ArabNet Panel – Social Media Marketing

The panel Case Studies in Social Media Marketing took place during the 3rd day of ArabNet.
The moderator was Ms. Alex Tohme and the panelists:
Mr. Patrick Atallah, CEO, 90:10 Group Middle East
Mr. Khalid Dalil, Research Manager MENA, NM Incite
Mr. Marc Dfouni, CEO & Managing Partner, Eastline Marketing
Mr. Vadi Efe, Founder and Partner, Dekatlon Buzz
Mr. Zafer Younis, CEO, The Online Project

Personally I have assisted to the first 20 minutes of the panel (then left to another panel which I thought can be more interesting) and I have heard many many times the words Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, which in my opinion are not the only tools someone should use to promote his brand/product/blog/site . Plus the audience was really eager to hear about real case studies in social media marketing and the filtered Twitter #ArabNetMe timeline got angry at one point because it did not happen, I am not sure if this happened after I left.

The reason behind this blog post are, 1st to talk about the importance of analytics in social media marketing from brand to client perspective, 2nd about a Lebanese startup who is good at this.

In my opinion (and i am not a social media strategist or whatever other titles comes to this position), the number of clicks are not important anymore, we all remember the early counters that used to be displayed with great proud at the bottom of sites in 1995.
Actually it is more about how your visitors behave on your site, why they are here, how long they are staying and what they are looking for, once you can analyze these parameters along with some others, you will be able to engage better with your site visitors/clients. And for me this is the real marketing.

It is not about the nice Facebook page you have designed nor the Twitter timeline you filled with info that are useless to most of your clients neither the video you have on YouTube that you believe is going viral and is not. You need to understand what your visitors want and give it to them in order to bring them back to you, otherwise you will see a very high bounce rate.

Facebook and Twitter will definitely assist you in any marketing campaign, but they should not be considered as the main tools for success. People blame the social media platforms for the failure of anything they are trying to shout about to a larger crowd, and they are totally forgetting about content, which is King and that they should listen to their customers and engage continuously with them.

Amazon was founded in Web 1.0 era, there were no social media, no YouTube, Facebook or Twitter, and they succeeded because they understood what their customers want. And some other brands succeeded with the help of social media because they exactly knew how to integrate with the right social media channels that suits the product/service they are trying to promote and its value. Check the Dunkin Donuts Coolatta campaign and the Dell Social Media Listening Command Center

The web analytics service I would like to recommend is Woopra, a Lebanese startup co-founded by Elie Khoury. I use it on this blog and it is cool!
Woopra delivers a complete suite of enterprise grade analytics in one easy to use live interface. You can monitor multiple Websites simultaneously in a tabbed window and switch quickly between them.
Woopra also lets you watch visitors LIVE as they navigate your site, interact with them via Chat, set up real time notifications, track campaigns, set up funnels, and much, much more!