Sixty nine percent of businesses across the Middle East and North Africa will increase spending on social media penetration in the coming year, according to the Digital Cream Dubai 2012 report to be released later this month. A great majority of companies surveyed plan to increase investment in offsite social media such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, with 54 percent of respondents boosting their budgets for on-site social media, such as blogs and other interactive features, up from 51 percent last year. Facebook claims 8.9 million accounts in Egypt, 4.5 million in Saudi Arabia, 3.9 million in Morocco, 2.7 million in both Tunisia and in Algeria, 2.6 million in the UAE and 1.3 million in Lebanon. According to Omnicom Media Group (OMG) report, the benefits of taking social media seriously are significant. Organizations with the deepest social media engagement increased revenue 18 percent last year, while the least active saw sales drop 6 percent. In both the UAE and Saudi Arabia, accessing Facebook is the now first online activity, with 89 percent and 86 percent of respondents respectively mentioning it, ahead of chatting on Yahoo! (73 percent and 70 percent respectively) and sending emails (76 percent and 69 percent). This is reflected in the traffic growth witnessed by social media networks. In the space of a year, the number of unique daily visitors to key social media sites almost doubled to reach more than 10 million users a day, OMG said. Facebook's audience tripled in Algeria, doubled in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and grew by 75 percent in the UAE. The number of unique visitors to forums nearly tripled in Saudi Arabia over the same period. Today, half of the region's visits to forums come from Saudi Arabia. Social media networks perform a different function than traditional sites, blending communication, entertainment and information, often in a customized format. It is this diversity that gives rise to distinctions in users' perception of social networking and how it links to their consumer habits. Last year's report showed that print media still dominated marketing spends, with a huge reliance on live events. OMG noted in particular the social media trends within the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the region's largest digital markets, saying that users in the Kingdom see social media more as a source of entertainment. UAE, on the other hand, focuses on the media's communication properties and is more discerning about brand content. There are clear differences as well in behavior between 'active' social media users and 'passive' ones, particularly in the significance of their engagement with brands. For 28 percent of Saudi active social media users, for example, 'liking' a brand indicates a purchase is imminent, it said.
