Today, ElCoach, MENA’s premier on-demand fitness, and nutrition app released its Year in Review 2020 and we are seriously impressed.

With demand on Fitness apps growing by 46% during COVID-19’s first wave, it looks like this team worked harder to offer Arabs a chance to be slimmer and healthier.

Assem Emam, CEO & Co-Founder of ElCoach.Inc says “(we) worked like a beehive to grow our business in this tough time.”

He adds “(aiming to) help people of the MENA region find new and creative ways to stay fit and maintain a healthy lifestyle.”

Work paid off for Users and ElCoach

As the “best-in-class workouts engine in the MENA region”, ElCoach adapts users’ next workouts to push them faster & smarter towards achieving their goals.

Since it is a community-based model, the ElCoach community has collectively performed 2,843,388 workouts during 2020 to lose weight, gain muscle, or increase their fitness level.

No Couch but more Coach

The app also pushed users to turn their locked-down living spaces into gyms with the use of virtual fitness with videos.

As demand for “at home workout programs” with 8 times the size of demand for gym-based workouts. 90% of the demand was targeted towards “Weight Loss”.

Forget Baking, how about 150 K of Healthy Meals?

With ElCoach focusing on nutrition as part of a healthy lifestyle, their year-in-review shows users being less interested in stressing about calories and BMI.

Instead, users were more about nutritional factors like food macros and environment-friendly ingredients.

The app now boasts a roster of delicious vegetarian/vegan meals which empowered the ElCoach community to cook 157,369 healthy meals and eventually burning 165,864,300 calories collectively.

And with the economy suffering in 2020, 69% of ElCoach users opted for “pocket-friendly meals”.

Sweaty Steps for the Win

In November of 2020, ElCoach introduced a progress tracking & step counting feature to aid users in setting goals and measuring the progress of their steps, workouts, calories, and water consumption all in one place.

So, ElCoach community collectively walked  23,240,147 steps, and consumed 2,171,493 cups of water.

The Icing on the Healthy Cake

My most inspiring number, reading this report, was the fact that 88% of ElCoach’s premium subscribers reporting “noticeable change in their body shapes & fitness levels after trying ElCoach for the first few weeks”

It seems the app’s focus on offering a truly local and inclusive perspective on fitness gave the users a push to truly maintain a healthy yet very attainable lifestyle.

Assem wraps it eloquently, saying “It fuels our energy to know that our product resonates with customers and is fueling them to lead healthier and more fulfilling lives.”

Tarek Nour Communications (TNC) released a short and sweet case study on their Ramadan 2020 Campaign for La Poire, and we believe it is marketing gold.

In the two-minute case study published on Youtube, TNC demonstrated the change in Egyptians’ lifestyle this Ramadan for almost everything due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but, for a famous 45-year-old patisserie brand in a country fascinated by Ramadan desserts and is keen on sharing them in close-knit family gatherings even during the pandemic.

In a COVID-19 weary era, selling Ramadan desserts posed a severe challenge. Only family gatherings were limited, and a lockdown was killing the vibe. But we can always rely on TV to remain a Ramadan Fixture.

TNC resorted to Nostalgia mixed with humor in a series of social posts with little to no media spending to remind Egyptians of timeless TV series dubbed in catchy fun conversations about La Poire’s Ramadan Desserts.

Viewers were laughing, and more importantly, they were engaged.

The concise videos became an instant viral hit on Social Media, with views totaling 5.1 Million. Users were commenting, sharing, tick-tocking it, and just laughing at a time of uncertainty and face masks.

According to TNC, La Poire, a proper household name of everything sweet in Egypt, increased its sales by 50% nationwide. The campaign further established the brand’s place as Egypt’s dessert sweetheart.

Why is this marketing gold?

1. Little to No Media Spend

TNC didn’t need to spend money on buying ad slots or employ digital advertising. It didn’t interrupt every Youtube video, but the content proved to catch the attention of customers.

2. Celebrities without the big paycheck

Every Ramadan, it became customary to see the odd post about how much each celebrity gets paid for a Ramadan campaign. This time the production, while featuring stars like Mahmoud Abd El Aziz (RIP) and Raghda, didn’t necessarily need the big paycheck. They just recycled some of Egypt’s all-time favorite Ramadan TV shows from the 1980s and 1990s.

3. Nostalgia doesn’t have to be sad

Contrary to several other campaigns, this one proved to be nostalgic about times long gone doesn’t mean one should be sad or remorseful. Instead, remembering the good old days can still happen with a big grin on your face.

