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Getting The Most Out of Facebook and WhatsApp
Getting The Most Out of Facebook and WhatsApp
Getting The Most Out of Facebook and WhatsApp
Getting the most out of Facebook and WhatsApp: social media strategies by female entrepreneurs in the
UAE
Article information:
To cite this document:
(2019) "Getting the most out of Facebook and WhatsApp: social media strategies by female entrepreneurs in the UAE",
Strategic Direction, https://doi.org/10.1108/SD-01-2019-0008
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https://doi.org/10.1108/SD-01-2019-0008
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Review
When organizations conduct research around product testing or new marketing strategies,
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they will often turn to academic studies to help them verify any courses of action. With good
reason, academic studies are seen as trustworthy, and can be used to validate any specific
approach. Whether it is choosing materials for a new product because of their proven
qualities in a university laboratory, or looking at how certain marketing strategies performed
during a given study in a specific market, firms will feel confident that any evidence
presented to them can be used secure in the knowledge that it has already been validated.
However, sometimes academic studies are completely useless.
Take, for example, any academic study on the success of social media channel MySpace.
In 2006, it was the most visited website in the USA, with more visits than Google. When this
news broke in 2007, let us say an academic researcher thought they should do some
research on this phenomenon, so they applied for funding, planned some time in their
schedule, enlisted some fellow researchers, and completed the research by 2008; wrote a
paper and got it accepted at a conference later that year; worked on it further and
submitted it to a journal in early 2009; after a couple of rejections got it accepted before the
end of the year, and saw it published in 2010 – by which time Myspace membership had
plummeted and they were losing half their visitors year-on-year. If an article was published
about the success of Myspace, no matter how good the research had been, it would be of
no use to businesses seeking to validate their social media strategy.
Playing catch-up
For academic studies, as very little has been published when it comes to recent social
media trends in business, then it makes it harder for current researchers to build their case
for new studies, based as they are on previous ones. In the context of the use of social
media by female entrepreneurs for microbusinesses in the UAE, we have a number of novel
factors at play that Jose seeks to explore.
First, while Facebook is a relatively established medium, WhatsApp and chat functions are a
much more recent trend as small businesses exploit this communication channel for marketing
purposes. Then there is the phenomenon of mostly expatriate female entrepreneurs in the UAE
who have created microbusinesses to create a niche sector in the economy. Added to this,
you have the changing use of mobile phones, and how brands are developed through
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engagement with mobile technology. Finally, when you add in the cultural factors at play in the
UAE, you have a unique set of circumstances that, while not uncommon worldwide, have had
very little prior research published about them.
j STRATEGIC DIRECTION j
The author is able to present some timely and relevant
research on social media marketing that should have
learning points for organizations for years to come.
can meet customers and make both actual and virtual contacts through follow ups via
Facebook, and ultimately WhatsApp. As such, a clear path can be seen for young female
entrepreneurs in the UAE to follow.
Comment
The article “Strategic use of digital promotion strategies among female emigrant
entrepreneurs in UAE” by Jose (2018) achieves considerable success on two fronts. First, it
is a good research article on modern microbusiness operations taking into account
Keywords:
emerging, important phenomena such as developing markets, gender, nationality, and
United Arab Emirates,
social media marketing. However, it also acts as an effective research masterclass from an Facebook,
academic that any marketer could replicate to understand new opportunities and create Social media marketing,
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Reference
Jose, S. (2018), “Strategic use of digital promotion strategies among female emigrant entrepreneurs in
UAE”, International Journal of Emerging Markets, Vol. 13 No. 6, pp. 1699-1718, available at: https://doi.
org/10.1108/IJoEM-10-2016-0268
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j STRATEGIC DIRECTION j