A newly born social brand: iTechia!
Finally, a brand that reacted well and joined the social web, a brand that has shown enormous understanding for the new rules of the web and transformed successfully: iTechia! iTechia is tech store in Saudi Arabia, has branches across main cities, known for being the first to bring the latest tech items to the Saudi market, especially Apple products. Itechia had a great challenge when one of the staff had asked a visiting mom and her disabled... Read More
How did one Hashtag Bring AL #Mara3i Brand Down
It really puzzles me how a big brand and market leader like Marai could fail miserably because of Social Media illiteracy. New media should help such brands to bond more with fans & strengthen its relationship with the consumer and the market and not vice versa. Is it that Arab brands still didn’t understand the lesson? are they underestimating social media power? are they in denial that their companies are vulnerable to criticism... Read More
The Digital Experiment: Youtube Success or “don’t pretend you don’t like free stuff”
Note: “Reem’s Digital Experiment” is a series on www.interactiveme.com where I put digital marketing formulas to the test. For this first series, I am going to attempt to create a “successful Youtube Channel by a blogger in the Middle East”. Many of my clients have asked how to do this effectively and while I often reference popular “success stories”, they aren’t my own. This is because there are so few successful youtube channels... Read More
Reem’s Digital Experiment: Creating an awesome Youtube Channel
Note: This is the first entry in a series that I have decided to call “Reem’s Digital Experiment”. I am going to attempt to create a “successful Youtube Channel by a blogger in the Middle East”. Many of my clients have asked how to do this effectively and while I often reference “success stories”, they aren’t my own. So I’m going to consolidate all my “YOUTUBE SUCCESS” research and... Read More
Social Media is about back to basic
We’ve always had one form of technology in our life, from fishing in 3,000 years ago to satellite technology today. This is all about our power of creativity and willingness to develop the past inventions to make life easier. We’ve always looked for ways to change things, especially making our everyday communications smoother and more effective. Mobile phones, text messages and emails all played a great role in that but, in the past couple... Read More
The Arab Social Media Report: A Report from the Dubai School of Government.
This week, I was at the Marcus Evans Middle East Social Media and Marketing Event as part of team InteractiveMe.com. The event was enjoyable, the speakers were well-informed and the attendees were wonderful. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Stay tuned to the site, as we’ll be posting highlights, video and commentary on the use of Social Media as a tool for Brand Awareness and marketing. As a Digital Consultant, one of my jobs is to provide... Read More
Sunsilk connects with 40,000 women in the Middle East!!
I was taken by a recent TVC for Sunsilk promoting a Facebook page! Curious about a brand that is advertising a Facebook page on TV, i went on and checked the page out to find that Sunsilk shampoo have launched a campaign called “Sunsilk Arabia” to connect with women in the region, thinking it was a great social initiative, I stated some reasons below i believe made Sunsilk reach to around 40,000 fans in less than a month: Promoting... Read More
How did AL Jazeera channel become number 1 Arab social brand in the Middle East?!
Through the report of the top 40 Arab brands in the Middle East, completed through Forbes.com in 2008, I found, unfortunately, that only 2 brands have active social media marketing activity, all other brands have abandoned profiles, un-updated twitter and YouTube accounts, or simply no presence at all! After navigating through AL Jazeera channel social activity on the web, I have noticed that the brand has vast success in connecting with people... Read More
The rise of the social customer in the MENA region!!
