Social media is a huge medium where people from all over the world have the freedom to approach it anyway they want. But this is not the end of it there’s more to it, I had an interview with Labib El Choufani; Social Media Specialist and Creative Director and online PR representative.
El Choufani owns an online company called bobolink, which is mainly a social media & Online PR company with clients from Lebanon, UAE & UK. He did an internship in England at the Music Void, a college that specializes in digital marketing for musicians and artists. And during the internship he did a diploma in digital marketing at City University London .What’s interesting about all his steps and career Labib did everything by chance.
Bobolink officially started in January 2010, before this media revolution, El Choufani created a group for Hala Ajam, where the group was a great buzz back then.
‘When I came back from England in 2010 Hala Ajam suggested that I do something with PR but online. So it was something unexpected back then and so I integrated social media as well,’ El Choufani said.
And while every body in the region is using social media for better enhancement and more exposure, El Choufani had concerns when it comes to online working.
‘I think that social media is a must. It is as important as having a mobile or an email address. On different levels and various industries social media is extremely powerful and influential. In a sense it created this whole democratic-liberal concept for everyone. And at the same time it’s not always healthy but it is there. As much as it’s fun and freethinking as much as it’s very delicate,’ Labib stated.
Bobolink work on all social media major tools, they are mainly seven; Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Youtube, Flickr, Foursquare, and Tumblr; and parallel to that they do a lot of blogging. They also write press releases in three different languages and are also responsible for the online distribution this is why it’s called PR online. They have a lot of clients and to mention some are Mona Abu Hamzeh, Haifa Wehbe, Fady Kataya, and Bassam Fattouh…
‘We did all the press releases for the social awareness campaign; ‘Together for Natural Beauty’ we did everything from A to Z. It is mainly a huge awakening campaign against the spread of plastic surgery among Arab women,’ El Choufani clarified.
In bobolink there are 4 major departments; social media tools, press releases, blogging, and personal branding. What is interesting about personal branding is that they work with their clients where they do this strategy they turn this unknown persona to a known artist; everything that has to do behind scenes work mainly. And to do that it needs to have two main components the linguistics and the visuals for the personal branding.
And so as we can see bobolink has managed to combine both, social media and PR online. While everybody on social media, some might overlook the idea of thinking how much privacy is getting invaded.
‘The only disadvantage that social media has, is the invasion of privacy. For example on twitter, celebrities weren’t that active and didn’t talk about their latest news and especially in the MENA region before. And another important detail, if there’s any tension between any two artists or so, this tension will be more exposed on social media especially if fans emphasize it,’ Labib said.
On a personal level El Choufani believes that there are no borders with social media, ‘it’s like we are all sitting on the same table. On work level I wouldn’t it consider it such an exposure while on the entertaining level it’s amazing this vast liveliness that there is,’ Labib explained.