Zain Bahrain is a vigorous, lively hub for star individuals as much as it is a team spirited organization, and one star individual is none other than Ahmed Haqiqi. We’re just telling the truth! He joined Zain Bahrain back in 2008 and has continued to rise through the ranks to become a manager in the Digital, Marketing Communication and Advertising department.
He’s obtained several certifications in his field to underline his erudite and expertise. Ahmed’s role is vital as he oversees the planning, deployment and marketing communication and advertising, as well as brand building activities and impressive initiatives that contribute to making Zain stand out the way it does. Not expecting less from the winner of Zain Group’s Digital Innovation award for 2 consecutive years!
Ahmed is quite the achiever in his personal life as well, his hobbies include hiking (uhm, he hiked the highest peak in the Arabian Peninsula Jabal Shams ‘Sun Mountain’ & Mount Rinjani in Indonesia…that’s the second highest active volcano in Southeast Asia…is he for haqiqi? *mashallah*). If you thought that’s impressive, well, that’s not even the whole cake. When he’s not hiking, he’s spending his time open water diving, surfing and pretty much every other water sport activity in the book. In addition to videography and content creation – which makes total sense why he’s in his role!
In this fast-paced world of technology, maintaining a steady grasp on trends; social or digital, is quite the difficult task, so it must be even harder for brands to brainstorm ever-changing strategies to keep up and stay on top of their game. “Brands should course-correct their strategies based on the insights they gather from their social audience,” Ahmed shared, “They should be familiar with the latest trends and through untapped opportunities, find things to capitalize on and use them to engage with their audience.”
Digital engagement with the audience is a given practice to enable a direct system of communication where customers can interact, support and advocate the brand through various social platforms without hindrance. This awareness has led Zain Bahrain to rank amongst the top 10 most engaging social media accounts within the region in the telecommunication industry. It’s a milestone that couldn’t have been achieved without the right set of strategies. Now that’s Zaintastic!
Ahmed emphasized that social media engagement is more than just accumulating a large number of followers, the importance lies in benefitting from it to reach a wider range of audience, raise a greater awareness for the brand and of course, return on investments (ROI).
Zain stands out from the crowd due to their sheer dedication for promoting SDGs and the effort they put into accomplishing them. “We consider sustainability as one of the core pillars of our label, and it’s a commitment we ensure and value by actively communicating it as such with the power of social media, and we use it to further advance the SDGs awareness both internally and externally,” He added.
Brands are both encouraged and expected to commit to have the SDGs plugged in their content calendars, educate their customers or viewers with the importance of these goals and how they could contribute to achieving them.
When asked about the best social media engagement tools for SMEs, Ahmed observed the enriched digital space that could facilitate engagement on various social platforms, noting that a good engagement rate is between 1%-5% depending on the industry, audience range and type, as well as the style of content published. Hootsuite and Socialbakers are two of the most common tools used by many brands, labelled as flexible and scalable.
Being part of Zain’s massive cogwheel operation must bring about all kinds of unforgettable experiences, and for a diligent longtime employee, Ahmed shared his favorite. “Probably Zain Bahrain’s Ramadan live show that was aired through Instagram’s live feed,” he commented, “there were 15 live episodes that were created with the aim of increasing engagement with our audience during the holy month, and it was recognized as one of the most successful live shows in the region.” We know, we enjoyed every episode!
Whether Zain is receiving an award from the Supreme Council for Women or being represented at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, its safe to say that Zain has made all the right calls in investing in their employees, empowering them to grow and excel even further in their field, and contribute to making quite the impact in Zain’s internal and external society, always aiming for a higher, more outstanding disposition of engaging with a wider range of audience to understand the market and status of the world surrounding social media.
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