From left, Said Aghil Baaghil and Ziad Jarrar during the open discussion session. (SG photos by Mohannad Sharawi) A“Twestival” was held in the Kingdom for the first time on March 24, to raise funds for charity. Twestival is a combination of “Twitter Festival” – which are events organized by volunteers in cities around the world. Twestival was born out of the idea that if cities were able to collaborate on an international scale, but working at a local level, it could have a spectacular impact. Since 2009, over 200 cities have participated in “Twestivals” raising close to $1.2 million for causes like education and clean water. The Jeddah event was well attended by people from different walks of life including those from charities, lecturers, students, marketing figures, media representatives and entrepreneurs. The meeting was addressed by four main speakers: Maha Taher the media relations head at the Society of Majid Bin Abdul Aziz for Development and Social Services; Hani Sabbagh, a social media expert; Ziad Jarrar, a marketing and communication expert; and Said Aghil Baaghil, known as a marketing ‘guru'. According to Maria Mhdali, the organizing supervisor of the event, the Jeddah Twestival was approved by the founder Amanda Rose about a month ago. She said that she was very proud that the volunteers in Saudi Arabia were able to organize the event in such a short time. Taher, in her speech, said that the proceeds from the event will go towards raising funds for capacity building at her organization's projects. Some of the projects include training people for jobs where they can earn a good living. “Which is better, to give a sum of money to a poor or needy family and then walk away or to teach this needy person how to earn money?” Taher noted. She said social media plays an important role in society. “We would not have been here if we were not informed via the social media services about this event. No one can deny the importance of social media in supporting various humanitarian causes.” She added that the Society of Majid Bin Abdul Aziz for Development and Social Services was relaunched to help Saudi citizens. In her speech, Sabbagh focused on social media in the world of reporting and journalism. He referred to the widely known social networking engine “Twitter” which has become a main source of global news and reports for many. “The main problem facing any blogger or twitter visitor is how to make his notes or “tweets” rather more informative and useful than just self-promotion,” said Sabbagh. Baaghil, in his address, differentiated between the roles of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, from a marketing perspective. He said Facebook is used for both entertainment and marketing, while Twitter is there mostly for news and current events. LinkedIn is used mostly for business, job recommendations and company networking. In his speech, Jarrar expanded on the pros and cons of social networking services and the web in general. He suggested that there should be a “Big Brother” kind of control over web services to avoid cyber bullying, spamming, sexual abuse and other negative usage. “As we are not the innovators of the services and only users, we can only be more aware of how to take advantage of such services and protect our dependents from the risks and hazards of abuse on the net,” he explained.
