While brands, in general, are advised to keep the self/product promotion at a minimum when trying to reap the rewards of social media, it doesn’t mean those conversations aren’t taking place.
The impact of social media in influencing buyers’ decisions has long been known, and these helpful statistics from regional social media monitoring platform, Crowd Analyzer (taken across the last year) offer some very useful insights for digital marketeers.
1. Overall 2016 saw very strong engagement levels, with 3.7 million interactions relating to 3 of the top online retailers in the region Souq, Namshi and Jumia. Equaling 422 interactions per hour
2. The region boasted 1,468 active people (those who posted original content) per day about e-commerce.
3. The most active network in terms of interactions was Instagram (53%), followed by Facebook (28%) and Twitter (18%)
4. The engagement rate was recorded at 14.39%. Pretty high for anyone who’s been putting out content for some time
5. Saudi Arabia accounted for 57% of the activity, followed by the UAE (15%), Egypt (11%) and Kuwait (4%).
6. E-Commerce activity for the three online stores was primarily driven by males at 52%, followed by Females at 15% and businesses at 33%
7. An analysis of over 714,000 activities revealed that Arabic, at 87%, was the dominant language for conversations surrounding e-commerce. Supporting the need for bi-lingual content in the region.
All in all, some pretty strong engagement and a very positive sign for the e-commerce industry in the Middle East.
Source: Crowd AnalyzerÂ