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Generative AI is everywhere now. You see it in content, campaigns, customer experiences, and even internal workflows. It promises speed, scale, and efficiency, but there’s a harder question sitting underneath all that progress; Do your audiences actually trust it?

Trust in the Age of AI: What Consumers Really Think About AI Generated Content

Today, PR teams aren’t just tracking media coverage and share of voice. They’re also measuring how their brand shows up in AI-generated answers, search summaries, and large language models (LLMs). This new LLM visibility layer is quickly becoming a critical part of PR performance.

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

See how one platform can power every decision across PR, communications, and marketing.

The Meltwater Blog

Blog Topics: Generative Engine Optimization, Media Intelligence, Media Relations, Social Listening, Consumer Intelligence, Influencer Marketing

Find out how you can leverage Facebook to boost your brand's online presence and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage Instagram to boost your brand's visual appeal and gain a competitive edge. Explore our category page today!

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage LinkedIN to grow your professional network and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage TikTok to elevate your brand with creative content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage X / Twitter to engage your audience effectively and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage YouTube to create engaging video content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is transforming how brands show up in AI-powered search. Explore insights, strategies, and best practices to help your content rank and resonate across conversational engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

Explore insights and strategies for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to help your brand stay visible and discoverable in AI-powered search.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.
Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

On our social listening category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around social listening and social media monitoring. Read more.

Social Listening Blogs | Category

Business Reputation Management: What does it take to add reputation management to your marketing strategy? More importantly, how do you keep your reputation sparkly and shiny? Here’s your all-access guide to online reputation management for the long term.

On our reputation management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around business reputation management. Read more.

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

From your brand's logo to your website, your social media presence to your customer support—these elements combined are what constitutes a brand in the minds of customers. But, there are thousands of other businesses that have a logo, website, social media presence, and website. So, how can you position your business on the market and make it stand out from the competition?
The key to success is branding & brand management!

On our brand management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around brand management. Build your strategy and reach your goals!

Brand Management Blogs | Category

Competitive intelligence and the act of collecting competitive data can be seen as growth drivers for a company. Our guide will help you understand the concept of competitive intelligence (CI) by answering questions such as: What is the definition of competitive intelligence? How is competitive intelligence useful to organizations? What is the goal of competitive intelligence? And more.

On our competitive intelligence category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around competitive intelligence. Learn how to stay ahead.

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

Let’s dive into the customer journey framework and how to optimize the process by creating a customer journey map and using metrics that matter when analyzing the customer journey.

On our customer journey category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

What Is Data Analytics? [Beginner’s Guide 2023]
How can I grow my business? 
How do customers interact with my newly launched product?
How do I increase the productivity of my employees?
How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?
We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

On our data analytics category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around AI and data analytics. Technical and still easy to understand.

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.
So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

On our public relations (PR) category page, you find all our blogs covering public relations and communications topics. Step up your PR game.

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.
But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!
But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

On our internal communications category page, you find all our blogs about internal comms topics. Learn about the intranet, internal newsletters, and more.

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

As the internet has taken root in more areas of our lives — everything from entertainment to shopping to paying bills and more — traditional marketing is becoming less impactful. As any marketer knows, you need to focus on where your audience is if you want to reach them. Since the average person spends about seven hours a day online, it’s no surprise that content has maintained its hold on marketers.

Here's a closer look at what content marketing is and why it matters more than ever in our digital-first economy.

On our content marketing category page, you find blogs about content marketing topics. Learn about strategies, KPIs, tips, and more. Make your content king!

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.
We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

On our influencer marketing category page, you find blogs about influencer marketing topics. Build your strategy, find influencers, and measure results.

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.

Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

On our marketing category page, you find blogs about marketing topics. Learn about all the different angles and types of marketing and improve your results.

Marketing Blogs | Category

In this guide, we want to give you a peek into the definition of social media management, the daily schedule of a social media manager, social media platforms to promote your business, and the do’s & don’ts of social media management.
Are you ready to begin the journey of becoming a social media superstar?

On our social media management category page, you find blogs about social media management topics. Build and manage your online community.

Social Media Management Blogs | Category

Building a following and using social media platforms to reach a wider audience requires a well-planned social media marketing strategy. In this guide, we’ll be looking at why social media marketing is so essential and how you can make it work for your business.

On our social media marketing category page, you find blogs about social media marketing topics. Learn how to get the highest paid social ROI!

