Layan Damanhouri
Advertisers didn’t think twice about jumping into Snapchat’s ‘screen’ of opportunity, where Saudis rank the top users among Arab countries and second in the world.
The video messaging app quickly turned into one of the widely used social media apps in Saudi Arabia where users have been sharing more than just personal stories, from discussing social issues, posting DIY-type tutorials, to even serving as an active platform for citizen journalism.
The Financial Times recently reported that videos have gained 6 billion daily views towards the end of 2015.
Advertisers are eyeing social media as a window of opportunity for unconventional methods of marketing. As for Snapchat, famous personalities from YouTube and bloggers attracted advertisers to market for their products.
Popular accounts of Snapchat’s so-called celebrities, known as ‘influencers’, have often been approached to market for products and services.
University student Asmaa Fatani, who also runs her own business, has between 2-3 thousand followers on her Snapchat account. She markets for other people who have entrepreneurship enterprises and new projects.
“Snapchat is easier to use and less formal than traditional advertisements,” she says. “And it has a stronger impact because you can interact with people instantly.”
She adds that it’s important to consider the targeted audience. “Depending on the content that you want to market for, you choose your ‘celebrity’ or famous personality to advertise for you,” she says.
Bloggers who share brands and products on social media have created a new marketing strategy besides traditional forms of advertisement through newspapers, television and radio.
Fans seeing their celeb figure using a product is enough to stand out, says Ibrahim Yousef, managing director of hype, a digital marketing agency. “The goal is to get their attention and make it really fun.”
“It’s a must to build a story around your ad,” he says. “Don’t underestimate your fans’ intelligence by a weak, dishonest ad or you’ll eventually lose them.”
However, there is no real research done on a targeted audience before choosing these celebrities to advertise on their accounts. Yousef adds, “Snapchat doesn’t allow such statistics compared to Facebook or Twitter. It’s usually used for mass awareness or obvious targets.”
For example, a make up artist is guaranteed to have an audience mostly made up of females, he explains.
As Snapchat turns into one of the heavily trafficked social media platforms among the Kingdom’s population of 30 million people, 22 percent of Saudi Arabia’s teenagers are on Snapchat.
Yazeed Al-Rasheed, a marketing expert, says, “Young people are the most important segment to attract whether they will buy the product or not. At least you will gain their loyalty.”
Acting and replaying words from a script to market for a product is no longer the marketing strategy used nowadays with social media.
“Advertising in an indirect way has shown to be quite effective,” says Al-Rasheed. “For example, being seen using a product without boasting about it is more credible.”
