By: Moon Baz, Strategic Partner Manager, Facebook MENA

Video is a powerful medium for bringing people together. It is exceptional in its effectiveness to connect people through storytelling, and bring people closer together over shared interests and moments of entertainment. As we approach this year’s Ramadan – for a second time during the global Covid-19 pandemic – the way our tools are being used is transforming the way people are expressing themselves and interacting with one another during a time of continued distance and caution amongst loved ones. 

A New Approach to Ramadan

Last year, we launched a global initiative during Ramadan, entitled #RamadanTogether – a digital campaign that encourages our community of creators, publishers, businesses and individuals to connect with one another through a series of new shows, intended to spark conversations and give people intimate insights into how Muslims around the world were practicing under unprecedented circumstances. We invested in this ecosystem of content by doing partnerships with global broadcasters such as CNN, as well as with individual creators such as Nas Daily, to capture both in-depth reporting, one-off shows, as well as light-hearted short-form content that brought diverse moments of joy to our viewers.  

As the world was faced with stringent lockdowns, we knew that the Ramadan experiences we hold dear would be thrown into uncertainty. But what we saw, was that our traditions transcended into a new type of digital experience – our community of creators connected with their fans through live tutorials and ‘get-togethers’; our communities stayed up late to tune-into new shows and chat to each other virtually; and families around the world stayed in touch through messaging apps and live video calling. 

The feedback we heard from our creator partners last year – such as Khalid Al Ameri, Joelle Mardinian and Ahmad Al Shugairi – was loud and clear: being able to connect with loved-ones, and entertain themselves through digital mediums was changing the way they were able to express themselves. So, this year – we’re going even further, and launching a new campaign #MonthOfGood, to once again spotlight and launch new shows, creator series and community initiatives on our video platform, Facebook Watch. 

A Social Video Experience  

This concept of people watching together, digitally, on Facebook was unsurprising – our platform is naturally rooted in this social interaction, and everything we do across video, aims to inspire conversation and connect people. 

At our core, we have a vast community of people watching content on our platform – in fact, we have 1.25 billion people visit Watch every month. Naturally, the viewing experience on Facebook has now become less about the ‘individual’ and more of a participatory experience amongst this  diverse community. 

To achieve this vision, we’ve invested in social series that thrive on a concept of interaction, such as our global talk-show format, Red Table Talk starring Jada Pinkett Smith, which uses user comments to decide questions and themes of discussion. Likewise, our ecosystem of partners in MENA are learning from their own social practices on the platform, and experimenting with formats in the same vein. Take Roya TV for example – who customise Facebook pages with their content by creating Facebook groups such as Roya Comedy, Roya Kitchen that have become a popular medium for users to engage and discuss their favorite shows. They also host FB Live sessions before airing a new show giving viewers to socially interact with the cast and crew.  

And what’s interesting is that this new social rule doesn’t’ just apply to brand new formats. Old TV show clips, or behind-the-scenes spin-offs of popular content are finding new life spans on social media, and are being re-invented online to draw in new communities and nostalgic conversation. For example, our MENA partner MTV Lebanon rolled out the Al Hayba (الهيبة الرد) series on Facebook which was one of their most engaging ones, garnering over 271 million organic views and over 8 million interactions from 169 posts.

Our latest collaboration with the news industry in the Middle East embodies these efforts. For instance, we’ve partnered with the MBC Group to develop exclusive content for Facebook Watch that provides viewers with access to behind-the-scenes content from some of the most popular shows from around the region including The Voice and Family Feud. These shows generate vast conversation when they are aid through linear means, and the conversation doesn’t stop when the cameras stop rolling – it continues online, and we’re able to capture that with extra, online footage. 

Watching Together, While Apart 

So this year, for Ramadan 2021, we’re doing even more to bring content to Facebook. Families and loved ones this year will be able to gather together virtually to watch exclusive Facebook Watch and IGTV series, from creators such as Khalid Al Ameri, Manal Al Alem and Nas Daily and networks like MBC, TVison, Zee Entertainment. We’ll be rolling out Weekly Watch Guides across EMEA, capturing the new shows, clips, and series we’re bringing to the platform under the #MonthofGood hashtag, featuring broadcasters, publishers and content creators. 

We’ll also be launching our own, originally produced series, called ‘Live Suhoor Talks’ – a weekly global series hosted by Muslim creators across the UK, Asia, Middle East and North Africa, featuring conversations every week about topics ranging from food and fasting to mental health and well-being. The first episode will launch on 15th April, and you can find all of our content by searching for the hashtag #MonthOfGood. 

The future of video in MENA

If there is one pastime that people in the Middle East are unlikely to give up, it is watching videos – be it on television or on social networks like Facebook and Instagram. From a Facebook perspective by associating closely with the media and publisher community, we will continue our work with a host of global broadcasters, digi-publishers and studios to support the creation of new show concepts and formats on Watch. 

In the coming months, and in collaboration with a host of industry partners, we are looking forward to expanding our investments across the region by adding thousands of new videos to the platform – as exclusive episodic shows, as well as shoulder content that supports their own linear or off-platform properties. 

We’re also encouraged to see that our partners are now empowered to leverage their own back-catalogue of content on Facebook Watch for brand-new distribution, while monetizing through our Ad Breaks programme, for instance, Rotana Group’s Rotana Cinema and Rotana Classic.

While traditional TV commissioning strategies remain a key part of video distribution, across the industry there’s now huge potential across digital mediums to be the gatekeeper of your own content, and rally new, talkative fan-bases online. And our partners here have full editorial control of how their content is produced, and how they distribute it – with tools such as Rights Manager and Creator Studio giving broadcasters, creators and publishers a suite of options to access their insights, control their rights, and choose monetisation products across our Facebook platforms. 

As we look to create more opportunities for publishers to reach their audiences with new and creative forms of content, our ongoing investment in video content for Facebook Watch underlines our commitment to this sector in the Middle East and around the world.