We played Cupid this time of the year, matching you with the most relevant social listening data related to Valentine’s Day in the Middle East in 2020. Discover what Crowd Analyzer’s tool has analyzed and don’t forget to share the love. 

All sorts of “feelings” were definitely in the air everywhere on Valentine’s Day 2020 , the Arabic Speaking audiences of the MENA region were also all about the love and our Social Listening tool was there to capture it all. While new songs were being released, “love” products being promoted and restaurants becoming way overbooked,  Arabic speaking users around the MENA region had so much to say about Valentine’s day. 

At Crowd Analyzer we have certainly felt the love monitoring an estimated 2.23M Activities ( 25k Mentions + 2.2M interactions) from general queries related to Valentine’s Day, monitored from the 6th to the 16th of  February, 2020. 

Discover the insights brought on by Crowd Analyzer’s social listening platform below: 

The most astounding number was: 

7.9M YouTube Views (of "عيد الحب"  in titles or video descriptions) in a span of 24 hours only.

Timeline Analysis

Valentine’s day related timeline peaks, and the gradual interest for this particular topic overtime.

Starting February 1st, conversations around love and valentine’s day started to pick up, however the first noticeable peak was on the 11th of Feb, 72 hours ahead of the actual day when consumers and users “act more based on their feelings” about the day whether as a need to purchase something of their loved one, or many other topics we cover below. 

Naturally mentions, overall activities and brand promotions, peaked on the 14th. and started decreasing from there.

Crowd Analyzer’s tool recorded 46% of Valentine’s day related activities on the 14th, followed by 24% on the 15th. 

Consumers Persona Analysis

Who said what and where:

Against expected gender perception on a similar occasion, a whopping 61% of online activities on Valentine’s day were by males, followed by 23% by businesses and brands and lastly 16% were by females. This is a highly enlightening insight for brands aiming for Valentine’s day 2021 as the traditionally expected demographics have significantly changed. 

Crowd Analyzer’s tool crawled the data, looking into the gender and location demographics as well as the sentiment towards the general topic whether in comments, posts or mentions among many other types of insights that are extremely eye-opening for brands and marketers looking to plan for their next campaign in the Middle East. 

Egypt dominated the scene with 40% of the activities, followed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with 34%, then Kuwait with 7%, Iraq with 6% and UAE with just 4%. 

Naturally with all that romance going around, Youtube dominated platforms with 47% as singers including Amr Diab, Ramy Gamal and many others opted to release new records ahead of Valentine’s day. Facebook came in second with 39%, Instagram with 13% and lastly Twitter with only 2%. 

Sentiment Analysis*

While all the feelings are typically, felt and shared, on Valentine’s day, Positive and Negative sentiment was nearly the same on that day (15.5% and 15% respectively) with most content tagged as Neutral (69.5%). We are thinking the amount of sarcasm contributed to the high percentage of Neutral sentiment on February 14th. 

Content Analysis- Males

• You would think it was all Romance but actually sarcastic posts by men about Valentine’s day were largely sarcastic about the beauty of being single (62%). 

لو ناسي ان النهارده عيد الحب، ف انا نزلت التويته دي عشان افكرك انه النهارده وانك سينجل وحيد بائس ومحدش هيقولك كل سنه وانت معايا..!

— عمرو حسن (@AmrHassan_88) February 14, 2020

• With this being a consumer holiday, gift related content ranked 2nd (23%). 

فرحت أمي اللي شوفتها في عينها النهاردة وانا بديلها هدية عيد الحب مع انها بسيطة جداً واسلوبها وهي بتقول لأختي "عشان تعرفي هو اللي في الحتة الشمال ليه" حاجة متتوصفش بجد انا فرحة أمي عندي بالدنيا حرفياً. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

— Hussein Muhammed (@HuseinMuhammed_) February 14, 2020

• 8% of the content was criticizing the celebration of a non-traditional holiday in the Middle East. 

يوم الجمعه بدال لاتذكرون الله وتقرون قرآن تروحون وتخربطون وتسوون اشياء غلط وتحتفلون بعيد الحب وتجيبون هدايا وأصلاً مافي شي اسمه عيد حب بس انتوا قدوتكم الاجانب اي شي يسووونه تسوون نفسهم ناس مرضى بشكل موطبيعي .