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

In the fast-evolving realm of digital marketing and public relations, utilizing the right tools is crucial for success. Our interdisciplinary category showcases all the pertinent tools for digital marketing & PR. These tools help in enhancing your online presence and effectively reaching target groups, whether through reputation management, influencer marketing, or social media management.

On our digital marketing and PR tools category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

There’s no denying that Facebook Messenger marketing is gaining a measurable edge over more traditional communication methods and that it should be a part of your social media marketing strategy. The public’s expectations for communicating with each other fundamentally transform the way they expect to communicate with businesses. When we consider the fact that a staggering 20 billion messages are sent between people and companies every month, it’s not surprising that so many organizations are flocking to chatbots. 

While people power some messenger marketing strategies, others are driven by bots — but most are likely a combination of both. Regardless of how you fuel your campaign or whether you use Facebook Messenger marketing, Instagram Direct or WhatsApp, all messaging apps have the means of creating powerful connections with audiences in the moments that matter. If you’re interested in learning more about how companies are using Facebook Messenger for business, read on as we’re about to spill the tea!

What are the business benefits of messenger marketing?

How can marketers use Facebook Messenger for business?

Facebook Messenger, commonly known as Messenger, is a free instant messaging platform that lets users exchange photos, videos, audio, files, start group chats, interact with bots and more. The platform has come a long way since its launch back in 2008 and currently ranks as the second most downloaded app globally, just behind the main Facebook app, with over 1.3 billion monthly active users.

There’s a ton of reasons why so many companies are leveraging Facebook Messenger marketing, including benefiting from:

Tip: Learn how to use chatbots to improve your sales

Before exploring Facebook Messenger for business, we’d recommend creating a Facebook business page. Not sure how? Our Complete Beginners Guide to Creating a Facebook Page for Your Business will help. OK, now back to the creative ways that brands are thinking innovatively about messaging to build rewarding conversations with their communities...

1. Solve customer service queries and issues

Airline carrier, KLM, naturally gets a never-ending stream of customer service-related queries. So, to improve response efficiency and make it easier for their customers to chat with agents, they were keen to expand their social media services with Facebook Messenger for business. The airline knew that its audience spent a lot of time on social media, making Facebook the ideal communication platform to test. However, they also understood that people didn’t want to share sensitive travel information on a public Facebook Page. To overcome this, KLM included a “Send Message” chat widget button to its main business page, allowing audiences to ask questions. 

Since going live with their Facebook chatbot, 15% of all online boarding passes are sent via Messenger! Customers seem more than happy with this communication channel, considering KLM saw a 5-point higher average Net Promoter Score (NPS) on Messenger compared to other channels!

A Facebook study found that 59% of people who message businesses say that doing so provides faster response time than more traditional channels. Another benefit of automation is there's less need for costly human involvement. Instead, marketing teams can focus on improving critical focus areas.

Expanding on the KLM example above, when their staff receives a question via the bot, they’re automatically given a proposed answer through AI. Since the bot is trained using AI, it can learn based on the agent's action and become smarter and more efficient in real-time. The agent then decides whether the answer is correct, makes any necessary adjustments, and replies via the chat platform.

HelloFresh is another brand using Facebook Messenger for its business that has benefited from faster response times after implementing their chatbot. A high volume of incoming messages meant they desperately needed to automate the follow-up of replies since customer-service agents were required to monitor incoming Facebook messages round the clock, to keep up. To put things into perspective, it took their support team between six and twelve hours to get through all the necessary steps to resolve a customer issue from just one of these messages. In 2018, HelloFresh’s average response time to customer inquiries was five hours. Fast forward to 2019, and one rolled out messenger marketing strategy later, it’s dropped dramatically to one hour and 11 minutes. That’s a 76% decrease in response times, even though they now get 47% more messages on the platform overall!

Then we have the legendary Danish toy company LEGO, which leveraged Messenger to increase sales conversions through Facebook Messenger ads and streamlined shopping experiences. Leaning on the chatbot they playfully named Ralph, LEGO aimed to enhance the customer experience by removing customer journey friction. They did this by guiding audiences through the company's vast e-commerce catalog and offered users gift suggestions during the festive period. This was a perfect way for their marketing team to convert more potential customers on social media, simply by speaking with them at their moment of highest intent. 