4. UGC is the future

We don’t know about you, but sometimes it feels like when brands “talk” to you, it stops being fun and becomes more like a lecture about how cool they are. Enter User Generated Content, which prompts each one of us to feel like they are part of an immense universal feeling that they MUST interact with.

It is fun for the user and becomes free traffic for the brand. In essence, we all become brand ambassadors for the brand without the hefty influencer price-tag and with much bigger reach than anyone.

5. We all need to learn

TNC publishing a short case study is the right step in demonstrating to budding marketers and creatives, and releasing case studies is each creative’s way of teaching others. The community becomes more knowledgeable, more creative, and, more importantly, more determined to produce, learn, and educate others.

Got a case study you want to share? Show us! [email protected]

Witnessing the suffering of Egyptian single mothers, I started a Facebook group in 2016 in an attempt to shed light on the challenges that put shackles on millions of women in the country.

In just a few days, I started getting thousands of requests from women to join the group. Women who wanted to share their stories in a safe environment, seek advice and get support.

The group grew from few friends to 2,000 in the first month, reaching over 42,000 in two years. Our voices were finally heard. In the first months, I started receiving interview requests from the media. The first was from BBC Arabic.

See Also: Useful Tips To Grow Your Facebook Group

The group snowballed into a movement attracting parliamnent members, women rights groups, lawyers and thousands of volunteers across many professions, all contributing to support the cause.

They say compassion will always alleviate suffering. We solved hundreds of problems. We found women jobs, returned kidnapped children to their moms, paid their debts, covered their medical and educational expenses, among others. Above all, we managed to influence the policy agenda.

Managing a group that advocates for a cause on facebook is no easy task. It requires a lot of effort, passion and commitment.

Here are my two cents on effective advocacy using Facebook groups.

1- Create a safe environment

A safe group is where people won’t feel abused, mistreated, bullied, offended or pressured in any way.

As group Admin, it’s your responsibility to create a safe environment for your group members. Regularly checking profiles, filtering group members, following up on comments, ensuring compliance with group rules should be a daily practice.

2- Build your brand

To get the buy-in of people and attract more members, you need to build a unique brand. Let your group develop a reputation for being genuine, supportive and effective. You need to practice what you preach and rise up to the responsibility.

Always remember that actions speak much louder than words. You should always communicate your group’s efforts and impact on members’ lives.

3- Have a clear mission

You need to describe your cause in a clear mission statement. Say what the group is all about, its objectives and what do you intend or aspire to achieve. This will help you build more credibility and fulfill your mission more effectively.

It’s important to keep reminding your group community of your mission to set the tone and remind them of the bigger goal you’re trying to achieve.

4- Set group rules

Develop a set of rules that serve your cause to maintain a healthy and safe environment for your group members. Rules should promote kindness, courteousness and respect for everyone’s privacy. Hate speech and bullying should be firmly dealt with.

Cause related groups should also refrain from accepting promotional, irrelevant links or posts.

5- Be consistent

You will come across several situations where you will need to make decisions pertinent to members attitudes and directions. You must always be consistent to demonstrate confidence, fairness, and show that you have a clear set of rules in place.

6- Don’t get dragged

People will drag you into irrelevant topics and will want to get you out of your way. Avoid getting into politics, religion, personal values and beliefs. Be clear, firm and and outspoken about it. Make no exceptions. A rule is a rule. It applies to the group admins, moderators and members. Rules are meant to organize work in the group, protect members, create a safe environment and help achieve the group’s objectives.

7- FAQs

List answers for frequently asked questions, and other important topics related to the group. The same questions will be asked quite often as new members join in. Don’t waste your time writing the same answers over and over again, it’s better to invest your time in extra group support activities.

8- Post wisely

Don’t write too many or too little posts. People will lose interest if you write too much and if you fail to communicate regularly. There is no magic number for how many posts you should write but one to two posts per day should be enough to keep the group engaged.

9- Communicate impact

A cause group is all about support and impact. Show members what problems have been solved through the group community. Communicate all key activities that promote your cause and highlight any achievements. This will bring hope to your group members, build credibility and attract more supporters.

10- Stay organized

Create files for important data, activities and achievements, among others. Delegate tasks to passionate volunteers after carefully selecting them. A bad admin or moderator may ruin the group and jeopardize its credibility. Keep monitoring progress, evaluating and improving. This will help you stay on track and move on to the next advocacy goal.

If you have other ideas or tips for managing causes on Facebook, please share them in the comments section. I look forward to hearing from you!