Abu Dhabi: Social media giant Facebook is now driving online video as a form of storytelling, and also helping businesses improve brand favourability through targeted marketing campaigns, a senior company executive said in the capital on Wednesday.
These new forms of marketing and advertisement are today possible because of the highly connected nature of people through social media, and have already been used successfully by UAE-based businesses, said Nicola Mendelsohn, vice-president for Europe, Middle East and Africa at Facebook.
“As one of the most connected regions in the world, the Middle East and North Africa region has over 74 million people visiting Facebook each month, including 42 million people who visit daily and 62 per cent of whom are on mobile,” Mendelsohn said.
She was speaking at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit 2014, which saw industry professionals discuss the trends and challenges in the media sector.
Over the past year, the proportion of video viewing on mobile has doubled to 25 per cent of all online views. According to Mendelsohn, 76 per cent of people who watch video online say Facebook is their top source of discovery.
“Abu Dhabi is perfectly placed in this world of mobile, video and personalisation. One of the best examples is the creative video to introduce the brand new Yas Mall. Three million have seen this ad so far, and over 600,000 watched it multiple times. But it cost the mall management just 1c per view,” she said.
She also highlighted another recent campaign run by Etihad Airways during the Diwali season, which used personalised messages on the Facebook newsfeed for encouraging Indian expats to fly their families to Abu Dhabi for the festival. The airline reaped a return on investment of 4900 per cent through this campaign.
And social media penetration has further room to grow, especially if online connectivity continues to rise. On Wednesday, a survey released by international analyst firm, Strategy&, also found that nearly two-thirds of social media users in the region regularly use social networks to seek recommendations on products and network for job opportunities.
To harness the benefits of such connectivity, the Facebook executive encouraged business owners to make use of increasingly popular features, such as online video embedding.
“One billion videos are viewed globally by Facebook users on a daily basis, and about 65 per cent of this is on mobile devices. We know that online video consumption has also risen by over 500 per cent in the last two years, fuelled by mobile,” Mendelsohn said.
