Social media networks are transforming the economy and people in Saudi Arabia. You can say Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest consumers of Social Media specially YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram & Twitter. According to recent studies, it has been identified that social media growth in the country is around 8.7%, whereas the global average growth is around 9.2%. Hence, it is worthy to take a look at the social media statistics of Saudi Arabia for the year 2020. Along with that, you can learn a lot about how the people in Saudi Arabia are using social media networks.
Overview of social media users in Saudi Arabia
According to the statistics of January 2020, Saudi Arabia has a total number of 25 million social media users. This is a massive user base. In fact, the total number of social media users in Saudi Arabia are higher than many countries in the world and highest in GCC in terms of percentage of Social Media consumption. When you compare it with the population, you will figure out that 72% of people who live in Saudi Arabia are active on social media. Hence, we can come into a conclusion that social media networks have become a part of the life among people in the KSA. The number is increasing exponentially along with time as well. For example, more than two million people have started using social media networks from April 2019 to January 2020.
Arabic content contributes to 97.9% of the total social media content consumption in Saudi Arabia.
One of the most interesting facts about social media users in Saudi Arabia is that all of them are accessing the leading social media networks through their mobile devices. It seems like they are enjoying the convenience that social media apps has to offer as the mobile penetration in Saudi Arabia is 129% which is 43.80 million mobile subscribers.
Social media networks are quite popular among young adults in the country. In fact, around 38.1% of the total social media users in the country are men aged between 25 years to 34 years. Likewise, 16.6% of the total social media users are women in the same age category. The second most popular category of users are aged between 18 to 24 years. Out of them, 12.8% are male, whereas 6.2% are female.
How do people in Saudi Arabia use social media networks?
Since, now you have a clear understanding about the social media users in Saudi Arabia. Let’s figure out how Saudi’s are using social media networks:
98% of the social media networks users have accessed their social media profiles or IM platforms for at least one time within the past month. On the other hand, 88% of all the users are actively engaging with social media. An average person is spending around 3 (three hours) a day with social media networks, which is almost 1/8th of the day.
Most popular social media networks in Saudi Arabia
YouTube
YouTube is the most popular social media network among people in Saudi Arabia. They find it easy to stream media content and watch their favorite channels and videos on YouTube. The broadband facilities with fastest speeds like 4G & latest 5G is also available in the country which has contributed heavily towards the popularity of YouTube in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 76% of the total social media users are active on YouTube.
WhatsApp
WhatsApp is the second most popular social media network among people in Saudi Arabia. Around 71% of the social media users are active on WhatsApp. Then you can find Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Facebook Messenger and TikTok respectively in the list of most popular social media networks. In fact, the top most popular social media networks in the world are also popular in the Saudi Arabia.
Twitter
Twitter is quite popular among people in Saudi Arabia as well. It is possible to use Twitter and reaching to 14.35 million people who are based in Saudi Arabia. In addition to that 53% of people who are aged above 18 years are active on Twitter out of the people who use Twitter in Saudi Arabia, 69% are male and 31% are females.
LinkedIn
Similar to the rest of the world, LinkedIn is the most popular professional networking platform in Saudi Arabia. It is popular among professionals who are looking to build meaningful connections 4.10 million people in the country are using LinkedIn for professional networking purposes. In other words, 16.4% of the social media users in Saudi Arabia are active on LinkedIn.
Facebook
If you use Facebook for marketing purposes, you will be able to reach 13 million people in Saudi Arabia with ease. In fact, Facebook advertisements can reach up to 48% of people aged above 13 years.
An average Facebook user in Saudi Arabia clicks around 8 advertisements per month. This will help you to get maximum returns on your investments in social media marketing.
The average engagement rate for a post that is uploaded into Facebook is around 2.79%. If you want to increase the engagement rates, you should think about uploading more video content, that’s because the average engagement rate for videos uploaded to Facebook is around 3.95%. The average engagement rate for Facebook is around 3.72%.
Instagram
Instagram is quite popular in Saudi Arabia. 12 million people can easily be reached with Instagram marketing campaigns. This accumulates up to 44% of the Instagram users who are aged above 13 years.
Snapchat
Likewise, you can use Snapchat advertisements to reach 16.1 million people in Saudi Arabia. This is one of the most effective social media networks available for marketing purposes. That’s because you can reach 60% of people aged above 13 years and above through Snapchat advertisements.
TikTok
TikTok is the newest star of Saudi Arabia’s social media landscape, exceptional growth of TikTok has been witnessed in Saudi Arabia in past few years the biggest number of users or consumers are Millennials who are born between 1980-1995 aged between 25-39 Years old and Generation Z who are born between mid 1990 to mid 2000 aged between 16-24 years old.
TikTok users are highly engaged with the app and eager to take actions:
- 72% liked Videos
- 50% create videos every week
- 21% follow brands
Also the ease of accessing platform via app is making it more attractive for the audience in Saudi Arabia.
Using social media for marketing in Saudi Arabia
Due to the popularity of social media networks among people in Saudi Arabia, it is highly feasible to use it as an excellent tool for marketing. Business owners can take huge advantage from their presence in social media and using social media marketing to reach to their target audience with Bytes Future.
When you are promoting your business on social media, you will be able to get positive returns. For example, an average social media user leaves around 9 likes and 4 comments on the social media posts per month.YouTube statistics
Statistics of each social media channel clearly show how popular social media networks are among people in Saudi Arabia. We cannot expect this trend to go down in the future. Therefore, make sure that you get the most out of this opportunity available and proceed with social media marketing with Bytes Future.
Social media has radically changed the way brands interact with consumers and vice versa. Today social media is an integral part of brands and businesses digital marketing strategy. As a top digital media and social media marketing agency Bytes Future provides complete digital and social media marketing solutions from strategy, content to execution and achieving best returns on investments for your digital and social media campaigns.
Whether you’re looking to build brand awareness, increasing traffic to you website or e-commerce store, generate leads or drive sales. Please contact us today to discuss you next big win.
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