— ‏﮼عبدالله (@3neziix) February 14, 2020

• Ironically 7% of male driven content that day was about Football, we guess somethings never change 😀

الكل بيستتى يوم 14 عشان الفلانتين و نا بستناه عشان الزمالك . ف ودين امى لو نكدتوا عليا ف اليوم دا هزعل اوى منبقاش سايبين الكراشات عشانكوا و متجبولناش الهدية 🔥⁦❤️⁩#بروح_قتاليه_السوبر_زملكاويه

— Eslam (@Eslam41713001) February 12, 2020

Content Analysis- Females

• On the contrary from males, females discussed Gift ideas at length with 47% of their content revolving around gifts. 

اذا بتحتفل مع الحب اليوم .. عمرك لا تشتري لها دب أحمر وعليه فيونكه زري 🤣❤️تري راح ترميك في بازوكه🤣#ValentinesDay2020 #عيد_الحب

— Mona Al-Jerry (@MonaalJerry) February 14, 2020

• Celebrating Singlehood and Galentine’s day came in second with 25% of the female posts sarcastically mentioning the day of love. 

انزل الشارع الاقي الكل بيحتفل بالفلانتين وكل الكابل في الشارع ارجع البيت اتفرج علي فيلم قصه حب💔
اكتئب وانام بقي ولا اعمل ايه😂

— Sara Abozaina (@sara_abozeina) February 15, 2020

عيد الحب هو نفس عيد الاضحي بس الاختلاف ف الخروف😂😂😂💃

— 🐣💦 (@MariamElmahayes) February 16, 2020

• Females were, ironically, more vocal against Valentine’s day celebrations, too single to celebrate maybe?

مفيش داعي تحطوا بوكس هدايا بعرض باب المحل عشان مهما كان حلو مش داخلين والفلانتين حرام 🙂😎😂

— Mariam Thapet (@mariam_thapet) February 13, 2020

• 7% of female content on that occasion was sharing romantic quotes on love. 

إنّ في الحبّ كثيرًا من التلصّص والتجسّس والفضول. والأسئلة لا تزيدك إلاّ تورّطًا عشقيًّا. وهنا تكمن مصيبة العشّاق!
" فوضى الحواس " #عيد_الحب_2020 ❤❤ pic.twitter.com/LlkFi4ILmM

— Noura mahmoude (@Noura_mahmoude) February 15, 2020

Crowd Analyzer’s Tips for Social Media Planning for Valentine’s Day 2021:

It is never too early to plan…

Entice

Brands should focus more on a day that is the second most mentioned day after White/Black Friday every year. Because of users’ attention span being limited on a day like this, it makes it the perfect opportunity to entice potential customers with special offers, time-limited discounts, and special giveaways. To see love from your customers, just give them a little bit extra. 

Demographics

This year’s Valentine’s day data analysis from Crowd Analyzer shows that both genders share a strong interest in this occasion. However, our analysis shows it is no longer becoming a typical “couples day”, instead, the top mentions about gifts were about gifts received from or given to family members and/or friends. 

This clearly shows the need for brands to start becoming mindful of the shift in perception when it comes to Valentine’s day. This is no longer a man-woman equation but instead a day to show all sorts of love between families, friends, co-workers, babies and everything in between.

Also, Singles owned a large percentage of the overall Share of Voice for both genders which makes single men/women a prime target for marketing campaigns on Valentine’s day. 

 Also, with 77% of the activities coming from personal accounts as opposed to 23% for business accounts showcases that maybe brands can capitalize more on an occasion like valentine’s day with posting more content and engaging more with audiences using the right format of content. 

Tailored Experiences

There is nothing clear-cut or straightforward when it comes to love, users wishing to celebrate a special occasion will not be looking for traditional purchasing but, instead, a shoppable experience that is breathtaking, personalized, relatable and, more importantly, memorable. 

If you have a product to sell, spin an entire experience around that cannot be mass-produced (even if your product/service is mass produced). Love is unique and so should be everyone’s gift. 

If you are thinking it is too late to use social listening to capitalize on Valentine’s day, don’t give up on love just yet! Crowd Analyzer’s Social Listening tool can support you in getting the best ROI on your seasonal marketing campaigns starting with Mother’s Day, less than a month away. Request a demo here. 

* This Sentiment Analysis was performed on data captured through Twitter only. Crowd Analyzer offers sentiment analysis on public content on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Blogs, Forums and News, among many other resources.