In today’s world, the best way to spread your message and grow your brand is to promote through video content on social media platforms. Modern world audiences prefer moving images and videos instead of static advertisements to learn about the brand or any event because videos provide more transparency and details.
When creating corporate videos for social media networks, you need to be very discreet and well-informed about the kinds of audiences you can address through different social media platforms and the appropriate video aspect ratio for your required video. Moreover, if you are a Dubai-based corporation or a startup, you need to be more vigilant with your marketing strategies and reach the right audience through your videos because the competition among businesses in UAE is getting tough with each passing day.
The technical understanding of creating social media corporate videos might seem a little intimidating. However, you don’t need to worry because this article will give you a detailed insight into popularly used social media networks in UAE, their specific audience, and the preferred video aspect ratios for these platforms.
Types of Audiences on Different Distribution Platforms:
Capturing the right audience’s attention is one of the primary goals of every corporate or advertisement video, but that is only possible when you fully understand the type of audience you want to address. Following are some commonly used social media platforms in UAE to reach a significant audience.
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YouTube:
YouTube is without any doubt one of the leading video streaming platforms across the world, with a watch time of about a billion hours on a daily basis. It is the second largest search engine after Google and one of the three most visited sites in Dubai, UAE.
What it offers?
This vast platform can host any type of video, from short advertisements to lengthy documentaries and films. Besides these video options, YouTube offers skippable, non-skippable, mid-roll, and bumper video advertisements to promote your business.
YouTube also offers audience targeting options for the advertisements, such as you can directly manage your preferred audience for the ads through audience targeting features given by YouTube.
Here is the link that can help you to understand audience targeting for YouTube advertisements:
Which Kind of Audience Can You Address Through YouTube?
About 7 million individuals in the UAE use YouTube with an average watch time of 70 minutes per day, and about 90% of the shoppers in UAE check the products on YouTube before purchasing them. This information indicates that YouTube in UAE has a vast audience, and publishing corporate videos on this platform can be fruitful for every business or startup. Moreover, this extensive use of YouTube in the UAE will also help you to reach a massive audience for any documentary, film, fundraiser video, or travel documentary.
Among the YouTube audience in UAE, 34% are women, while 66% of users are men. The YouTube audience cannot be easily segmented into one age group because YouTube watchers range from young children to older adults. However, the average age among the YouTube audience is 33 years means young and middle age groups are extensively using this platform. Moreover, the Arab expats and the Emiratis are heavy users of this platform, constituting 70 to 80% of their total population in the UAE. Recent studies indicate that internet users aged 16-64 in UAE report using YouTube more than any other social media platform.
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Facebook
Facebook is one of the largest social media platforms used for advertisement. The rate of corporate videos being watched on Facebook is significantly increasing yearly; as of early 2021, about 3 billion people were using Facebook through their mobile phone devices.
What it offers?
Facebook allows marketers and merchants to advertise their products and services to a wide range of prospective customers using advertisement videos. This platform also allows you to reach your target audience based on their location, occupation, interests, previous search activity, and several other valuable data points.
Which kind of audience can you address through Facebook?
Facebook is a very famous network among a wide range of demographics that provides an excellent chance for you to target a massive audience by publishing corporate videos on this platform.
According to recent statistics, more than 10 million people in UAE are using Facebook, among which 26% are women and 74% are men. More than 70% of Facebook users in UAE belong to the age group of 18 to 34 years, more than 25% audience is from the age group of 35 to 54 years, and a small percentage belongs to the elderly group from 54 to above 65 years.
Moreover, based on the location, about 32% of the Facebook audience is from Dubai, 18% is from Abu Dhabi, 12% is from Sharjah, and a small percentage also belongs to Al Ain and Ajman.
Overall, Facebook can provide you with a mix of audiences from different age groups. However, in the UAE, 76% of the Facebook audience belongs to universities and higher education levels, which gives you an edge if you want to publish documentaries or any educational and informative corporate videos as well.
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Instagram
Instagram is a widespread social media network among Generation Z, with about 1 billion users worldwide. Its use is also significantly increasing in UAE, and many businesses and startups in Dubai and Abu Dhabi are effectively using Instagram to advertise by posting corporate videos on this platform.
What it offers?
Instagram offers several video posting options, such as IGTV videos, Instagram stories, and posts where you can visually showcase your products and services through corporate videos and reach your target audience. Like Facebook, Instagram also offers you to manage your advertisement videos and target the appropriate audience through the information about their demographics, interests, behaviors, and choices.
Which Kind Of Audience Can You Address Through Instagram?
The Instagram audience in UAE constitutes about 6.68 million people, about 65% of the UAE’s population. However, the audience on Instagram majorly belongs to young generations among the age groups of 24 to 34 years, with 60.9% men and 39.1% women.
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TikTok
TikTok is a short-form video application where you can share short videos ranging from 15 to 60 seconds. This video application is hitting the global press because of its increasing popularity among a broad audience. Comparatively, TikTok’s share among the other social media platforms being used in UAE is lower than YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, but its trend is picking up the pace, and its use is continuously growing in the region, with almost 59.7% of users belonging to the broad age group of 16 to 64 years.
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Some Other Social Media Platforms
Some other social media platforms used in UAE to share your corporate videos include LinkedIn, Snapchat, Twitter, and Pinterest. The LinkedIn audience in UAE constitutes about 4.48 million people, and most of them belong to educational backgrounds. There are 3.89 million Twitter users and 3.90 million Snapchat users in UAE.
If you aim to reach the maximum audience in UAE for your corporate videos, make sure to create your videos in such an aspect ratio that is adjustable to most of the above-mentioned social media channels.
Common Video Aspect Ratios:
The aspect ratios are imperative in videography and corporate video production to attract the modern world audience by giving them a video that perfectly fits their screens. Technical aspects of videography, such as video aspect ratios, might confuse you, but their understanding is essential to create the best results.
In simple words, the aspect ratio is the ratio between the width and height of a video in which it is recorded and displayed or projected on a screen. If you are confused about what aspect ratio you want for your video, this table will guide you on different aspect ratios and their uses.
| For vertical videos such as Instagram Stories and IGTV videos Facebook and Snapchat Stories TikTok and Snack videos Suitable for mobile phone devices | 9:16 |
| For high resolution YouTube videos Movie or a documentary | 16:9 |
| Aspect ratios for Instagram and Facebook Posts LinkedIn videos | 1:1 (Perfect square videos) 4:5 (Normal portrait videos) |
| Shared videos on LinkedIn | 1:2.4 to 2.4:1 |
| Cinematic film making for ultra-wide screens | 21:9 or 2.4:1 |
| Aspect ratios suitable for Pinterest videos | 1:1, 2:3 or 4:5 |
- The first tip is to get your video recorded in the same aspect ratio in which you want it to display, to fit perfectly on the screen where you aim to show it.
- Most of the advanced video recording tools and cameras today allow you to adjust the video aspects before you record it, so ensure that the aspect ratio selected for recording is the same as your display requirement.
- When you have doubts about your distribution platform or the devices where the audience will play your video, go for the universal aspect ratio that is 16:9 because it fits on almost all popular video streaming platforms and helps you to record the video in the highest resolution.
- However, you can get different resolutions for the same aspect ratio per your demands. Some standard resolutions for the 16:9 aspect ratio can be the following.
| Standard Resolutions for 16:9 | 3200 x 1800 (QHD+) 2560×1440 (1440p, QHD) 1920×1080 (1080p, FHD) 1600×900 (HD+) 1366×768 (WXGA) 1280×720 (720p, HD) 960×540 (qHD) 720×480 (480p, SD) |
