he Gulf region’s social media experts gathered at the GCC Government Social Media Summit in Dubai to share the experiences in the field of the sector. The experts from public and private sector underlined the need to harness the potential of the social media as a tool to reach out to the people and address their concerns in an effective manner. The two day summit will also highlight the growing challenges for the Governments to find how to respond to the social media.
Dubai Telecommunications Regulatory Authority representative said that Governments should not only move with the times but stay ahead of the times, by anticipating social media trends and planning accordingly. The Director of the Dubai School of Government and the Conference Chairman, Fadi Salem told that Governments can no longer afford to be reactive, and must now be proactive. It means preventing any miscommunication or misconception before it even occurs, through regular two-way dialogue on social media networks. The representatives from UAE, USA, UK and New Zealand shared their experiences with the usage of social media.
UAE is the leader in terms of social media network usage in the Arab world followed by Qatar. The facebook users in the Arab world have tripled in just two years from 16 million to 45 million. Half of the new additions were in the previous year alone. Twitter remains a reliable barometer of the region’s biggest talking points with approximately 6 million tweets per day which comes to almost 70 per second.
Majority of the region’s social media users, around 70%, are the youth between 15-29 years. The region has been a witness to the political upheavals in the region associated with an effective use of social media networks to mobilize public opinion and hence, the summit holds a lot of potential for the Governments in the gulf region.
|