Thanks to Ralph, the virtual assistant, LEGO saw an x3.4 return on Facebook Messenger ad spend, 71% lower cost per purchase for Messenger than their website and 1.9% higher value for website purchases made from click to Facebook Messenger ads! LEGO was so happy with Ralph that it implemented it again during Easter and is also now considering making Ralph a permanent feature of the brand's Facebook experience.

Every great relationship starts with a great conversation. Unlike traditional marketing, which is pretty much a one-way sales pitch, chatbots encourage two-way engagement. They’re a form of conversational marketing that allows brands to speak with their target audience and not at them. By doing so, marketers can optimize conversations by building more meaningful customer profiles and then use this additional data to create personalized drip campaigns. 

Having the ability to chat in real-time also helps position brands as being accessible, a welcomed characteristic that reinforces a positive image. Speaking of brand image, chatbots can also drive brand affinity by aligning the bot’s personality with your brand’s identity. RuPaul’s Drag Race is a great example of this. 

Their marketing team used a Facebook Messenger appropriately named “Siss that Bot,” which lets fans browse GIF summaries of each episode across the seasons, share exclusive content and play fun RuPaul games. The bot feels like being inside the show and has lots of Drag Race attitude with links and responses written in the show’s and/or drag’s tone of voice. This is just one example of how bots can help brands build stronger relationships with their audiences through more human-like dialogue.

RuPaul's Drag Race Messenger Bot Case Study

6. Help audiences find relevant content and streamline experiences

Sometimes it’s difficult to find what you need on a website due to the sheer amount of content and pages present. And this can provide a noisy and frustrating landscape for audiences to navigate. Chatbots improve the experience by reducing noise and quickly finding answers to questions, so audiences needn’t go through the uphill battle of finding the content. In turn, responsiveness helps create positive and meaningful messaging experiences.

Whole Foods uses Facebook Messenger marketing to helps customers find recipes for their next shopping trip without perusing the entire website. For example, users can search for recipes, products and food inspiration. You can even send an emoji, like a strawberry or pepper, and Messenger will reply with a recipe that includes that product! This is a prime example of how messaging provides the concierge-like experience that customers expect from brands today.

Facebook research finds that over 55% of people feel more personally connected to brands using messenger marketing and over 68% believe messaging will create better customer experiences.

To raise awareness of mental health, help people approach difficult conversations and ease some of the anxiety felt when discussing such topics, Time to Change (a campaign run by UK mental health charities Mind and Rethink Mental Illness) used Facebook Messenger marketing. Many people still feel uncomfortable opening up about our mental health, and when asked how they are, often say, “I’m fine” when we’re not. The “Ask Twice” campaign encourages people to question ‘I’m fine’ type of responses if their friend or relative is acting differently by asking how they’re doing more than once, giving them a second chance to open up.

The campaign, which was promoted via video click to messenger Instagram and Facebook ads, used Messenger to offer advice and helpful resources. In doing so, it reached more than 2.6 million people and resulted in 4,064 Messenger conversations — 26% of which pledged to help a friend in the real world.

Jo Loughran, Time to Change's Director, commented: "The Ask Twice campaign has successfully encouraged people to 'ask twice' as a way of showing genuine interest and support for someone who might be struggling with their mental health. The experience we developed gave us a way to encourage those who might be nervous, dispel common misconceptions and give small but powerful tips in an efficient and interesting way."

If your mate's acting differently, #AskTwice

Do you need to rebuild your marketing database post GDPR? Has your email marketing open rate taken a dive? Are you a small business just starting out? Messenger can help get your brand in the inbox. Brands are using this savvy bot to super-charge their contact list growth by attracting those that like their Facebook business page and turning them into subscribers. One of the ways they’re doing this is through competitions.

Messenger has the functionality to gather emails, choose a winner, and let the winner know how to redeem their prize. What’s more, it's more effective at collecting email subscribers than traditional landing page-based giveaways since Messenger can pre-populate the email address associated with a user’s account. This means it’s easier for them to opt-in and you also reduce the chance of acquiring false emails or addresses with errors.

To help increase sales in Egypt, 7Up, the Pepsi Co-owned lemon and lime sparkling drink, looked to Messenger to help position the beverage as something that could be enjoyed over a meal. To do this, they created engaging Instagram and Facebook Messenger ads that featured catchy images and jingles and launched them over the Ramadan period. Each Facebook Messenger ad contained information on how to claim a 75% discount on delivery from one of the region's leading digital food delivery platforms when 7Up was included as part of a meal. The discount code promoted in the ad was then sent by Messenger to all those that enquired...and this clever mix of Facebook Messenger ads paid off! Despite the brand planning to have the promotion run for two weeks, all 500,000 coupons were redeemed within 3 days! 

