• Snapchat is the most popular in KSA, Instagram is the most popular in Bahrain, and Facebook is the most popular in UAE and Kuwait.

• Egypt’s Facebook users in 2021 reached 44 million, Egyptians are still considered the most active across the region on Facebook.

• The report pays special attention to COVID analysis in 2020 for 7 key industries.

Press release

Crowd Analyzer, the Dubai-based full service data intelligence provider and social media listening platform, launched its annual ‘State of Social Media 2021’ report targeting brands and industry professionals that are keen on establishing a stronger presence in the Middle East with accurate, relevant and high coverage data.

The 5th Edition of the annual social media report covers 4 key chapters, helping marketers in the region access the key trends emerging in 2021, gain an understanding of what happened on social media in 2020 amid the COVID-19 situation as well as gain in depth understanding on consumer behavior through the updated data on the most popular platforms in Egypt, KSA, UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain. The report also gives access to the most winning tactics recommended by leading experts in the region. In addition, it provides a deep dive into 7 major industries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, including telecommunications, e-commerce, banking and finance, fintech, on demand, FMCG as well as food & beverage. These insights shed the light on best practices for reaching target audiences as well as enhancing the branding and social media strategy for businesses.

Commenting on the report, Ahmed Saad, CEO and Co-founder of Crowd Analyzer, said: “We’ve been committed throughout the years to helping brands across the region better plan their marketing and social strategies through data-driven insights. The 2020 pandemic accelerated and optimized our process for gathering information, we have been constantly working on utilizing our tool and range of services to provide businesses with data that can help them anticipate trends and plan their marketing activities more effectively. This report will bring businesses a step closer to understanding consumers in the MENA region, learning outcomes in 2020 and what to expect in 2021.”

The report starts off by examining key social media platforms used in the region covering: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube for each of the monitored markets. The data provided in this section of the report is considered a starting point to figuring the most preferred platforms and the audience profile in each market. 

In Egypt for instance, the most used platform is Facebook and the number of users on Instagram increased this year, reaching 14M compared to 11M in 2020. Male users exceed female users on all platforms except for Snapchat. 

The data examined reveals that Facebook is also the most used platform in UAE with 7.7m users. Yet Snapchat has the highest number of female users compared to male users, and Twitter is the least popular.

Saudi Arabia data showed that in 2021 Snapchat popularity increased reaching up to 9.3m users, making it the most preferred platform followed by Twitter. Arabic is the main language used on most platforms except for Facebook, which is one of the least popular platforms in Saudi Arabia.

As for Kuwait, Facebook and Instagram are the two leading platforms, showing a 15% increase in Instagram users since 2020, while Facebook users have remained relatively the same. Instagram is also considered to be the most popular platform in Bahrain with 890k total active users followed by Facebook with 820K users.

Furthermore, the report analyzed the top performing industries in 2020 giving special attention to COVID. Showing that Q2 in 2020 was the peak for COVID related conversations in E-Commerce, Banking & Finance and On-demand streaming industries. 

Crowd Analyzer is a full-service data intelligence technology provider founded in 2014 and launched officially in 2016. Crowd Analyzer is the 1st Arabic focused social media listening tool, that helps companies in the region harness the power of social media by delivering actionable intelligence results by monitoring all social media platforms, as well as news, blogs and various forums. The tool provides the most advanced, accurate, bilingual, relevant, and reliable social media data insights. The platform helps businesses enhance their marketing and social strategies. Crowd Analyzer has over 60 employees in its Dubai headquarters, Riyadh branch, and Cairo branch, Crowd Analyzer uses groundbreaking technology including proprietary machine learning, artificial intelligence and natural language processing.

For more information about the State of Social Media Report 2021, please visit Crowd Analyzer website on: https://www.crowdanalyzer.com/reports/state-of-social-media-report-in-mena-region-2021