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Social Media Trends in the Middle East — 2022 Market Context
The latest social media trends for consumer adoption and usage of social networking platforms in the Middle East & Africa (MENA)
Social Media in the Middle East 2022: A Year in Review is the latest of a series of annual reports that explore regional market data, and developments across eight major social networks. The study highlights examples of trending content, influencers, and the challenges of managing misinformation. I’ll be sharing each chapter in the report here on Medium as a standalone article over the coming weeks.
My co-author Hadil Abuhmaid and I, with research support from Nii Mahliare, consulted more than 200 different sources — from academics, news releases, interviews, media and event coverage, as well as studies produced by agencies and brands — to provide a data-rich evidence base outlining the latest trends in social media habits and behaviors across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
Here are some of the headlines:
Social Media adoption
The Middle East is a market leader in social media use. Multiple countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region rank above the global average in terms of the percentage of the population using social networks. Five MENA nations can be seen in the Top 10 for take-up of social networks.
- UAE (1st) is ranked top with over 100%, a figure which can be attributed to duplicate and fake accounts, this is followed by Bahrain (2nd, 98.7%), Qatar (3rd, 96.3%), Lebanon (6th, 90.5%) and Oman (7th, 90.5%).
- At the other end of the spectrum, South Sudan has one of the lowest levels of social media use. Less than 5% of the population (4.3%), some 470,000 citizens in a country of nearly 11 million people, use social media.
- And when examining social media adoption in larger markets, five MENA nations — UAE, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel and Morocco — all rank above the worldwide average of 59.3%.