Online food ordering company, Uber Eats UAE, also saw success from using a similar Facebook Messenger ad tactic. 

To help increase first-time orders, they opted for a split test using two different campaigns. One was a control campaign using link ads and the other was a test campaign using click-to-Messenger ads. Both Facebook ads featured identical creatives, but the control campaign let people click through to the Uber Eats app and the test campaign directly to the chat. The result? The messenger marketing tactic proved more powerful, delivering 6x more first orders compared to ads that clicked to the app!

The idea of messenger marketing is to create a frictionless experience for customers by reducing barriers in their customer journey. While all of the above examples have enhanced experiences in one way or another, a few other companies have gone above and beyond. SEPHORA is one of them, having topped audiences’ visual expectations in messaging when they rolled out an immersive augmented reality experience.

After launching in 2018, the virtual and physical worlds were brought closer together when branded AR camera effects were embedded into the Facebook Messenger platform to help drive awareness, consideration or purchases. This helped solve real online shopping challenges, like not being able to visualize a product before buying it. However, with SEPHORA's AR experience, you can try on six different looks, each incorporating three beauty products for eyes, cheeks and lips. For such an easy-to-use feature, it sure does make all the difference to the sales process! 

Sephora Animation

So there you have it, 10 creative ways marketing teams can use Facebook Messenger marketing:

Solve customer service queries and issues

Hopefully, this article has shown how nifty a Facebook messenger ad and bots can be for increasing marketing strategy ROI for both small businesses and large brands. If Facebook messenger marketing is something you’re looking to roll out, make sure your messenger strategy is aligned with your wider Facebook strategy. Have another cool use case for messenger? Tweet us and we’ll include it - @Meltwater!

10 Facebook Messenger Marketing Ideas

You’ve heard of organic posts and boosted posts, but have you heard of a “dark post” on social media? 

Dark posts are unique, targeted ads. The only difference is that compared to boosted posts and organic posts, dark posts don’t appear on a user’s timeline organically. They only show up as sponsored content in the feeds of the users you are targeting directly.

Dark posts can be an effective way to test specific messages and calls-to-action with audience segments or different social platforms. Boosted posts, on the other hand, allow you to extend the reach of a post you’ve already published to your various social media accounts. Finally, your best organic posts can later be used as boosted posts to increase engagement.

So what’s the best social media strategy? We’re breaking down each major social media network and what type of content works best.

Instagram: Organic Posts + Boosted Posts + Dark Posts

Did you know that 76% of American consumers purchased a product after seeing a brand’s social post? Or that 69% of all adults in the US are using Facebook? 

Facebook is the perfect platform to perfect your paid social media strategy using boosted posts and dark posts. The reason being is that only a small percentage of your organic posts will actually be seen by your followers in the feed.

Boosted posts and dark posts on Facebook are the best option to get your content in front of more people.

When it comes to boosted posts on Facebook, the best strategy is to boost your top-performing organic content. Let your audience decide what they like best. Hair Works strategically boosts top content as a way to keep their Facebooks ads fresh:

One important reason that brands utilize dark posts is to complete A/B split testing and refine and optimize ads, testing different elements and audiences.

Users don’t need to be following your account to see your content. For example, I don’t follow Squarespace, but I was targeted with a well-placed dark post on Facebook: 

With dark posts, you have more control over what your audience sees, and an easy way to experiment with expanding your audience to new segments, and see how they react.

Instagram is one of the largest and fastest-growing platforms on the planet. Users of all kinds flood the platform every day to follow their favorite brands, celebrities, influencers, friends, and family. 

That is why we recommend using all types of content on Instagram. 

No matter what type of content you are creating for Instagram, it should all work together to tell one cohesive story. Your organic content should fit the narrative of your boosted content, which should also reinforce your advertising (dark posts) content.

Athletic Brewing, for example, takes advantage of dynamic content and ads across the Instagram feed and Instagram Stories. This allows them to meet and engage with their audience (and potential customers) on various surfaces:

The best part about Instagram advertising is that brands have the option to post photo ads, video ads, carousel ads, or Stories ads. These different types of interactive content can help increase engagement and conversion. 

