Digital marketing in Middle East and North Africa? Don't forget email

There’s no doubt that the revolutionary Zeitgeist is having an effect in The Middle East and North Africa. What started off with a Tunisian street trader setting himself on fire has now spread across the Arab world.


At the same time, there is a social media revolution going on, fuelled by the proliferation of social networks such as Facebook and their availability by mobile devices such as mobile phones.

It is therefore very timely that eConsultancy have just released their latest report on “The State of Digital in the Middle East and North Africa”. This report looks at the relative levels of spending across the range of marketing channels in the region this year. It then compares online with offline budgets and looks at the planned investment on different types of marketing technology.

I’ll not go into too much detail here (as you should buy the report if you want to read it), but for me the most interesting information was not the adoption and use of social media as a channel for marketing…. But that

email is the most popular activity online for consumers in the Middle East

Sure, marketers are using external social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, plus on-site functionality such as forums, ratings & reviews and blogs…. But more surprisingly for me is the news that a thirty year old technology is still cutting it in the MENA digital landscape. That's definitely something to consider if you have (or are planning on having) clients in this part of the World!

A Communications Blessing, And Curse

Today the article "The Rise and Rise of Social Media: A Communications Blessing, And Curse" was published on MidEastPosts.com, the Middle East and North African equivalent of the Huffington Post. The article authored by my friend and colleague Andrew Mackay (with a little assistance from yours truly), covers the clash between traditional (professional) PR and modern day social platforms that make a PR (amateur) our of every blogger and tweeter.

There is no doubt now that social media has created a modern day revolution... but there's also a lot of meaningless noise generated in the digital echo chamber, where rumour turns to fact and that then turns into action or sentiment (however well-meaning or misguided that may be).

I agree with Andrew's title for his article, in that Social Media is a communication blessing, primarliy by connecting indviduals from anywhere and any background. But is also a curse.... and its therefore up to us to find out how to understand and master that double-edged sword.

You're not just watching a revolution

As you've probably seen recently, the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have had the Social Media 'experts' around the globe saying "I told you so".

Yep, Social Media has been given the credit for the biggest political events in the last few years. From toppling dictators through to funding the campaign for the first black American President, you can find the Web 2.0 gurus claiming the credit.

But as some technology and social commentators such as Malcolm Gladwell have stated "the French didn’t need Twitter to overthrow the monarchy and the American Revolution happened without Facebook".

Now, I'm not going to state who's right, wrong or missing the point here , as I think there's another important aspect that needs to be covered...

Social Media isn't just changing the political landscape. It's now changing everything from the way people consume media (e.g. try watching live tv events without following the back-channel of Twitter, once you've started things are never the same) or the way they shop (e.g. try asking a teenage girl not to Facebook her friends from the fitting room of TopShop).

So to those who say we're now seeing a revolution unfold in several North African countries using the different social platforms... I say think bigger.

You're not just watching a revolution, you're participating in one!

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