Digital Boom

Blog

  • Chelsea Glocalizes Digital Content, Wins MENA & Egypt

    Chelsea Glocalizes Digital Content, Wins MENA & Egypt

    Why sport social media? The answer is simple; a larger and a quantifiable monetization stream. The most widely adopted business model for any sports entity is built on increasing the number of engaging fans, and make money out of it. The more fans they have, the more lucrative the sponsorship deals are. Therefore, when social media mania hit us, it was no surprise that Football clubs started to use social media to quantify their fans, and monetize.

    Early this year, we’ve pin-pointed a gap & an opportunity for Chelsea FC in the Middle East market and especially after the transfer of the Egyptian player Mohamed Salah. Chelsea FC were quick to react and capitalize on the opportunity that was presented to them after the bombardment of its Social Media assets by comments of enthusiastic Egyptian fans eager to see their starlet to feature with such a prestigious club in Europe.

    We have been following Chelsea FC building their case study in Middle East, attempting to identify their how they are building their fan base that later would become a very lucrative revenue stream. Chelsea started simply by introducing a Facebook page for their Arab Speaking community that was around 1.5 Million at the time presented by Mohamed Salah himself in a Video for the Arabic speaking fans. They shared Localized global digital content, in what we’d like to call ‘glocalization’, simply by translating their existing content they already shared on their global page, gaining more affinity amongst their new fans.

    1- Launch of the Arabic Chelsea Facebook Page

    The second stage was building digital content only for their Arab fans, it started by a unique celebration of Mohamed Salah, the only available Arab player in Chelsea FC, by sending out their greetings and complied some of these greetings in a visual post that ended out with one of highest interactions.  More than 20,000 likes with 473 shares of the post.

    2- Seasonal Greetings

    After its proven success Chelsea FC made sure not to miss one single relevant occasion without a proper greeting. It started with the Holy month of Ramadan, Fitr & Adha Feast, as well as Hijri New Year, generating huge buzz, and creating outstanding rapport between the club and the community. Many news portals shared Chelsea FC’s greetings adding to that buzz.

    3- Blues Info-graphics

    Following that, it was important for Chelsea FC to make this page about Chelsea FC rather than Mohamed Salah, so they decided to introduce the club history, achievements and statistics in an interactive and engaging infographics.

    HYG, The Full Chelsea FC Social Media Case Study in the Middle East

    Chelsea Wins Egypt

    Numbers for the Arab fans on Chelsea Page more than doubled since the introduction of Chelsea FC’s Arab Facebook page last February reaching around 3.5 Million fans. About 2.5 millions of them are Egyptians, this encouraged the Egyptian telecom giant ‘Mobinil’ to sign a partnership deal with the blues to become its official mobile service provider in Egypt.

    Chelsea improved their ranking in Egypt from 3rd to 1st (Jan – Dec) 2014 Egypt ranking has been improved from 7th to 2nd (Jan – Dec) 2014

    Chelsea FC showed us exactly how to do it right, how to build, nurture, engage and monetize a community using social media. We believe that our market will witness more competition in that area, and we will be in for more interesting cases to follow.

    Update 20th of Jan, 2015

    Chelsea & Mobinil’s First Commercial Activity

    Capitalizing on their recent partnership, now any mobinil customer can get a chance to attend Chelsea VS PSG in the UEFA Champions League, just send “9” in SMS to “1111”.

    Screenshot from mobinil Facebook page

  • TA Telecom Ranks 4th in Deloitte Fast 50 Africa 2014

    TA Telecom Ranks 4th in Deloitte Fast 50 Africa 2014

    Recognized as one of the Fast 50 Africa growing technology companies, TA Telecom ranked fourth on the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Africa 2014 for achieving a revenue growth of 560 percent over the past five years, the organization announced today.

    The Deloitte Fast 50 Africa is a prominent ranking of fastest growing technology companies in the continent.

    “The awards are all about growth driven by leading intellectual property and are a celebration of innovation and entrepreneurship,” the organization said on its website.

    TA Telecom – Fast 50 Africa

    TA Telecom harnesses the power of big data and analytics, generating 1.5 billion push alerts annually and processing more than 840 million charging transactions on its mobile content platforms.

    This award-winning company provides products that benefit more than 10 million users in the Middle East and Africa mobile market.

    Building content platforms, analytic tools and brands for the past 15 years, TA Telecom’s products engage mobile users, drive business success and optimize strategy for diverse stakeholders – mobile operators, enterprises and NGOs.

    TA Telecom is expanding in Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Libya, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.

  • Review: Sherine Ana Keteer on Social Media

    Review: Sherine Ana Keteer on Social Media

    After the success of the previously shared overall analysis of Sherine’s new album “Ana Keter” and her social media presence, we decided to fulfill your requests with more details and additional insights.

    The report is from Jan 15 through Jan 31, 2014; however, starting Feb, we noticed that Sherine’s team has enhanced and developed how they engage with fans on Facebook.

    Still, there’s more to do; please review the slides below to know what exactly they are missing with recommendations.

    Check out the report:

    Key take-outs in 15 days after the launch:

    • Album gained 11 million views in 2 weeks on YouTube
    • YouTube Channel subscribers boosted by 90K subscribers in 15 days out of 127K total subscribers overtime
    • Buzz reached 15K tweets/RTs since the launch on Twitter
    • How do people talk about the album/Sherine on Twitter?
    • People are sharing songs from YouTube & SoundCloud
    • +90% positive sentiment on Twitter
    • Sherine’s Twitter account is excellent at spreading the news about the album’s success.
    • People are tweeting the song’s lyrics.
    • Sarcastic tweets about Sherine & few songs (regular) -  Almost zero negativity about the album
    • Album teasers on Facebook created credibility for Sherine’s page, reflected in the page results after the album’s launch in the next 15 days with 92K Interactions & 312K New Likes.
    • The album received tremendous engagement on the launching date of Jan 15. However, no posts for four days after the launch negatively affected the interactions.

    Recommendations:

    Sherine Abdel Wahab’s Facebook page would have received double or maybe triple new likes and interactions if the improved posts’ quality; please find below the points taken:

    • Long updates with no extra value-added will lead to losing your fans’ interest
    • The text-only format isn’t preferred, as it is well-known that they generate less reach than other content (Facebook announcement)
    • A call to action is essential to generate leads & increase engagement
    • Each post has to have its visual, audio, or video so you can attract/engage your audiences
    • Understand the situation and act upon it, always be relevant to the time and avoid posting irrelevant content at the wrong time.
    • Revise the tone of voice in future activities.

    To recap -  Overall performance is average to good -  Enhance your content formatting -  Improve the tone of voice on all networks -  Be creative to engage your fans better -  Be Consistent -  Start your SoundCloud account.

  • Case Study: Juhayna Cheering for Egyptian Mothers

    Case Study: Juhayna Cheering for Egyptian Mothers

    Drawing a smile on viewers’ faces, Juhayna ’s television advertising campaign was able to capture life’s best and most cherished moments.

    The Television Copy (TVC) succeeded in portraying the phases mothers go through, emphasizing their endurance and sacrifices in the journey of life – from infanthood to adulthood.

    The TVC shows mothers striving to make their families happy, successful and healthy. “Motherhood is not easy. But it is worth it,” Juhayna emphasizes in its TVC slogan.

    Disseminating a meaningful and positive message, Juhayna’s smart approach cheers for the endless efforts exerted over the years by mothers. The TVC encourages moms to keep going, cultivating a sense of gratitude for mothers’ unconditional love, giving and generosity.

    Watch The Ad

     Successful launch on Facebook

    The campaign marked the launch of Juhayna Dairy’s Facebook page in May 2014 – a brilliant approach to establish a strong start on social media.

    Juhayna branded all its social media posts with the cheering for motherhood theme using the hashtag ‫#‏شجع_ماما, which encouraged gratitude and offered useful and inspirational tips for mothers themselves.

    Although Juhayna Dairy earned +450K fans on Facebook and a decent number of interactions, it still hasn’t reached everyone. The company could have increased interactions with at least 1000% if the right broad social media plan had been implemented.

    Lost Opportunities on Twitter & Instagram

    Social Media isn’t limited to Facebook and YouTube. There are so many platforms to generate buzz around a brand. Twitter, for example, mentioned the brilliant Juhayna Dairy TVC using the hashtag #شجع_ماما. But unfortunately, Juhayna Dairy isn’t active on twitter to set the stream on fire. There is a lot of potential on Instagram too.

    Instagram, Vine & Keek are also potential platforms. People could be asked to share their precious moments with their mothers — Instagram photos, & short vines & keeks — to activate the brand’s campaign on different platforms.

    Juhayna needs to adopt a deeper digital media strategy to seize future opportunities.  A look at the company’s official website shows how difficult it to relate the website to any of Juhayna’s advertising efforts. Nothing could be found on current or past campaigns, which is considered a waste. The primary objective of being on social media is to drive leads to your website and build a stronger relation with your audience. Juhayna developed a successful campaign but it needs to develop the company’s website to be able to go beyond B2B and reach out to B2C.

  • Social Media Nightmare in The Left Bank Valet

    Social Media Nightmare in The Left Bank Valet

    Why would you choose a particular place to visit daily while you have many other options in the surrounding area. Is it because of the service, the taste of food and beverages, the view, or maybe because it is a place where your trust won’t go in vain?

    Left Bank is one of the places with an outstanding reputation in Zamalek and surrounding areas but not anymore.

    On the 9th of September, a young woman visited Left Bank as she always does for the past 2 years. She is a well-known customer “By Name” for everyone who works there, and maybe for other customers. As she has always done for the past two years, she gave her car keys to the valet person to enjoy her time for a couple of hours.

    She came out asking for her car keys to leave, and that was when she was told that her driver came to take it “Car theft.”

    For two years, she drove her car with no drivers whatsoever, and they decided that day that she had a driver they trusted enough to hand him the keys.

    Social Media No-no Crisis Management:

    For some reason, Left Bank decided to take it to Social Media which wasn’t supposed to happen at all as the customer did NOT post anything on the Left Bank page or even on her profile — Let’s explore together Left Bank fatal mistakes in handling their first real social media crisis:

    Epic Fail by Choosing the Wrong Medium

    Left Bank decided to communicate the incident on Facebook only, which is wrong because the suitable medium had to be twitter where the heat is, they had to THINK for a minute, do their homework by monitoring, analyzing the stream before publishing on Facebook, the alarming social media management cursed their Facebook page for a long time with no good reasons! However, their Twitter account is in hell, and no one is taking care of the stream. Weird!

    Provoking The Mass With a Poor PR Statement

    The first statement was poorly written and disappointing to the customer and even the people who are watching; the statement was one way: “We’re not responsible for the Valet, it’s the customer’s responsibility. However, we will keep you updated with the authorities investigations”. Provoking anyone to take the customer’s side and boycott the restaurant for a lifetime.

    The Topic Has Became Egypt’s Number 1 Trending Topic

    The feedback they got from their customers was horrifying and not expected for them. The topic went viral like crazy and became Egypt’s top trending topic with more than 1.2K Tweets/RTs/Replies.

    Left Bank Topic is Trending via (the victim Twitter handle)

    They weren’t transparent when the whole thing happened. The security cameras taped a blurry video that’s not helpful. The first statement was to confirm that it is irresponsible management. On the other hand, the young lady who got her car stolen is one of Egypt’s top social media influencing profiles, and the restaurant knows that well because she is a regular customer, but why do they challenge her? She didn’t take the issue to Social Media until they made that wrong move.

    Continued With The Same Mistake

    After the negative hype that happened because of their ignorance and lack of Social Media crisis management, they decided to publish another statement to receive negative feedback again. Still, they are not taking any ethical responsibility for the incident.

    Left Bank second statement on the stolen car incident from their backyard

    This incident wasn’t the first to happen in Left Bank. Authorities still working on the case. The Vales was questioned and then released.

    Stay tuned for more updates about the case, as it’s still not closed.

  • Nogoum FM Tops All Radio Stations Globally

    Nogoum FM Tops All Radio Stations Globally

    In July 2014, Nogoum FM was recognized as the number-one radio station worldwide on social media, with more than four million likes on Facebook. Nogoum FM’s online team has been able to help the station sustain and develop its relationship with its audiences by empowering audiences online via social media and mobile apps.

    Top 10 Radio Stations on Facebook Worldwide:

    The infographic shows that Nogoum FM has been able to top all radio stations worldwide, and Radio Sawa comes next to reserve the 2 top positions for Arabic radio stations.

    Nogoum FM tops all radio stations worldwide

    Nogoum FM Success:

    About Nogoum FM: Nogoum FM was founded by Nile Radio Production in 2003 as the first independent Arabic FM radio station in Egypt, aiming to connect youth to radio after a long disconnection.

    The challenge: Year over year and with the internet revolution in Egypt, especially after 25th of January 2011, communication channels have been taken to a new era, and gradually, online communication has ousted the traditional communications ways such as SMS and phone calls, people have started to rely on the internet getting news, updates about their music & celebs, leaving behind all traditional newspapers, magazines and even Radio & TV.

    Fact: Being online has become essential, or you will be left behind.

    Identify online community needs to suit today’s lifestyle and win in the mind & heart:

    • Let audiences connect with Nogoum FM 24/7 from around the world via high-quality live audio streaming
    • Now Playing feature provides names of artists and song titles (shareable on Facebook/Twitter)
    • SMS/Call Nogoum FM right from within the App
    • See the daily show’s schedule and set show alerts
    • Watch hundreds of HD videos (updated frequently) from select shows
    • Watch exclusive behind-the-scenes pictures
    • Read about your favorite presenters and shows
    • Read the latest in entertainment and gossip news

    Assets needed to achieve the above goals:

    • Nogoum FM online portal
    • Live-streaming to keep audiences connected 24/7 and reach more audiences
    • Strong social media presence (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc…) to keep audiences engaged 24/7
    • IOS, Android & Windows mobile/tablets apps to serve audiences on the go
    • Dedicated E-mail to receive inquiries & feedback [email protected]

    That’s briefly what Nile Radio Production realized and started to execute in 2012. which 9 years late, but it’s never too late to succeed!

  • How to protect your Facebook page from hacking tricks?

    How to protect your Facebook page from hacking tricks?

    June 2014, we announced on our Facebook page a caution about a the latest Facebook hacking tricks, asking pages’ managers to take care of falling in the new hacking tricks which will cost you the administration privilege on your page. Today, we’ve noticed many conversations within our network, talking about the same case and there’re many pages’ managers who lost control over their pages. Hence, we’ve decided to clear things in a separate post to raise awareness and how to protect your page from such unethical stuff on Facebook. 

    The latest hacking tricks on Facebook

    It’s a dream to get your page verified, so once you see this verification badge in your notifications, you will certainly press it and quickly to get your page verified! Naturally you won’t read the disclaimer as many other fall because such a trick.

    Be sure that Facebook won’t ask for ownership to make your page verified.

    Hacking Tricks – Verified badge asking for ownership

    Second chance to read and protect your page

    once you click the verification badge, you will get this request to approve under your page role section, the easy action is to click approve and get your page verified quickly, but if you take a look and read, you will find that you will give a full access to a page called “Page Verifee”, so they can simply kick you out of the page.

    Ownership Request – Don’t Approve

    How to protect your page from such hacking tricks?

    Almost all pages on Facebook have more than one manager, that’s why there’s always a chance to fall in such tricks.

    What you need to do right now to avoid losing your page:

    • Your personal profile is the gate to any access to your pages, so that you need to increase security on your personal profile
    • Don’t let people know the associated email address with your personal Facebook account, so that no one can hijack your mailbox and get into your profile then take control over your Facebook pages
    • Limit the manager access to 2 members max
    • Change any unwanted manger role to editor
    • Do not ever approve any unusual requests, investigate everything before losing chances to undo actions

    Finally, Share this article with your team members and keep them up to date with the latest hacking tricks.

     

     

  • mobinil Song has been finally released for Ramadan 2014

    mobinil Song has been finally released for Ramadan 2014

    The long awaited Ramadan campaign has been finally released. For the last 3 years, the first mobile operator in Egypt ‘mobinil’ releases another musical TV ad in the holy month Ramadan 2014, after the first two successful & booming copies. mobinil song theme is exposing Hope, Love, Interrelationship, and much more positive behaviors, building on the strong Egyptians’ bonds.

    Watch mobinil song 2014

    Stay with us for a full review about the new song, covering people’s online feedback and we will also spot a light on mobinil’s efforts activating the campaign digitally.

  • Pepsi Masr Tops Ramadan Ads 2014 With Nostalgia

    Pepsi Masr Tops Ramadan Ads 2014 With Nostalgia

    Pepsi has been hitting with its new nostalgia ads. Will it make a home run?

    Over the past years, Pepsi’s global direction has been to invest in getting celebrities; to affiliate its brand name with popular figures, especially in football. But is this direction engaging people in the new digital era? Does it make it easy for the brand to pick up on the community’s online content and build stories around this platform? Apparently not.

    Flashback — Pepsi Ramadan Ad Campaign 2013

    Last Ramadan, Pepsi surprised its audience with a new nostalgic direction. They brought back Bougy & Tamtam along with some of the Egyptian oldies like Foaad El Mohndees, Nelly, and Fatouta under the theme of “Yalla Nekamel Lametna.”

    The ad was brilliant especially given that it was supported by a very emotional music score composed by Hassan Al Shafie. Everyone thought that Pepsi was getting back on track with a trove of nostalgic stories in the online world, which was perceived as the perfect opportunity for them.

    Missed Out

    Pepsi decided to use the oldies characters to build some basic stories without including their audience or giving them space to share their nostalgic moments online.

    Though the ad picked up over 2 million views on YouTube (most of the viewership was definitely paid), the audience was still waiting for more. They were waiting for stories to engage with and a space to share their memories.

    Pepsi Ramadan 2013

     Nostalgia is a science

    Nostalgia ultimately helps people feel better. If you do some research you will find that nostalgia is a science. You will also find that psychologists conducted a lot of research proving that most people experience nostalgia at least once a week, and often three or four times: either happy, sad, or lonely feelings.

    Another study indicates that nostalgia is universal, experienced across all cultures, and actually increases self-esteem and ‘social connectedness,’ which relates to feelings of being loved and protected.

    Actually, playing hit songs and memories from the past and giving people lyrics make them feel loved and that life is worth living.

    Brands must consider that many people are turning to social media for increased connectedness to fight boredom and to generally feel happier. The question here is why wouldn’t you do the effort to build on this?

    And Here Comes Pepsi Ad Ramadan 2014

    Pepsi took a great step in building on last year’s campaign with a new nostalgic ad starring George Sedhom, Hesham Abbas, Hamed El Shaery, Nagwa Ibrahim, The Four-M, and Shereen among others.

    The music is brilliant as expected. They produced another Duetto song by Hisham Abbas and Hameed El Shaery – infamous for their oldie song “Ayenee “ with their popular dance.

    +500K YouTube ‘organic’ views in less than 24 hours

    This tells us that the ad is really brilliant and extremely booming, we think that the viewership will hit 1 million by tonight without any paid views.

    On Facebook & Twitter: Pepsi topped all topics, news, and conversations in Egypt on July 6th.

    In less than 2 hours from publishing the video ad on YouTube, Egypt’s Facebook & Twitter timelines have been altered 180 degrees from those negative conversations about gas & goods prices up to “Pepsi’s new nostalgia ad”.

    Ramadan campaign hashtag (#يلا_نكمل_لمتنا) and Pepsi keywords topped the trends in Egypt

    Egypt’s trends 6th of July

    Pepsi Nostalgia 2014 targets 70’s, 80’s, and early 90’s

    A stunning opportunity

    Pepsi has a great opportunity to fix what happened last year. Don’t miss out on it. Your audience has lots of expectations.

    Here are some basic ideas anyone could think of that you would really need to execute digitally:

    You could inherently play on nostalgia by documenting a period of our lives and moments by the month and the year. Make it easy for us to look back through old conversations and photos via a separate platform/website linked to Pepsi social assets. You can start by highlighting the memories you already brought in your copy then give your audience the space to play a part. This can be done through the following steps:

    Listen

    You should listen to your community’s conversations through the provided platform even if it’s only a hashtag. t is preferable, as mentioned above, to have a visually appealing platform documenting different moments by categories.

    Engage:

    Start by picking up on those conversations and ask for more. Make it fun and easy for them to share these moments through a defined process.

    Re-Generate:

    You could easily regenerate these stories and re-post them on your social assets with a unique style.

    Enable:

    Finally, you should never miss the power of the audience’s stories. Filter those stories and feature the best of them may be in a new ad copy or a unique attractive platform. It’s time to include your community in your content creation.

    Don’t miss out on it again and do a giant Fanous activation in a big Egyptian square. Yalla engage with your people and pick up on their online conversations.

    Written by: Bassem El-Hady & Ahmed Maher

    Edited by: Nadine Hafez

  • How The World Reacted After Suarez Bite

    How The World Reacted After Suarez Bite

    Luis Suarez bite in front of the world during Uruguay and Italy’s match in group final match. The bite that the referee didn’t see but cameras did, has opened fire on Suarez online and in press after minutes from the referee final whistle, because Chellini didn’t walk away, but he showed the world Luis Suarez’s teeth on his shoulder. From its side, FIFA decided to suspend Suarez 4 months and ban him from 9 international matches. Uruguay will walk alone  in the world cup without Luis.

    FIFA suspended Suarez for 4 months

    After 48 hours from the bite, FIFA announced their decision towards Suarez, with a ban for 9 international matches plus 4 months suspension from any other football with his club Liverpool.

    Online conversations about Suarez have exceeded conversations about the world cup itself

    5.9 M online conversations about Suarez and his bite, while only 1.5 M for the world cup itself. It’s really shocking stats

    World Cup vs Suarez conversations – Credit: Moustafa Fathy

    Brands started to capitalize on the situation to maximize their benefits:

    McDonald’s Uruguay unit tweeted: “Hello @luis16suarez, if you are hungry come have a bite of a big Mac.”

    Cinema Scope:

    https://twitter.com/SportsNation/status/481513001930219520

    https://twitter.com/FootyHumour/status/481497049113042944

    https://twitter.com/FootballFunnys/status/481495819040727040

    Even Pokemon characters 

    What are people saying?

    https://twitter.com/TSBible/status/482168901208645632

    CNN

    Finally, play this game and start bitting

    Start Bitting

    Finally, everybody win, Uruguay lose because of the irresponsible action.