Saudi Arabia is more active on social media than any other country in the Middle East and brands harnessing Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram and other platforms are investing in data that offers a deeper insight into the forces that drive Saudi spending. Companies using social media to engage with Saudi consumers are calling on the services of monitoring platforms to tap into their target markets. According to Dubai-based social media monitoring start-up Crowd Analyzer, Saudis are especially active on Twitter and Snapchat and the country has around 16 million and 12 million users on Facebook and Instagram respectively. The company, which has gathered real-time information from conversations surrounding major events including the World Government Summit, Dubai Lynx and Cannes Lions, recently secured pre-Series A funding of $1.1 million from a group of venture capital firms, including Wamda Capital, Arzan Capital, Faith Capital, and Raed VC.

According to  Crowd Analyzer CE0 Ahmed Saad ,brands realize the huge potential of accessing the lucrative Saudi market via social media and are looking to increase their understanding of the Saudi consumer. The company, which specializes in Arabic-focused social media monitoring, analyzing content using groundbreaking technology including AI, proprietary machine learning and natural language processing, has clients in about 10 countries but Saudi Arabia is its largest market. 

The investment will be channeled into increasing its presence in the Saudi market and opening new offices in Riyadh to connect with clients on the ground there. Saad, who co-founded the company with Galal in 2014, said that brands and people are increasingly connected over social media in the Kingdom. One Crowd Analyzer client — a major ride-hailing company — uses the platform to gain a sense of how users are talking about the service in different countries across the region, focusing in particular on what people say about their pricing, the technology behind the service and the quality of the service itself.

As a result, brands are increasingly taking their social media campaigns in-house rather than sourcing the process out to agencies. The company only uses publicly available data and its technology does not access information sent over private messenger. When people in the Kingdom voice their opinions about a brand, service or events over Twitter or Facebook, they want audiences to listen.