Facebook as an internet marketing tool

In the UAE, telecoms operator du has been using the social networking site. Sherif Safwat, Executive Director of Brand Marketing Communication at the company believes that if companies fail to recognise the importance of using social networking sites they would be bumped out of the market very soon. 'We invested $1m on online marketing and advertising this year and find that there is a huge appetite for online media in the UAE and worldwide. We have to adapt to this new trend and unless we do so we'll be out of the market.'

The article further talks about how companies are using Facebook to promote themselves and their clients. Additionally, it talks about how facebook can work for you and also against you, like for example, creating groups against a certain company...

To read more about social networking sites(specifically Facebook) serving as a marketing tool and its powerful effects, click on the link below:

Facebook as a marketing tool: friend or foe?

Retrieved from ameinfo.com

UAE internet Users fear online shopping

An annual survey was conducted in the UAE to gain a better understanding of UAE internet user patterns,behavior and security fears affecting online usage.

Symantec's annual consumer survey of more than 400 UAE residents who regularly use the internet revealed that 75% of respondents do not shop online due to fears that the Internet is 'unsafe' and 'too risky'.

The survey also revealed a shocking 78% of respondents who transact online do so with no protection. These findings are a worrying increase compared to last year's results which found only 47% of respondents had security solutions in place.

Additionally for the second year hacking and credit card fraud remained a front of mind security threat even though 92% of respondents have never experienced any form of fraudulent activities.

Symantec's latest spam report stats that spam now stands at 78.5% of all email traffic and will continue to increase in 2008. Hence education about such threats remains key to staying secure. Symantec's latest Internet Security Threat Report, October 2007 backs up these findings by stating that the UAE still remains a prime target for malicious online activity, ranking the country 40th for the number of bot-infected computers, 66th for phishing hosts, and 51st as a source of spam.

Consumers need to realize that online protection is not a difficult and time-consuming task that requires constant vigilance.

Retrieved from ameinfo.com

HP largest marketing campaign is coming to the Middle East

HP spent $300million worldwide on its ad campaign titled as "What Do You Have To Say?" providing consumers with ideas to express themselves. This campaign is considered to be the largest global interactive marketing campaign HP has ever done.

Inorder for the campaign to fit into the Middle East market , local achievers will be identified to share their stories.

You can check some of the campaign ads on and read more about it . It is a whole online experience, but could be slow, too many graphics and images and things to load. You can even create your own free logo after going through different steps.

What Do You Have To Say? sites :
www.hp.com/gwen

www.hp.com/burton

www.hp.com/paula

Tour busses are going to be visiting school in the UAE allowing children to create their own tshirt and calender designers. Ads will also be in the form of traditional,out-of-home,web and viral marketing.

Retrieved from www.communicate.ae