When news of Arsenal’s interest in midfielder Mohamed Elneny leaked last December, thousands of enthusiastic Egyptians flooded the club’s social media space, generating more than 280k tweets and millions of Facebook impressions in three weeks.
Digital Boom analyzed the untapped potential of the club’s presence on the Egyptian social media sphere, providing three compelling reasons for Arsenal to hire a digital media agency in Egypt.First, let’s look at some facts.
165K tweeps generated 220k+ tweets upon Arsenal’s official announcement on Jan. 14
Arsenal’s official announcement
It’s official! @ElNennyM has joined @Arsenal https://t.co/EXB8o9Fbu6 #ElnenySigns pic.twitter.com/DWHoBL7DtB
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) January 14, 2016
How the world reacted over Elneny’s transfer to Arsenal
Heat map shows how the world reacted over Elneny’s transfer to Arsenal.Egyptians flood Arsenal’s Facebook page
- Over 100K new fans from Egypt in 72 hours
- Massive interactions on Elneny related posts
- Fans expressed big support for Elneny and warned against excluding him from matches
- Non-Arabic speaking Arsenal fans urged Egyptians to make their Facebook comments in English so that they could understand
Here’s a glimpse of what happened on Arsenal’s Facebook page:
Do you think it’s negative? Ok, let’s continue reading…
Arsenal opportunities in Egypt
1- Grow digitally
With a population of 90M, Egypt is considered one of the biggest countries in the Middle East and Africa region. There’re more than 40M Egyptian netizens, 27M on Facebook alone, 1.5M on Instagram and 1.4M on Twitter.
It only takes a few months to win Egyptians’ hearts
Arsenal’s Facebook page hit 100K new likes in less than 72 hours of announcing ElNeny’s GBP 7.4M 4-year contract, signaling a huge opportunity to grow Arsenal’s fanbase in the Middle East and win over La Liga and Premier League clubs.
Arsenal has only 1.9M Egyptian fans on Facebook, and the number is expected to skyrocket after Elneny’s transfer2- Commercial opportunities
Mobile content monetization
Egypt has around 60M active mobile users, and only 40M of which are connected to the internet. Half of them use smartphones and the rest prefer featured phones.
With 40M phone users relying on featured devices, Arsenal has an opportunity to harness the revenue potential of SMS subscription content services which is financially rewarding (Check Chelsea’s case study).
Increase sales in the MENA region
Again, it’s a great opportunity to start distributing the club’s products to increase sales from the Middle East
3- Regional sponsorship opportunities
Brands tend to partner with sports clubs who already have regional existence in the region.
So will Arsenal grab the opportunity and hire an Egyptian digital media agency?
