Social networking website Netlog's Arabic platform has helped the online social community in Saudi Arabia to grow and has, in fact, gone ahead of Facebook with more than two million supporters of this platform, out of a total of seven million social networking members in the country, show online measurements.
Although Netlog representatives are careful with calling it competition, Netlog has seen a phenomenal growth in the region, shooting from a few hundred thousands in August 2008, to five million users, following its launch of a localised Arabic version.
Timothy Bataillie, Business Development Turkey, Mena and Eastern Europe, Netlog, said it was too early to discuss competition.
He said: "Facebook is bigger than Netlog in the region, although we have a larger number of members in Saudi Arabia and have been the first to launch an Arabic network in the summer of 2008. We also see a Facebook domination in Morocco, Algeria and Egypt."
However, he added: "We are not competing with Facebook, nor do we have a major competitor on a global scale. Facebook addresses different needs and is very mainstream. We want to be more niche - an entertainment community for youngsters. Still, soon we are to introduce a way to link to Netlog through Facebook. In social networks, it cannot be about people who are on one platform and are not on another."
He said:"The pie still has to be constructed in this region. In the end, competition is about attracting the largest share of advertising money."
Bataillie said: "Right now, online players should not be competing with each other, to grab a small piece of the small pie. We should be building the industry together by making the pie bigger, by offering good ideas. The market can only increase, starting from such a low platform, and therefore it only makes sense that online social networks should come together to develop business opportunities."
Yet, even with the most optimistic views of the volume of online advertising, online ad spend currently comprises between two and three per cent of the total spend in the Arab region.
He explained: "People still deal with online advertising as an add-on to their overall mar-com strategy, just because in the end of the line some online advertising experts are shouting to be heard. Meanwhile, I think it is mostly the clients who still need to be educated about online marketing and advertising. Even when clients agree to utilising online media, they tend to choose platforms which they use, but not necessarily those which the consumers are using."
He added: "Most online campaigns adopted in that way end up using print ads for online banners and TVC's for viral online campaigns."
However, he said: "We have seen a major evolution take place in the past six months, and I expect to see creative, successful, interactive campaigns that will form the basis for some good case studies from the region."
In the meantime, Netlog had launched an Arabic social network that is completely separated from it English sister network, and this has resulted in a substantial leap in traffic to the network. Bataillie explained: "We currently have 75 per cent to 80 per cent of our members in the region using the Arabic language interface. This mass has tripled the number of our members in eight months time.
"Of course, Arabic is not easy because it goes from right to left unlike Latin, yet, we realised that most of our audience in the region preferred to converse in their own language. We understand this because, we come from Europe and we have had to develop localised networks for various countries, because unlike Facebook, English was not the universal language of its members."
According to Bataillie's estimations, the Arabic speaking members on Netlog in the region comprise a total of 3.5 to four million users out of its five million members. Facebook, according to a recent study by SpotOn PR, currently counts 15 million people in the Arab region.
The social network has grown at a rate of 20 per cent to 30 per cent per month during the launch of Arabic network, and continues at a 15 per cent month-on-month growth rate, a result that was beyond expectations, said Bataillie. New memberships are growing the network at a rate between five per cent and 10 per cent.
In the UAE, indicated Bataillie, 80 per cent of Netlog's members are UAE nationals, a merit of the Arabic only network. "This is a clear pool for advertisers," he added.
Strangely enough, the Netlog community ranges between the ages of 16 and 25, slightly higher than the global members' profile and age group, which is between 12 and 22.
The gender ratio on the network is slightly more biased towards male than the general profile of online population, at 70:30. Bataillie said that this was an improvement from an 80:20 ratio less than a year ago. However, he did not have an explanation for the reason of this bias. It is a natural evolution, he said.
By Dima Hamadeh
© Emirates Business 24/7 2010