Fact: 130 million Instagram users tap on shopping posts every month.

Today, more content is produced on Twitter and other social media platforms than ever before in history. It's content overload and many social media users are feeling it.

But with content overload comes an increasing demand for high-quality content on Twitter. That is your brand's opportunity to stand out in the feed using only organic content.

There are a few key strategies for ensuring that your organic content performs well on Twitter. Those include:

Establishing your brand voice. Your brand voice should be natural, engaging, and written as if it were a real human talking

Actively engaging with your community. Twitter is not only a great place to post original content, but it’s also a platform to connect with audience members. Use comments, direct messages, and Retweets to create a thriving community.

Experiment with rich media content. Your Twitter content should include a variety of media types such as videos, photos, GIFs, memes, text-only, links, and more. Use an array of content at your disposal to switch it up and keep things fresh.

CROSSNET creates on-brand video content to help showcase their product on Twitter, drive traffic to their website, and increases purchases:

Notice how natural the language in the Tweet sounds, and they threw in an emoji for a little extra personality.

YouTube is the second-largest search engine globally, right behind Google. That’s not bad for a social media platform. Billions of hours of video are watched on YouTube every month by audiences around the world.

One of the great things about YouTube is that it’s the perfect platform for both educational and entertaining content. Meaning, that if your brand is much more functional (educational) than it is glamorous (entertaining), there are sure to be people on YouTube that want to learn from you.

REI, for example, recently created an entire YouTube series call “How-to from Home”, which features everyday people sharing some at-home tips and tricks for outdoor lovers and adventurers alike: 

Remember, YouTube is more than just a social media platform, it’s a search engine. The same SEO rules that you would apply to your website are relevant to YouTube. A consumer and audience intelligence platform can come in handy to research how certain keywords and trends are evolving and even help you zero in on ideas for your next video. Also, check out our YouTube SEO guide!

Each major social media platform is like its own secret society. There are unspoken nuances, rules of engagement, trends, influencers, and types of content that work best. The insights from this article are just a start to what’s possible with organic posts, boosted posts, and dark posts. 

When building a social media strategy, it’s important for your brand to experiment early and often with different types of content. What works on Facebook won’t hold true for YouTube, and vice-versa.  

Dark Post and Organic Posts Explained: What Works Best

The world we live in is driven by technology and innovation, especially in the marketing, PR and sales arenas. In the past, traditional media, such as print advertising and public broadcasting, mostly lived offline - and consumers interacted with brands, in stores or at home. 

If buyers had a problem with your product or service, they would have to go through the arduous process of physically submitting complaints and waiting for them to be aired on various channels. Even in the early stages of technology in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), broadcast media was the main driving force of news and advertising, which is not the case today. 

Today, the media is largely driven by consumers and commentators on social platforms. Influence comes from “real” people online, as opposed to being solely dictated by big corporates and media conglomerates. And while censorship abounds, consumer sentiment is still a key factor when it comes to brand recommendations and growth. 

“A 2016 survey conducted by Northwestern University in Qatar shows that Emirati nationals are highly active on social media. The country has the highest per-capita mobile phone penetration in the Arab world, estimated at 80.6%, meaning that social media is readily available”. -  ICFUAE

In order to fully get to grips with the new UAE media landscape, it’s important to understand the history of media here and the context this offers marketers today.

Here you can find more information about our Media Monitoring Solution in Arabic.

Did you know? Meltwater's interface is now available in Arabic!

Pre-UAE, the media landscape in the Trucial States was heavily impacted by British infrastructure. It lacked the literacy and development needed to spur on mass media as quickly as it emerged in other parts of the world. In fact, modern mass media outlets weren’t around until the late sixties, when Abu Dhabi Radio and Television came into fruition. At the same time, a few weekly newspapers started circulating. 

The first daily newspaper, only came about a year before the UAE was officially formed. From here, the UAE media landscape grew and a lot of effort was made to appeal to the diverse population of the Emirates. The launch of Dubai 33 in 1977 meant a new world of television, geared towards expats, was now available. New daily newspapers did emerge, some of them in English - although a number of them had private ownership - showing a vested interest in diversifying media in the area. The Ministry of Culture began to put the infrastructure in place that would support new media coming to the fore. 

