Dubai: Scores of social media savvy residents gathered to celebrate the UAE Social Media Day (UAESMDay) on Saturday at Arjaan by Rotana with a particular focus of connecting small businesses with the community through social media.
Social Media Day is a global event first introduced by social networking news site Mashable.com in 2010. It is held in 275 cities worldwide every June 30 to celebrate the ‘Connected generation around the world.’
Now in its third year, the UAESMDay is an event by the community for the community whereby no money exchanges hands, only business cards and ideas. The event provided a platform for small businesses to interact and network with the community to learn how to harness the benefits of social media and utilise it fully.
“When you’re starting out, your cash is not that big, but you do have a lot more time to do it. So what happens is you invest that time to make sure the social media works for you,” Mita Srinivasan, event organiser, told Gulf News.
“Corporations or companies are capable of reaching out to their customers in a much better way if they can speak their language [through social media],” Zaid Al Adham, marketing and communications executive at Arjaan by Rotana, said.
Through social media, the old school word of mouth is given a facelift to suit the needs of the community.
“This is just a more sophisticated way of word of mouth. It’s using social media where the word of mouth is just magnified a little bit more,” Srinivasan added.
“Social media is the best way to get feedback on our products and services and we find that there’s a direct involvement between the customers rather than going to a third party,” Rony Dominic, a marketing executive, said.
This reliable mode of getting consumer feedback is also relatively economical.
“It has a very strong role as a very economical way to generate awareness [on your business]. If you can turn clients from Facebook, then you have spent zero dirhams to promote your events or whatever your services are and you’ve made a deal out of zero expenses,” Livia Anzaldo, a lifestyle coach who took part in the event, said.
Social media in recent years has increasingly reshaped the world and how we do things. In the fourth edition of the Arab Media Outlook, social media has grown significantly in the Arab World, with Facebook reaching up to 80 per cent of the population in 2011.
