet - regularly and consistently – a healthy mix of professional and
personal content. The professional is to build credibility and the personal is to
build relationships.
9. Similarly setup an account on local social and professional networks too to increase your
online presence – inTheLoop.me is an example of a local professional network.
10. Add your professional qualifications and current employment information to Facebook and
link it to your professional profile.
11. Fill out your complete profile on all the platforms mentioned above. The more information
you fill in, the more likely you are to be found.
12. Tie everything together. Make sure every portal links to the rest of the portals. For example
your home base links to your LinkedIn profile, Twitter account, Facebook profile etc.
13. Do not engage in spam/push behaviour – Exercise caution when making connections and
don‘t push your business services and products too hard.

14. Instead focus on building real relationships with people across networks.
15. Keep everything you do clean, appropriate and professional. A good rule of thumb is to
not say or do anything you wouldn‘t want your mother to see.

Social Media Monitoring
and Measurement

Monitoring and Measurement
The establishment of effectiveness of Social Media campaigns can be broken down into two
distinct, but equally important steps – Monitoring and Measurement. The former is more
qualitative allowing you to listen to the buzz around your product and/or service; while the latter
helps define in quantitative terms the success of your campaign.
Monitoring
Social Media Monitoring is:

“analysing, understanding and responding to conversations about brands, products,
reputation and end-user opinion in the Social Web”
-Pier 314
For Social Media campaign managers, it is extremely easy to get lost in the big maze of the World
Wide Web. The speed at which the various social platforms function leaves them as dizzy as
confused. Moreover the time it may take to manually filter out relevant posts/tweets make the
entire endeavour far less than efficient. In such a situation, it becomes increasingly essential to
employ the use of certain tools which automate the monitoring and filtering of conversations about
a brand online.
Google trends shows often a keyword is entered in the search engine compared to the total
search volume while Google Alerts sends notification anytime a keyword appears in any new
content published on the internet.
Technorati focuses heavily on blogs letting you setup a keyword search across blogs for any
mentions.

SocialMention provides
results from multiple
platforms –Twitter, blogs,
video, comments etc. –
showing detailed analysis
like Sentiment, Top
Keywords, Top sources etc.
providing you with relevant
and useful information at a
glance.
Twitter Search: Located at
search.twitter.com , it allows
you to know what Twitter
users are saying about your
brand in real time. This
search becomes extremely important during ‗crisis management‘.
Omgili lets you track the ―buzz‖ around your search keywords mostly around review sites
and forums
Alexa and Compete are comparative website traffic reports with data including reach, rank,
page views etc.
Click here to see an exhaustive list of Social Media monitoring tools

What To Monitor ?
Given that a search is only as good as the keywords used, it becomes important that the right
search phrase is used to increase the accuracy and relevancy of search results.
Company Name
Brand Name
Company tagline
Company Executives
Company Media Spokesperson
Competition
Clients
Business Partners
Product/Service category
The above keywords used in conjunction with adjectives like ―amazing, excellent, pathetic,
sucks, rocks, hate, love‖ help paint a more clearer picture, especially on occasions that may be
either celebrative or corrective.

Measurement
When it comes to Social Media, the ‗what‘ you measure is just as important as the ‗how‘. Since
Social Media represents a shift in the paradigm of marketing communications – one where a
monologue turns into a dialogue – companies need to measure this ‗active‘ level of engagement
which is the opposite of the former ‗passive‘ consumption of media.
Engagement is
“the level of involvement, interaction, intimacy, and influence an individual has with a
brand over time”
-Forrester Research
Engagement encompasses the quantitative metrics as well as the qualitative returns which are
characteristic of the ‗Social‘ in Social Media‘. The four elements of Engagement are Involvement,
Interaction, Intimacy and Involvement.
Involvement measures the first level of contact while Interaction measures the depth of the
contact. Intimacy goes beyond interaction to measure opinion and sentiment about the brand in
the mind of a consumer. Influence tries to determine the impact on customer loyalty towards a
brand – how likely are they to recommend the brand and/or make a return purchase.

To be able to establish the success of a campaign in definite terms requires a 3 step process:
 Create a metric based on the specific objectives of the campaign
 Measure the metric with appropriate tools
 Re-evaluate the metric and its result periodically with the progress of the campaign.

Some sample metrics:
 Conversations (Replies +Mentions) / Wallposts per 100 users : This metric helps measure
conversation with and among the fans/followers of a brand. These may be tweets on
Twitter, posts/messages on Facebook. The metric allows for comparisons with other
platforms as well as with competition.
 Content distributions (ReTweets + @vias) per 100 users: This metric allows the measuring
of the ‗spread‘ of the content being pushed out by the brand on a platform in a way that can
be compared to other platforms as well as with competition.
 Increase in number of unique, repeating visitors on Website: This metric shows the number
of visitors that have now become loyal as a result of the Social Media campaign.
 Number of Customer queries resolved on Platform: This metric is useful for businesses
using Social Media platforms as a tool for customer service. By assigning a financial value to
a single resolved query, businesses can establish the returns achieved from the campaign.