Social media has changed the way customers interact with brands, forever! Customers have evolved with the growth of social media, one-way-messages through traditional media channels and the interruptive method is at its lowest point in history. Customers now are engaging with different social platforms every day that are constantly influencing their behaviors and decisions, people are not putting their trust neither conviction on the so glamorous... Read More
Making “Social Media” part of your “Search Strategy”
This post is written by Humza Ijaz is a Digital Creative Director, currently working @ LBI. His interests include: Designing for Web, Looking out for new technologies and has a new hobby of studying information design. On a daily basis I am sure you come across clients who want to “leverage of social media” and want to have a social media strategy prepared for themselves. But how do you respond back to there request? Personally, I always... Read More
The First Step in Social Media Marketing
Everyone is talking about harnessing the power of social networks to further brand messages. But the key element in successfully using social media is not identifying the social network’s tools of communication, but rather understanding how people use the network.All social networks, be it facebook, myspace, youtube or twitter, are built upon the population’s contributions and interactions. If there is no one watching or participating, there... Read More
6 Reasons why you should include “Social Media” in your media plan
This post is written by Firas Steitiyeh a Social Media expert with an immense experience of over than 15 years in the Internet field. Firas is your go to guy for anything Internet related with his willingness to share his experience with those who request it, he will certainly assist you with pleasure. With focus on Social Media and Internet Marketing, Firas have helped various startups in building their online strategies and their social media presence... Read More
Facebook Toolbar Now Speaks Arabic
Originally launched in English language for the Firefox browser only, Facebook Toolbar was released today to for Internet Explorer browser as well and made both browser versions available in a total of 16 languages including Arabic. Facebook Toolbar can be used easily utilize the most common sections and applications on Facebook in a one click-away, including your Facebook home page, profile page and inbox to check out the latest direct messages.... Read More
Meet the Geek: Firas Steitiyeh Talks About His Digital Lifestyle & ProBlogging
This is an interview with a Jordanian internet marketing guy, we will unleash his digital lifestyle as well as take his point of view on blogging in the Arab World. Tarek: Can you tell us a bit about yourself? Firas: On a personal level, I was born and raised in Jordan and love anything related to technology and the Internet. I am also a full-timer at ShooFeeTV. Tarek: And what’s your life motto? Firas: In order to succeed you have to fail. Tarek:... Read More
Taya IT Launches In Beta A New Content Discovery Portal for Arabic Web
In an optimistic move towards the internet in the Arab World, a firm specialized in enterprise and internet search applications, Taya IT, announced today the launch of a new content discovery portal which serves as an independent gateway to discover and share the best content on the Arabic Web. Yajeel.com was released in beta featuring a new search engine as well as content-specific categories serving as dedicated portals to the most popular topics... Read More
It’s Not Twitter Fail Whale, It’s Iranian Cyber Army
Twitter is down! Fail Whale, Fail Whale!… Whenever Twitter is down, a holding page of a whale design appears that supposedly means that Twitter is facing large user-access capacity or on a scheduled/un-scheduled downtime. Yet, this time it was none of the mentioned. Twitter reported in the morning that there is un-scheduled downtime and they are working on resolving it, but later it turned out to be a complete hack attack through DNS. The homepage... Read More
ictQatar Aims Big On Making Qatar Digital Savvy
The Supreme Council of Information and Communication Technology (ictQATAR) is leading the strategic thinking and implementation of ICT initiatives in e-government, market development and knowledge management, e-education, e-health, e-inclusion, cyber security. Along with their latest event, Mudawanat: All About Blogging, which took place on Dec 12th, 2009 in Qatar (which we covered it through live video broadcasting and tweeting) ictQatar team launches... Read More
Twitter Top Trending Topics 2009: Iran Election, Google Wave, Michael Jackson
Twitter’s Trending Topics of 2009 is going to help everyone understand what was happening around the world showing you in a real-time coverage; whether you were following Tehran riots or geek-freak about a major new technology like Google Wave. Among all the keywords, hashtags, and phrases that proliferated throughout the year, one topic surfaced repeatedly. Twitter users found the Iranian elections the most engaging topic of the year. The terms... Read More
YouTube 2009: Most Watched Videos & Most Searched Terms
For the first time YouTube shares with us their official Most Watched lists and some of the Fastest-Rising search terms on their platform; obviously because YouTube has been dominantly connecting millions of people around the world via YouTube simple service while online video consumption is growing year-by-year and a lot of viral marketing and social media firms need to know such vital information. YouTube Official List Most Watched YouTube videos... Read More
Bil3arabi Winners: Nokia Mobile Apps Developer Competition
Winners of Nokia’s Calling All Innovators “Bil3arabi” 2009 contest, a developer competition for Arabic-language mobile applications, have been announced. 1st place prize winner The grand prize winner of $100,000 went to “Here I am” from Enpronomics in Egypt. It is a user-friendly, geo-presence application with personal safety features that enables users to call for help in emergencies, share their location with family, close friends... Read More
