Small businesses in Saudi Arabia have already invested around SR9 billion in social media, Muhammad Badawi, specialist in social networks and author, said at a workshop held here Monday at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI). Statistics revealed at the workshop revealed that social media grew to 2,000 percent in 2011 from 200 percent in 2009 due to “revolutions”. Ninety percent of the population have an account on a social media network with 195 friends in average for each user, it said. The meeting discussed the role of social media in serving the interests of small businesses. The hefty amount did not come as a surprise to him though, since small businesses are already promoting their products and services in social media specially through Facebook and Twitter. Badawi, the author of “Birds of the Same Feather Flock Together”, in which he addresses what users should know about twitter, told the audience that the social media - which has been previously described as “untrusted fashion that will die” - proved that all these cliché are wrong. He said people started to have trust and build more contacts since more use their real name on social media, which induces businesses to approach them. Speaking about the popular social media Linkedin, Badawi said it has helped in recruiting 70 percent of employees in the US, adding that with some 2 million companies on the network, the website is now attracting 135 new users every second. Fliker, a photo uploading social network has now 6 billion uploaded pictures with millions of users logging in daily, he further said. On Facebook, he said it has 800 million active users, with over 4 millions of them from the Kingdom, and 60 percent of them use Arabic as their language. Eighty seven percent of the users are from Riyadh, 12 percent from Jeddah. Eighty seven percent of users are above 18, while women account for 32 percent of all users logging in from the Kingdom. Twitter, on the other hand, is becoming more effective in the Kingdom, though US still stays on top in number of users, followed by Indonesia. Twitter has now 400 million users, 2 million of which are from the Kingdom. Fifty two percent of them are women, 32 percent use their real names, and 83 percent have university degrees. However, Saudi Arabia leads in terms of Youtube viewers, accounting for 82 percent of all videos being watched on the web, even exceeding the television viewers - as the average period of watching television is 130 minutes per person, while Youtube is watched 133 minutes. Some 36 million watch Youtube daily. Badawi advised the new and existing businesses to approach the new media as their products are already been evaluated and discussed at social networks even if they are not aware of it. He noted that these social networks give an opportunity for businesses to see the criticisms and evaluate their products and services and stay in contact with their consumers. Badawi added that based on experience, social media proved more efficient than popular newspapers being circulated in the Kingdom. While they spent a total of almost SR12,000 to get their ads in newspapers that will not reach all audience, utilizing social proved more fruitful as it helped them reach their target audience. Badawi said the mistake that existing businesses make is that they treat the new media in the same way they deal with advertising in traditional media, noting that social networks need to be treated differently and not by “offering a car or a lunch to a blogger” to write about a business. He urged the small businesses to create creating an account, get the management which will need a specialist in new media, technician, reporter, researcher, and an analyst. “The most important thing is to remain active, not just create the account, and also keep an open channel with consumers instead of blocking ears,” he stressed. __
