How the Middle East uses Social Media: 18 things we learned in 2018

Since 2012, I’ve produced an annual study tracking trends in social media in the Middle East. This week saw the publication of the seventh of these reports.

As in previous years, findings used a wide variety of academic, industry and media sources, to showcase the latest developments, trends and research in social media usage across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

The 2018 study — State of Social Media, Middle East: 2018 — was written in conjunction with University of Oregon student Payton Bruni, and designed by another UO student, Corey Gedrose.

Here are 18 standout stats from 2018:

1. Facebook has 164 million active monthly users in the Arab world. This is up from 56 million Facebook users just five years earlier.
2. Egypt remains the biggest national market for Facebook in the region, with 24 million daily users and nearly 37 million monthly mobile users.
3. Saudi Arabia (KSA) has the highest annual growth rate of social media users anywhere in the world.
4. Data from We Are Social and Hootsuite, revealed social media users in KSA grew by 32% vs. a worldwide average of 13% (Jan 2017-Jan 2018).
5. Less than 30% of Twitter users in…