If you’re searching for an influential channel to reach your Arabic-speaking audience, then look no further than the Arabic-speaking content creators on social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.
According to communicateonline.ae, as of 2019, the yearly growth of the media market in the MENA region was sat somewhere at 2500%, now in 2021, we can only imagine how the pandemic influenced and accelerated this figure. Simply put, the MENA region is one of the “fastest-growing media markets in the world”.
More Arabic content = more visibility for your brand
Remember, there are over 466 million people who speak Arabic globally. And as of the most recent figures, only 5.2% of users browse the internet in Arabic. This means Arabic content marketing is still in its digital infancy and presents a golden opportunity for businesses who want to land an impact in primarily Arabic-speaking markets.
In short? There’s less Arabic content online to compete with, and a greater chance your Arabic content will be seen, read, watched and listened to by your target audiences.
Like their English-speaking counterparts, Arabic-speaking customers crave high-quality content from the brands they use and enjoy in their everyday lives. Your customers spend most of their free time on social platforms, so if you aren’t already taking advantage of the opportunity to entertain, inform, educate and support your customers in Arabic, then we’ve got some inspiration for you.
Check out our favourite Arabic content creators on social media right now, and see how they’ve Arabized their content to appeal to and influence millions of followers worldwide.
1 Ibn Hattuta Travels
YouTube subscribers: 1.06 million
Kasem is a national treasure from our beautiful Jordan, and he travels the world filming his backpacking adventures for his YouTube channel.
Kasem’s subscribers can enjoy listening to and watching his Arabic videos or reading the English subtitles on-screen. Kasem’s video content is a great example of the power of the Arabic language as a marketing tool. This type of Arabic content creation is ideal for travel, tourism, hospitality and leisure industries.
2 Dala Al Doub
Instagram followers: 2.9 million
Born in Kuwait, Dala began her Arabic content creation journey with a blog set up under the name ‘Dalalid’. A video blogger and social influencer, Dala films fashion and beauty content in Khaleeji Arabic and is well known and loved in the Gulf and beyond. As a hijab-wearing woman, she’s a champion of modest fashion, and she encourages other women to enjoy styling themselves.
Dala’s followers and YouTube Subscribers can listen to all of her content in Arabic, but we’d recommend adding subtitles for extra accessibility. A recent Verizon Media’s study of 5,616 US consumers shows 69% of consumers view video with the sound off in public places and 25% watch with the sound off in private places. We highly recommend including Arabic and English subtitles for brands targetting the MENA region, where both languages are widely used.
3 Mohanad Al Hattab
Instagram followers: 519,000
Mohanad Al Hattab is a Syrian comedian best known for his hilarious Egyptian, Lebanese, Emirati and Syrian impressions on Instagram and TikTok.
Mohanad produces videos, and most of his content is in Arabic or Arabish (Arabic with a few English words thrown in to spice up the delivery)! Mohanad’s content is so entertaining that he’s even been hired by companies like Paramount+ Arabia to help them advertise the latest movie drops on their platform.
This is influencer marketing in action, and this is how some companies in the MENA region are helping bridge the Arabic content gap. Hiring content creators who already have a captive audience and produce quality content.
4 Salam Katanani
YouTube subscribers: 251K
Simplifying science and delivering easy to understand education on her channel, Salam Katanani speaks in an informal Arabic dialect and turns complex subjects into mini lessons for her subs.
In an Interview with JB Promotions, Salama was asked why her vlog is fully Arabic, and she responded by stating, “one of the main reasons I started doing this is the lack of science content in Arabic. There are many English options, for example, on YouTube. There are many people with the interest of making science more accessible to the public, making it sound easy and simple, but that is not in the Arab world. Especially in education. Schools present science in a very dull and boring way that makes people dislike it. By the time you are done with high school, you just don’t want to hear anything about science anymore, and that was one of the reasons why I started.”
This is one of the reasons why Salam’s content is so popular and valuable online. It goes back to the idea of a lack of quality Arabic content online. Gen-Z and Millenial Arabic speakers crave social media content that speaks to their reality, and influencers like Salam get the Arabic experience gap young Arabic-speakers struggle with online.
There’s no shortage of educational English video content online, but even good quality subtitled Arabic content is in short supply on social, and it’s up to the brands we love to make Arabic fun and accessible.
5 Taim Al Falasi
Instagram followers: 3.5 million
Media personality and Emirati influencer, Taim is known for her YouTube videos and her online radio show, which, according to her YouTube profile, is rated as the most played show in the Arab region.
Even though Taim’s YouTube videos are in Arabic, Taim’s taken some steps towards providing a dual-language experience on her channel by adding translated English text descriptions underneath her Arabic videos. Still, we think Taim could benefit from Arabic and English subtitles on her video content.
Over 11 million people in the Middle East have disabling hearing loss, so from an accessibility perspective, we would like to see Arabic influencers consistently subtitling and captioning content online. We already see English influencers adding English subtitles to all of their video content, opening up the opportunity for foreign-language speakers to enjoy Taim’s and other creators high-quality Arabic video content too.
Keeping the Arabic language alive
Arabic content marketing isn’t just about boosting your brand’s reach. It’s also about keeping the Arabic language alive. Arab influencers are inspiring, educating and entertaining fellow Arabic-speakers the world over, and brands serving the Arabic-speaking markets should all be taking note of what good quality Arabic content looks like because that’s where you’ll find your customer’s attention.
If you want to tap into the millennial mindset, appeal to generation Z, or even make a mark on boomers who prefer to read in Arabic and don’t speak English, then get in touch with us today, and let’s localize your marketing.