So it would appear that after a few months of testing Dubai with a social media listening experiment, that the results have been appalling.
My plan was to get information on how to setup a business in Dubai – ideally through a service provider who would notice my many tweets asking for help in this area, who would then guide me on the process. The goal was to get reliable information whcih can then be used in a long form piece of content that would be seen as valuable.
I had ambitious goals but Dubai has consistently surprised me so I went ahead anyway.
Unfortunately, despite many tweets at different times and days, no one batted an eyelid. Not even a favourite or retweet or DM.
Nothing at all.
It’s rather disappointing seeing no activty in this space – Dubai is a hive of activity and has very favourable business conditions which makes it ideal for people to pursue new business opportunities. You’d expect at least 1 service provider to be using social media as a means of lead generation.
One theory I have about why nothing happened here (apart from widespread complacency in the region) is due to the fact that print media and print advertising are still huge. I mean, you can still go into a place like Gulf News and physically fill out forms for ads. I don’t think this sort of thing exists in Australia anymore. So it would appear that people still source business and service providers the old fashioned way.
It’s sad to see that there’s so many missed opportunities for business in social media. I expect Dubai to get its act together and ramp things up in this arena. I expect more education on this matter because social isn’t going away and as Dubai ups the ante in the lead up to World Expo 2020, there is every reason to grab the bull by the horns and make the most of every opportunity that comes our way.
Social media listening is so easy to setup and all you have to do is create alerts for the queries that matter and then let the leads come through. Try it and tell me you’re not impressed!
