The Spot On Blog

The original Spot On blog (beware of imitations!) sharing insights, thoughts and best practices for marketing in the age of the consumer. You can also check out Carrington Malin’s recent articles here: www.carringtonmalin.com

When social media programs grow up…

When social media programs grow up…

I’ve been doing quite a lot of speaking at ‘online’ conference events and workshops recently (this will surprise nobody who knows me) and consequently meeting a lot of people who are experimenting with social media within their organisations. It’s something of a growing trend – typically, one person within an organisation has been using Facebook […]

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A particularly delicious cake

A particularly delicious cake

A new survey highlights that there is enthusiasm for behavioural targeting and concern over privacy issues in almost equal measure.

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10 social media myths exposed

10 social media myths exposed

More Middle East brands are looking seriously at using social media in their communications and making efforts to plan, structure and invest in strategic activities. It’s no secret that Spot On PR is a big fan of social media and actively recommends that all organisations pay attention to the irreversible changes that social media are […]

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Facebook bigger than newspapers? So what?

Facebook bigger than newspapers? So what?

Does this mean the death of newspapers? Not quite… The seventeen countries we included in the Middle East and Northern Africa Facebook Demographics study have widely varied news media: some, like the UAE, have strong English news components while others, like North Africa, have strong French language daily and weekly news media. When you look […]

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15 Million MENA Facebook Users – Report

15 Million MENA Facebook Users – Report

Scroll down the page for survey download links (and Egypt update) Summary Facebook has become a force to be reckoned with in the Middle East and North Africa and the platform can now claim 15 million users as of May 2010. Whilst Facebook saw strong early growth in 2008/2009 from English and French speaking users […]

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Night of the anonyhaters

Night of the anonyhaters

Our use of online media platforms is providing a challenge in terms of how we ‘behave’ online compared to offline. Many people find that they are more outgoing online, that they go that little bit further than perhaps they would in a face to face situation. This is particularly true when anonymity is brought into […]

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Are you engaging the right fans?

Filed in CRM, Customers, Social media by on May 2, 2010 0 Comments
Are you engaging the right fans?

As a communications and marketing agency that helps run a number of social media programs, we spend quite a lot of time looking at Middle East social media marketing campaigns from around the region. It’s still early days, but the number of brands experimenting with social media in the Middle East is growing and, as […]

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What happened to all our fans?

Filed in Facebook, Social media by on April 21, 2010 0 Comments
What happened to all our fans?

Last night Facebook changed some of the terminology on Spot On PR’s Facebook page. It’s something that has been talked about for the past few weeks (see Mashable story from March) and is being rolled out across Facebook and organisation’s Facebook pages. As a result, this morning our Facebook page fans are no longer called […]

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Does online marketing scare you?

Filed in Online Marketing by on April 19, 2010 0 Comments
Does online marketing scare you?

Things are looking up for the online marketing community. Recent surveys and media reports widely credit the region’s online advertising spend to be growing fast and becoming increasingly important to more and more people. Although last year was a difficult one for many, some believe that this gave big advertisers pause for thought and time […]

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Introducing social media in the Arab world

Filed in Social media by on April 11, 2010 0 Comments
Introducing social media in the Arab world

The April issue of O’Dwyer’s PR Magazine has just come out in the USA and it features a report I wrote on social media in the Middle East and North Africa. It’s a very top-level view of social media and Internet trends in the region and primarily intended as an introduction to the Arab world […]

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