Middle East

This week’s finest digital marketing infographic

It’s time again to reveal the finest digital marketing infographic we’ve seen this week.

This time it’s a look at ecommerce in the Middle East by Go-Gulf.

The stats show that there are an estimated 90 million internet users in the region and ecommerce sales are predicted to reach around $15 billion in 2015, up from $9 billion in 2012.

For more information on this topic check out our Middle East and North Africa Internet Statistics Compendium or our guide about Facebook for Businesses in MENA.

How to adapt your Facebook strategy for success in the MENA region

packshotEconsultancy has published its first Facebook for Businesses in the Middle East and North Africa best practice guide, authored by digital marketing consultant, Husam Jandal.

Focused on the region-specific factors that need to be considered when creating a Facebook page for businesses, the guide stresses the importance of understanding your audience, taking cultural and religious influences into account when pushing out content via a Facebook page.

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Q&A: Husam Jandal on SEO in the Middle East

MENA region map

Econsultancy published its first Search Engine Optimisation Best Practice Guide for the Middle East in July, authored by digital marketing consultant Husam Jandal. I spoke to Husam about his thoughts regarding SEO in the region.

The guide focused on country-specific search engine marketing strategies, and stressed the importance of understanding your audience and producing locally relevant content for both the English and Arabic-speaking population.

Below, Husam discusses the SEO trends specific to the MENA area, and some of the differences in SEO best practice between the Middle East and other regions.

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Five interesting infographics from the Middle East

Infographics are becoming more and more popular in digital marketing circles in the Middle East, particularly as the volume of statistics, market data and research increases in the region.

Here we round up five of the most interesting infographics we’ve seen in 2012, related to internet marketing, online trends, and social media. 

Stats: Social media growth and impact across the Middle East

As we move into the second half of the year, our Internet Statistics Compendium is really starting to offer many insights into how 2012 is shaping up across different regions.

The latest edition of our MENA report has seen some key social media data added from the Arab region this month, highlighting the continuing healthy adoption of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Internet ad spending resumes double-digit growth: report

The internet may not be a spring chicken, but with most ad budgets still out of proportion with where it sits in the ad world, there’s still plenty of room for growth in internet advertising spend.

Need proof of that? Look no further than Nielsen’s latest quarterly Global AdView Pulse report, which looks at ad spending across multiple channels, including the internet, television and newspapers.

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Think local: how to optimise content for search in the Middle East

Econsultancy has published its first Search Engine Optimisation Best Practice Guide for the Middle East, authored by experienced digital marketing consultant, Husam Jandal.

Focused on country-specific search engine marketing strategies, the report stresses the importance of understanding your audience and producing locally relevant content for both the English and Arabic-speaking population. 

This blog post touches on just some of the issues that marketers need to take into account when optimising web pages in the Middle East. 

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Middle East case studies: Beat FM wins ArabNet’s best digital campaign

At ArabNet’s Digital Summit in Beirut last week, Jordanian agency, Prodigi Corp, took home the prize for Best Digital Campaign for its work for radio channel, Beat FM.

The Facebook campaign asked people to share their pictures if they are a celebrity look-alike. 

More examples of innovative social media case studies are beginning to come to light in the Middle East, which is exciting for the digital industry in this region.

Sharing case studies and examples of best practice is hugely beneficial for digital as a whole, enabling companies to learn from their peers and better understand best practices and rules of engagement. 

With that in mind, here we look at Beat FM’s case study in more detail, as well as some of the other campaigns shortlisted in this category at ArabNet’s summit. 

Insights on Mobile in the Middle East from Digital Cream Dubai

When I was offered the opportunity to moderate the table on Mobile Marketing at Digital Cream Dubai, I couldn’t think of a single reason to not be there; it isn’t every day I’d get to sit down on a table with 10 client side marketers and hear about their pains and pleasure of doing mobile. And it really was equal parts both. 

There were a lot of insights that came in from the three roundtables featuring 10 marketers each.

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