Dubai: While men continue to dominate the percentage of social media users in the Arab World, more women are using LinkedIn to search for job opportunities, showed the Arab Social Media Report 2017.

Set to be launched by the Mohammad Bin Rashid School of Government in January 2017, snapshots of the report were presented by Fadi Salem, director of Governance and Innovation Programme, during the second day of the Arab Social Media Influencers Summit on Wednesday.

The report, which includes 22 countries in the Arab World, showed that while the number of overall male social media users is double that of women, 32 per cent of Facebook users are women and 27 per cent of LinkedIn users are women.

“The number of women using social media in the region has stayed constant more or less, however, the change is seen in the number of women who are using LinkedIn in specific to approach job opportunities and for business reasons,” said Salem.

The report also showed that two-thirds of all social media users in the Arab World are youth, with the number of users above the age of 30 steadily increasing. “There is a slight maturity in the age groups using social media, with some countries in the region showing an increase of usage by those over 30 on some social media platforms,” explained Salem.

Another trend found in the study was the countries that are used most in conversation and on posts among social media users. The report showed that Saudi Arabia is mentioned most on social media followed by Yemen, Syria and the UAE.

Meanwhile, the UAE showed to be one of the countries with least usage of the Arabic language on Facebook. With Arabic being greatly used in countries such as Yemen, Egypt and Palestine, English proved to be the leading language among UAE social media users.

The report also showed that Qatar and the UAE are the only two countries with the highest Facebook penetration of more than 80 per cent of the population.

YouTube influence

Discussing the increase in the number of YouTube followers and the evolution of video content, YouTube influencer and comedian Omar Hussain told the audience at the summit the trends will continue to change.

A social media survey showed that 70 per cent of youth said the production of content has changed the society and impacted them, while 50 per cent believe it has changed their lives.

“Content on YouTube has evolved — it started from basic video clips, then moved to video series that attracted lots of followers, then moved to vlogs and now other creations like shows,” said Hussain.

He explained that while creating one episode a week used to be enough for followers, the demand for more content has moved influencers to create daily content.