Of course, this expansion meant that laws would be put in place to regulate what was shown, starting with the Press and Publications Law in 1980. This law effectively gave government the legal right to censor content, regardless of whether it was locally produced or from international sources. Censorship brought a lot of criticism to these leaders, the ruling family and allied states, especially as any information that could “damage” the Emirati economy was banned under defamation. 

The 1990s saw an incredible shift in UAE broadcasting...

The 1990s were an exciting and challenging time for media, given the growth of satellite television, which allowed broadcasters in Abu Dhabi and Dubai to start sharing their content with global audiences. At the same time, local media continued to expand. 

But perhaps the most important and significant event of the time was the advent of the first media free zone in 2002, which allowed foreign media to create content for international audiences - and they weren’t required to pay tax on the content they shared. 

Today, there are still media laws that affect these designated areas but there are now 4 of them, in Dubai, Fujairah, Abu Dhabi and Ras al-Khaimah. This is significant because these zones have helped create a media center which international broadcasters, such as the BBC and CNN and Al-Arabiya, make frequent use of. 

In the mid-90s, the internet became available to the public and infrastructure was put in place, across the country. In fact, today, the UAE is competitively networked and benchmarked among the most connected regions in the world, coming in at number 26 (World Economic Forum Ranking). It’s the front front runner in terms of connectivity in Qatar and the highest ranked state in the Arab nation. But, using the internet in the UAE is a strictly regulated exercise due to the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), which can affect censorship or repercussions for sites that are considered amoral. 

Number of social media users per 100 people, in the MENA region (Greater Middle East)

Today, a conflict exists between vast media consumption and regulations in the UAE and the MENA regions, characterised by self and governmental censorship.

Tip: Learn how to do social media branding.

The UAE has one of the highest television viewership rates in the world (86% daily)*

Most of us choose to watch international channels via satellite.**

Radio is a popular communications channel (78% daily).***

International music radio like  Virgin Radio Dubai (Western contemporary), City 101.6 (Bollywood), and Al-Arabiya 99.0 (Arabic music) are by far the most listened to stations.

In terms of talk and news, Dubai Eye 103.8  leads in popularity. 

We love to read newspapers (56% daily) despite censorship. 

We Are very active on social media with the highest per-capita mobile phone penetration in the Arab world (80.6%). 

Social media usage is currently at 95% for Whatsapp, 82% on Facebook, 81% on YouTube, 60% on Instagram and 55% on Twitter. ****

[*] https://www.thenational.ae/business/technology/uae-is-a-nation-of-television-addicts-survey-finds-1.310172

[**] https://english.alarabiya.net/en/media/television-and-radio/2014/02/05/MBC-channels-top-UAE-television-rankings.html

[****] Most Used Social Media Platforms in UAE 2016. Source: Northwestern University in Qatar, 2016 Media Use in Middle East Survey.

Tip: Take a look at more UAE social media statistics.

Influencers: [March 6 of 2018] Social media influencers can’t just post as they’d like in the UAE. A regulatory body exists to ensure this. The National Media Council, announced new guidelines for UAE social media influencers:


The UAE logo: [November 2019], the UAE recently chose 49 artists, (seven from each emirate) to create a new logo for the UAE in keeping with a national branding campaign. 


Following Covid-19: [March 2020] after Covid-19, social media and video streaming platforms grew rapidly. YouTube saw a 16% month-on-month increase in users during March, whereas Facebook and Twitter experienced 17 % and 22% monthly increases. 

The challenges we face today as marketers

In many ways, the influx of visitors and the temporary population has presented a number of challenges for us as marketers. With this sudden fast-paced change in the buyer landscape, the UAE has been somewhat forced into embracing technology and marketing as a necessity, drawing attention with the high disposable income of our population. 

Brands have capitalised on this burst in new buying opportunities, and the use of marketing tools such as media monitoring software has never been more meaningful. But this “newer” version of our market comes with its own pitfalls of consumer trends and culture, as well as a Shariah state law shaping the kinds of advertising you can show to audiences. We look at what media monitoring is like in the UAE, the challenges and how international brands tailor themselves to fit this framework. 

Above Harper’s Bazaar Arabia showcases fashionable abayas

Apple is another example of a brand that appeals without offending, creating tailored Ramadan celebration iPhone advertisements and features. The Holy Month of Ramadan is practiced throughout the UAE, and respecting this month is very important for many of us as UAE consumers. According to TheDrum.com, Apple’s Ramadan campaign captures the reflective purpose of the Holy Month through the lens of the iPhone XS - Muslims taking time for self-reflection, and to connect with friends and family, complete with features to help people observe. The campaign further cemented Apples stronghold on the UAE market. 

