The day-long Facebook event at Al Serkal Avenue in Dubai on January 17, 2018, was organised to showcase regional content creators and group admins on the social media platform.
“Within eight hours of uploading my Christmas video, I had a million views,” revealed UAE national Khaled Al Ameri at the Facebook panel on content creation moderated by Fares Akkad, Head of Media Partnerships – Middle East and Africa, Facebook and Instagram. The day-long Facebook event at Al Serkal Avenue in Dubai on January 17, 2018, was organised to showcase regional content creators and group admins building online communities via the social media platform.
Along with panel discussions and presentations by content creators and group admins, technologies demonstrated included Oculus Virtual Reality and 360 videos, in addition to a Facebook Live booth to facilitate real-time video interaction.
The Emirati influencers Khaled and Salama Al Ameri joined the comedy duo Tarek and Fahed behind the Punny Pun Times and Goubran Bahou of the UK-based Goubtube for the panel discussion on content creation that highlighted the challenges of building and more importantly retaining audiences.
“We are constantly looking for ways to keep our content fresh,” revealed Tarek of the Amman-based Punny Pun Times. “We keep a close eye on comments and work on improving our content based on the feedback.”
On the critical issue of privacy, Salama Al Ameri emphasised that they were careful about what they presented of their private lives on the channel.
The popularity of the content creators present at the event was borne out by a recent report from professional services firm EY, on video consumption trends in the region, that revealed most MENA markets are projected to grow online video revenues by 22% 35% annually until 2021.
