For the fifth consecutive year, the Middle East Social Media Festival (MESMF) was held on April 11 & 12, 2019 at Movenpick Hotel & Resort, where hundreds of marketing and business professionals met to share their expertise and learn about the latest social medianews and trends. Several interesting talks were delivered by senior managers from LinkedIn, Twitter, Snap and many other social media experts.
During MESMF 2019 and for the third year, individuals & brands were rewarded on their fresh and innovative social media performance through the “Middle East Social Media Award 2019”. After a long & professional voting process, the winners for this year were as follows:
· Best Celebrity on Social Media: Elissa
· Best Public Figure on Social Media: Pierre Rabbat
· Best in Financial Services on Social Media: Blom Bank
· Best Blogger on Social Media: Gino Raidy
· Best Social CEO – Professionals’ Choice Award: Marwan Hayek
· Best Social CEO – Jury’s Choice Award: Imad Kreidieh
· Best Brand on Social Media: Beirut Beer
· Best In Fashion on Social Media: Rami Kadi
· Best In Education on Social Media: Lebanese American University
· Best In Hospitality on Social Media: Crepaway
In 2019, MESMF was divided into a conference day (April 11) and workshops day (April 12).
During the first day, the best minds in the field shared their expertise and knowledge through keynote speeches, starting with Joe Ghantous, Founder of Right Service & MESMF, who opened the event with an informative speech summing up the latest social media trends that brands should follow to succeed in 2019. It was followed with a speech by the renowned communication professional Ramsay Najjar who tackled the good, the bad and the ugly facets of social media.
Throughout the day, Marwan Zeineddine, the head of Key Accounts and Emerging Markets territories at LinkedIn MENA shed light on the power of data today.
Other insightful speeches were delivered by the likes of Carla Maalouli, the head of Marketing in the Middle East & North Africa at Twitter; Elie Chedid, business Solutions Lead at Snap; Elie Aoun, CEO of Ipsos connect MENA and Christina Fakhry, head of the Social Media Section at ArabAd.
All the way through, there were two panel discussions one covering the topic of content marketing humor and the second revealing lessons from the “Middle East Social Media Award” Nominees & Winners.
On the second day, the event had three intensive workshops organised to tackle vital topics. The first workshop tiltled “How to Master Content Marketing on LinkedIn” was conducted by Alain Fares, Senior Media Solution Manager at LinkedIn MENA. It was followed by “Artificial Intelligence in Digital Marketing” workshop presented by Jimmy Ghazal, social media expert and instructor in media studies at AUB. The day ended with “Micro Influencer Marketing” workshop by Joseph Yaacoub the certified digital marketing strategist & trainer.
The event was hosted by the certified life coach Milad Hadchiti. The audience also enjoyed multiple surprises and lot of gifts offered by the event’s sponsors: two tickets to Varna from Nadia Travel, 5 annual subscriptions from Arab Ad, free rides from Uber, and much more...
MESMF 2019 was sponsored by LinkedIn, Alfa Telecommunications, Uber, Nadia Travel & Tourism, Right Service, Ipsos MENA, ArabAd, Future TV, Sawt El Ghad and SocialBakers.
