The slides from Mohammad Hijazi's presentation at the 4th Arabian Social Media Forum held at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Kuwait on May 6 & 7, 2015.

1. SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE MIDDLE EAST:
THE GOOD, THE BAD &
THE UGLY
By Mohammad Hijazi
@mhijazi

2. WHAT IS THE ONE WORD THAT
MARKETERS NOWADAYS ARE
CHASING?

3. THE GOOD
Examples from good &
inspiring social media
campaigns from the Middle
East

4. #MYDUBAI
•Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al
Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, launched in
January 2014 the #MyDubai nitiative to
create an autobiography of Dubai through
social media.
•Open for all of the Emirate’s residents and
visitors, the initiative encourages people to
capture the real life dynamics of Dubai and
share the most compelling moments they
experience.
•People are invited to contribute by using the
hashtag #MyDubai, and will be able to
introduce the unique values and culture of the
Emirate to the world through social media,
which has become one of the most important
channels through which the world observes
Dubai.

5. #MYDUBAI

6. LBC’S CHEYEF 7ALAK

7. CITI-FURNITURE’S UGLY COUCH
•"The Ugliest Couch Contest" for furniture
retailer, Citifurniture, allowed people across
Lebanon to search for ugly couches and
share them on the Citifurniture Facebook fan
page so people could vote for them.
•The people with the most votes (and hence,
the "ugliest" couch!) won the chance to have
Citifurniture replace their couch with a
beautiful one, in addition to a range of other
prizes.
•The campaign met with a highly positive
reaction, generating over 18,000 likes in a
few weeks as well as a positive feedback.

8. VODAFONE’S SUPER TETA
•First and only digitally-oriented media campaign to
be launched in the Egyptian telecom category to
serve the business objective of pushing online
services.
•In one month:
• webisodes reached 80% of their Facebook target(16 Million)
• 15% increase in total channel video views
• E-shop traffic increased by 92%,
• Facebook gained 18% more new
• community generated 47% more interactions
• mobile application downloads increased by 20%
• 99% of the current users updated their application

9. ROYAL JORDANIAN TWEET-UP
•To raise its social media profile in the region,
Royal Jordanian Airlines invited 20 of
Jordan's top bloggers and influencers to
meet on-board for the launch of the airline's
A320 aircraft. While on board, the crew
handed out gifts, Royal Jordanian pillows
and other branded goods. The airline staff
also demonstrated Royal Jordanian's
onboard and in-flight services.

10. ROYAL JORDANIAN TWEET-UP
•Though aviation
regulations prevented the
aircraft from actually
taking off, the campaign
was well-received by the
bloggers onboard, with
1,500 tweets generated
during the event.

11. SAMSUNG LEVANT’S SECRET ADMIRER
•Twitter users were chosen to be given a special treat
on Valentine’s Day.
•The team went through each and every tweeps
personal Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and even
Foursquare profile in order to find out what they love,
need and want.
•3 gifts were sent to 9 Tweeps daily over the course of
3 days and gifts were wrapped with a card that was
customized to each person and were signed with the
hashtag #Secretadmirer_SL.
•On the last day, the card revealed that the Secret
admirer is in fact Samsung Levant.
•This generated huge social buzz and engagement.

12. WIN A TRIP TO FRANCE WITH COUQLEY
•The challenge was to create an
online campaign that would
increase the number of customers
per day eating at Couqley.
•Customers would reserve their
tables online using ReserveOut
and would automatically get free
dessert to everyone on their table
and a chance to win a trip to
France.
•In 2 months:
• 1,695 online reservations were made
for 6,195 customers.
• 4,732 complimentary desserts were
offered.
• 85% of all reservations were made
online (up from just 5%).

13. OLAY’S EYES OF ARABIA
•Olay was launching three new eye
products that promised a complete
eye makeover.
•Targeting local women from UAE
and Saudi Arabia.
•Created the region’s first 100%
online beauty pageant. One that
they could easily take part in, just
by uploading a picture of their
eyes.
•Women could also reveal more
about themselves by writing about
the personality behind the eyes.
•A market limitation was now the key
element of the campaign.

14. THE BAD
Examples where companies
or influential figures get
criticized online

15. DISCRIMINATION

16. BEING AN AMATEUR

17. GRAMMAR/LANGUAGE MISTAKES

18. PROVOCATIVE POSTS

19. NOT KNOWING YOUR AUDIENCE

20. FAKE FOLLOWERS

21. PROMOTING BAD BEHAVIOR

22. THE UGLY
Incidents where social
media backfired and went
viral

23. SAYFCO & RYMCO TWITTER WARS

24. BENIHANA KUWAIT SUES BLOOGER

25. MEA YOUTUBE INCIDENT

26. KEY TAKEAWAY
•Good conduct comes with planning and research, studying the market,
knowing the audience and choosing a good community manager.
•Mistakes happen and bad conduct occurs, but should be fixed
immediately in the relevant manner.
•Ugly conduct should not happen and could highly affect your
company’s image.

27. EVERYONE IS EMBRACING SOCIAL MEDIA.
WHY NOT YOU?

28. THANK YOU Tweet me: @mhijazi

29. SOURCES
Ema’s Top Social Media Campaigns From MENA in 2014:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/emas-top-social-media-campaigns-from-
mena-2014-ema-linaker
Middle East case studies: Beat FM wins ArabNet's best digital campaign
https://econsultancy.com/blog/9483-middle-east-case-studies-beat-fm-
wins-arabnets-best-digital-campaign/
Dubai Lynx 2015:
http://www.dubailynx.com/winners/2015/media/entry.cfm?entryid=635
&award=101&order=0&direction=1
Cloud961: Restaurants in Lebanon do not exist without social media
http://cloud961.com/blog/2013/10/restaurants-in-lebanon-do-not-
exist-without-social-media/
Andrea Maral: Olay Eyes of Arabia
http://www.andreamaral.com/Olay-Eyes-of-Arabia