 Number of Registrations / Competition Entries : Registrations on the website, competition
entries or similar metrics show actual ‗Conversion‘ from the additional traffic being brought
in from a Social Media campaign. The converted traffic is one that ‗sticks‘ and can be a true
measure of the success of the campaign.
49.3%
29.6%

5 Do’s and Don’ts for online sharing
1. Be authentic
Social media for business is about return on engagement. Connect with people, build
opportunities through dialogue which would not have otherwise occurred, then connect
them with your business.
2. Think about your profile picture
A major part of your social media personality is your avatar and your profile bio. The first
rule for avatars and bios is to stay consistent across social platforms. If you‘re sharing
information from your business account, decide whether you want your avatar to be your
company logo or the face of the president.
3. Leave a legacy
What you post stays around for a pretty long time and the information (good and bad) isn‘t
too hard to find. Your social media posts offer vast archives of information about you. This
means, what you share, post or tweet today should reinforce your brand tomorrow.
4. Stay true to your word
Making a promise you can‘t keep is worse than never having engaged your audience at all.
5. Measure and monitor
Always track the conversations happening around your brand to listen to what your
customers have to say and to determine whether your current strategy is working.
Go ahead and Experiment !

The Future Is Integrated !
As Brian Solis puts it: below are your action items for placing your company on course for the
Future of Integrating Marketing and embracing the world of social media to enhance relationships
with press, bloggers, customers and all other unforeseen influencers:
Experiment with social media as a person before jumping in as a company spokesperson

Talk to the corporate marketing team, discuss the options, and divide and conquer
Listen – find the tools that work for you (Technorati, GoogleBlogSearch, BlogPulse, etc.)
Assign a community manager or multiple managers and start commenting, reading, writing,
sharing, and participating
Participate as a contributor and not a marketer
Create company profiles and share relevant content on every important social networks – don‘t
forget to manage your presence in each one
Create videos, screencasts, and demos and upload to YouTube
Broadcast and receive relevant updates through Twitter, Plazes, or Jaiku
Webcast relevant videos
Podcast and/or host a video blog
Set up del.icio.us profiles for corporate bookmarks, industry trends, competition, and
press/blogger coverage
Create special Linked in profiles for company executives
Establish contacts in all major IMs for specific company contacts
Expand the company blog to support multiple spokespersons
Add a blogroll that links to other relevant sites and ensure that each post trackbacks to other
resources and references to increase visibility
Participate in comments
Create blog profiles in Mybloglog and Bloglines to reach dedicated users
Build company and campaign-specific profiles (where appropriate) on Facebook, Myspace, etc.
Develop your own social networks specific to the company and current activities a la Ning and
Ideastorm
Create an account and Digg relevant stories – not just related to you
Write more than one release – experiment with social and SEO releases and create new
distribution methods to get them in front of customers – the wire services are no longer the
only game in town
Analyze Web statistics to measure traffic and referring sources
What does the future of integrated marketing and communications look like? It‘s a mashup of new
media and traditional media – all with the common goal of engaging people and influencers on
their terms. The difference is that by listening, reading, and participating, corporate marketing will
be smarter and more approachable than ever before. This is how we humanize brands, create
loyalty, and earn customer's business. Let businesses be measured by their actions and not their
intentions. In the world of social media, companies will earn the community of customers they
deserve.

Let’s get social:
One Lake Plaza, 15-01

Jumeirah Lake Towers
Dubai 124628
Tel: +971 4 4308575

Fax: +971 4 4308574
Twitter: @SocializeUAE
Facebook: facebook.com/SocializeUAE
Blog: blog.socialize.ae

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Social Media Marketing in the

[Handbook: Compiled by the Socialize Team]

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Simply put, Social Media is people

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Web 2.0 is about People.

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Purchase Decision Influence

Source: Socialize UAE and YouGov

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Source: Socialize UAE and YouGov

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When asked on how the global economic slowdown had

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1. Blogger (222 million) 11. Baidu Space (40 million)

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Source: Forrester Research 2009

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Local UAE Blogs: http://blog.grapeshisha.com/ - http://uaecommunity.blogspot.com –

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Popular Wikis – http://wikipedia.com – http://wikihow.com – http://wikibooks.com –

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UAE Podcasts - ShuffleGazine –

HOW FORUMS WORK: Internet forums are

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Local Forums – http://t-break.com – http://araboo.com – http://uaeforums.org –

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HOW MICRO-BLOGGING WORKS Micro-blogging is tool that combines elements of

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5 Reasons to use Facebook for Business

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For your Facebook Fanpage:

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3 Ways companies can use Twitter for Businesses

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Click here for Mashable‘s all-you-

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@chiragnd @Komal_Nishka @DavidTusing @wildpeeta

@presch @tomgara @ghoonk @njashanmal

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1. The Purely Corporate Account

Example: @DuTweets: DuTweets offers latest updates, customer support

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Example: @WildPeeta: The Twitter account of the popular

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Moving towards the other end of the spectrum of twitter accounts,

Example: @mnystedt. Managing Editor of Dubai-based

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This account type hosts purely personal content and almost no

Example: @NaseemFaqihi. While she is highly opinionated on

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Top 3 reasons and ideas to use LinkedIn: