A survey of Twitter users has shown the microblogging social media platform not only continues to attract new users throughout the Middle East and North Africa but is also starting to affect the way that brands are perceived.
According to the Middle East & North Africa Twitter Demographics & User Habits Survey, published by Spot On PR, over 90% of users in the region say they have found out about a new product or service through Twitter and over 60% have had their perceptions of a brand changed by Twitter.
Carrington Malin, managing director of Spot On Public Relations, said: “Twitter’s fast growth, coupled with the high level of activity amongst the region’s users, is making a number of key regional organisations sit up and take notice. We hope that this survey of MENA Twitter demographics and user habits will provide marketers with a baseline from which to further explore the opportunities that Twitter is opening up.”
While some 70% of users surveyed said they had formed a positive perception of a brand through their interactions over Twitter, over 50% had also formed negative perceptions of a brand. A small but influential crowd of opinion leaders, many Middle East Twitter users were closely linked with the advertising, marketing, public relations and media industries, some 35% of respondents in all.
59% of respondents said they interacted frequently with journalists, some 76% interacted frequently with bloggers and over 65% actually being contributors to a blog themselves.
