The future of social media in the GCC was discussed recently at a Government Social Media Summit that opened at Ritz Carlton DIFC. In general, the event focused on how to bring social media into the core strategy of an organization.
In his keynote speech, Mohammad Al-Ghanim, director-general of Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), said: “There are more than 13 billion Facebook visits in the UAE and we are witnessing an increased use of technology and devices.”
Addressing the two-day summit, Saeed K. Al-Daheri, information systems adviser at UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said social media should be part of the overall government services as the UAE has announced the mobile-government program.
The summit pointed out that the UAE is a world leader in smart phone penetration, at 73.8 percent. Saudi Arabia comes in third, at 72.8 percent. While other GCC nations do not make the top 15, still an increasingly large number of people are "connected." Three out of four in the two most populous countries in the GCC - Saudi Arabia and the UAE — account for 80 percent of the GCC population.
Al-Ghanim was very clear on the role of social media in the UAE government: “There has never been a more poignant time to speak about government’s relationship with social media. The concerted focus on how government departments can better incorporate social networks into communications strategies is one that officials right across the world are engaged in. The UAE operates right at the cutting edge of this international trend and events such as these are crucial to continuation of this development. Both citizens and business in the UAE currently enjoy a state of digital preparedness that is the direct result of our Leadership’s foresight. Recognizing the need for social media’s prominent place in government communications is no longer optional, but a necessity.”
Meanwhile, Hassan Dawood, head of the Dubai office of Al-Sayegh Media, said: “Text communication is dead and visual is the future. People are interested in watching a movie than reading it for several days. The history of media has shown us that people value the content.”
Future role of social media in focus
