Rise in Social Media Popularity in the Middle East

For its most recent advertising push, the Saudi Arabian telecommunications giant Mobily did not turn to the street or television to engage with customers. Mobily paid to promote itself on Twitter.

The use of social media exploded during the Arab Spring as people turned to cyberspace to express themselves. On the back of that, social media networks, including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, have moved into the region commercially, setting up offices to sell advertising products to companies like Mobily, which has over 200,000 Twitter followers, to capitalize on the growing audience.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/world/middleeast/social-media-firms-move-to-capitalize-on-popularity-in-middle-east.html?_r=0

This article that I found was very interesting in-regards to how the popularity of social media is growing within the Middle East. We have seen how social media has effected our society over the years. People use social media today in order to communicate with each other, express themselves, promote advertising, and so much more. Since the Arab Spring, social media has taken off in Saudi Arabia and in other places of the Middle East.

In last weeks and this weeks class we have been talking about advertising and how it is used in today's society as a tool for candidates and so much more. Advertising has been also in the Middle East in order to change the way advertising is presented in the Middle East. With the new era of advertising appearing, do to social media, we can see a new age appearing, not only in the Middle East, but all over the world.

According to the article people in Saudi Arabia are using social media, such as Twitter, more and more in order to communicate with each other. Major brand in Saudi Arabia, such as Pepsi Arabia, uses social media in order to promote their brand and advertise with everyone online. This helps them be able to keep up with the ever growing population of people using Twitter and other social media everyday. Do you think that our major brand companies use social media, as much as the brands in Saudi Arabia, to promote and advertise? Do you think that in the near future more and more brands are going to be turning to online media in order to advertise or are they going to continue to remain advertising through the newspaper and television?