Higher buying power comes with a perception of ownership and expectation from brands

Many of us understand the power of resources and are not afraid to be vocal about brands on social platforms. This might seem like a daunting space for businesses to operate in, but if marketers do their research and remain respectful of culture, this space will allow for great loyalty, trust and growth. Brands in the UAE that have successfully established their presence include Nescafe, Emirates - the national air carrier, Mercedes-Benz and Ford to name a few.

Mobile UX and responsiveness is becoming an increased focus considering the significant role of mobile usage

An increasing focus on user experience design and incorporating technology into everyday life means marketers can no longer rely on content over experience. According to Entrepreneur Middle East, in 2016 the UAE had the third highest mobile commerce usage rate, with 40% of the population having purchased products via mobile - and this number increases exponentially with the pandemic encouraging people to buy online. 

We can look to  Virgin Mobile as an example. Uniquely positioned as the first digital mobile brand in the UAE, Virgin Mobile is revered for brand excellence and uses an omni-brand experience to connect with users digitally on various platforms: from mobile to their interactive in-store kiosks located at Virgin Megastores across the UAE.

Embracing technology is opening doors for both consumers and brands

With a strong currency, our market typically has a large disposable income average and the desire to be on the cusp of all new things tech. This is where specific marketing such as Virtual Reality (VR) becomes a popular concept and brands have seen this opportunity to merge different sectors with technology of this kind. 

A good example of this is in tourism and VR working hand-in-hand; with a VR game created for the user to be the hero and stop a VR cyber attack on one of Dubai’s most treasured tourism sites, the Burj Khalifa. The sheer breathtaking reality of this game, makes users feel like they are truly climbing one of the tallest buildings in the world. 

This is a great way to marry tech with tourism and is a useful mechanism as this game can be applied to several skyscrapers in the UAE. Similarly, there have been major investments in Artificial intelligence. In fact, AI is expected to contribute almost 14% of the UAE’s GDP by 2030, equivalent to $96bn.

Media monitoring helps brands gain some control over the social situations they find themselves in online. Doing this, in a marketing and PR context, refers to using software that scans millions of social mentions and data points, online, through key phrase searches. As a result researches and strategists can gather and measure campaigns, marketing initiatives, competitors and industry news. 

As a brand custodian, this allows you to: 

Find out what audiences your audiences are most intrigued by 

Discover how consumers feel about your campaigns, based on sentiment analysis

Learn more about what products and trends your consumers love, and love to hate

Identify the beginning of a crisis before it’s in full swing - or prevent it entirely

Create detailed personas and target your messaging to highly tailored audiences

“The Middle East is a vastly diverse region, mixed with many local cultures and traditions, as in Africa, but, with an added demographic injection of western and far eastern expat cultures, creating a very culturally distinct mixing pot. Understanding each cultural touch point, pain point and style of communication adds to your brand's ability to better communicate and support their customers and develop campaigns that speak to each user persona throughout their region”. - Brett Magill, Global Social Media Manager

Identify complaints and untagged mentions and respond to them before they damage your brand

Nurture relationships from positive mentions

Internally, marketing PR and comms professionals face a plethora of challenges when it comes to combining data and creativity. Whether it’s validating resources spent on specific campaigns, research and reporting or getting buy-in from higher-ups to allocate resources to marketing. With the right tools, you can start to elevate how your business operates in the media, from the inside out. 

Pull accurate data for strategy, reporting and measuring ROI

Using standard report functionality and vanity metrics will only get you so far. Dig deeper to monitor corresponding topics, competitor brands and influential figures in the public news and social sector, and put together a media monitoring analysis report.

Use accurate data, presented on a centralised dashboard, to monitor the correlation between engagement, sentiment and sales. 

“Generally, client's are more open to brand awareness only communications, as budgets have been more plentiful in the past, however, trackable return on investment in the form of leads or downloads is naturally a core pillar alongside brand awareness” says Magill. 

Avoid cherry-picking and test the assumptions you believe to be true

All too often, we accept fallacy as fact. When it comes to the changing nature of the UAE consumer, it pays to test assumptions. This is best done through comprehensive research in real-time. 

Monitor the performance of competing brands with top mentions, and insights into their audiences to check for overlap. 

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