While Twitter’s 2015 fiscal report might show fall in share prices and a stagnating user base globally, the microblogging platform appears to be making all the right headlines in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. “MENA has shown us immense promise in the last couple of years. One reason we set up base here was to be able to unlock this potential and accelerate our growth in the region,” said Benjamin Ampen, Head of Revenue, Twitter MENA in a conversation with The Arabian Marketer.
Even before Twitter set up shop officially, MENA onliners were already using the platform to connect, communicate and express themselves. Some of the countries, including the likes of Saudi Arabia, are among Twitter’s high user base markets. “The region did not wait for us to get on Twitter. As a result, both in terms of users and revenue, MENA is one of our fastest growing regions,” Mr Ampen added.
Real Time Power
Twitter’s MENA office, headquartered in Dubai, is now working towards building on the momentum that it is experiencing in the region. In addition to augmenting focus on the areas such as mobile, Twitter intends to play its real time positioning card aggressively. For marketers, this is one area where Twitter scores more than some of its competitors. Over time, Twitter has developed different ways, such as types of moments or big event spikes, to assist marketers in making the most from its offer.
“Real time marketing can be a difficult notion to grasp. But the advantage for the marketers who get it right, is that they achieve much more than what they had strategized for. In the millions of conversations that occur daily on Twitter, we can see the specific trends or buzzwords that attract the most amount of audience interest, for example the hashtag #music. It is up to us to explain these nuances to marketers and help them leverage the power of now,” said Mr Ampen.
MENA Matters
Elaborating further on the reasons why MENA matters to Twitter, he remarked, “Based on our last earnings call we globally reported a revenue of 569 million dollars which represents a 58% year on year growth”. The reason we opened up here was due to the demand that we received from marketers. We were already working with most of the big brands as well as the local brands in the region. Our key focus is to increase the revenue coming in, while giving more resources and services back to marketers.”
Mr Ampen stresses on how Twitter user growth has also increased in the region, giving the example of a Ramadan campaign that received 8.4 billion impressions. He said, “Last year, the Ramadan campaign was huge. What’s interesting for the business is that for a year we did a beautiful activation around the hashtag #MoreGenerousTogether. We partnered with Saudi brands such as Arabian Oud amongst others and all brands were promoting the same hashtag. It was a milestone. It was a perfect advertising opportunity but for a good cause and recognizing local sensitivity.”
Five Qs to Benjamin Ampen on Twitter’s growth and future plans
What are you doing to increase your revenues on platforms such as mobile?
Twitter is mobile – that is our DNA. When we started building Twitter we were thinking mobile first. All our experiences for users and brands are optimized on mobile, for us there is no question on how we do it on mobile or desktop – it is the same. Most of our revenue is coming from mobile advertising as nearly 80 percent of our users are on mobile.
Would you call 2015 a year of digital disruption in MENA?
The year 2015 has been a year of change digitally. For Twitter, one of the reasons we opened office here was to build on the success of Connect Ads. We are also seeing significant interest towards our newer platforms such as Periscope.
What are some of the milestones that 2015 would mark for Twitter?
In 2015, two major milestones that we achieved were the ‘Autoplay’ promoted videos along with ‘Moments’. Moments helps you find the best of Twitter even if you don’t follow certain accounts. Although it is only available in the United States at present, we will introduce it in other markets too.
Which markets are leading the way for Twitter?
KSA and UAE are leading the chart as growth drivers as there are many initiatives coming from here. Saudi Telecom Company and Mobily are amongst the most resourceful companies in terms of teams and initiatives. They have over two million followers, making these really good examples of local brands that are shining and becoming inspiration at the global level.
We do not see social media players using each other’s platforms to grow or to market themselves. Is there a missed opportunity there for social media players?
When it comes to Twitter, it is a platform of interest and information. Brands can enhance their presence along with other platforms. Brands are willing to be where conversations are happening about the interest of their audiences which are very likely to be on Twitter. For us as marketers ourselves we are asking the question: what makes sense for the marketing objectives and where our audiences are. If other media makes sense, we will be there.
