Seasonal events and national holidays are an amazing opportunity for companies to add some spices to their strategies and marketing plan. In an attempt to achieve an objective, we all tend to seize any chance to enhance brand awareness and convert prospects into customers.

As Saudis are very familiar with Twitter and use it a lot, companies race to reach out to those by featuring campaigns on Twitter. We scanned the week of the Saudi national day to extract all the insights that might help businesses understand what kind of promotions and activations to use on such events.

Special offers and promotions

Of course, many companies and brands had special offers and promotions on the national day. We filtered these mentions and interactions to find out which promotion was the most successful and interactive than the rest.

The second top mention was by Jarir Bookstore which has always been a hub for promotions on stationary, electronics, and books. While AlMatajer tweeted the most interactive content since it is already specialized in online shopping and promotions.

#عبدالكريم_السليمي_معاصر_الملوك

عروض اليوم الوطني

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فحوصات هشاشة العظام وفيتامين د

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هنا الموقعhttps://t.co/JyIJpt7QVf
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. pic.twitter.com/Hnd95DtWRu

— almotajerالمتاجر (@almotajer) September 24, 2017

The top mention ironically was a funny tweet about how nice the promotions are on this day and suggesting that every day should be counted as a national day.

وضعي يوم شفت عروض #اليوم_الوطني : pic.twitter.com/b7dILiQNUO

— مسطول (@msstol) September 23, 2017

Where there any false promotions?

Yes. Actually, one of the top mentions by business accounts was related to a violation of a restaurant that misled people with a false promotion. The news rotated around the platform to warn citizens about spam offers and promotions.

«التجارة» تخالف مطعماً ضلل المستهلكين في «عروض اليوم الوطني»
https://t.co/MNmtQY5ao0
#اليوم_الوطني٨٧_
#اليوم_الوطني_السعودي_87

— صحيفة عكاظ (@OKAZ_online) September 23, 2017

Competitions

As per competitions, not many companies led those on the national day. In addition to the previously mentioned Okaz, AlMarai also created a hashtag for its own competition asking people to share pictures of Saudi products of AlMarai using the campaign’s hashtag.

Although competitions are usually very interactive, overall only 2.3% of interactions were received on competitions.

تعرف على شروط مسابقة #وطن_به_نفخر. شارك الآن واربح العديد من الجوائز القيمة #اليوم الوطني #المراعي pic.twitter.com/wzD5LwlMUw

— Almarai - المراعي (@almarai) September 20, 2017

Also, accounts such as Okaz newspaper took the lead with a link to their competition about the virtues of Saudi kings. Many people interacted with the competition hoping to win an iPhone 7.

وارفعي الخفاق أخضر
شروط مسابقة «عكاظ»
بمناسبة #اليوم_الوطني_السعودي_٨٧ #كل_عام_والوطن_امن

https://t.co/2Uq7cNCyaq pic.twitter.com/zIiWkXp3gk

— صحيفة عكاظ (@OKAZ_online) September 22, 2017

Other trending hashtags

Due to that fact that this year’s celebration was the first mixed celebration in the history of Saudi Arabia, users posted negative content about that. Many hashtags and tweets expressed the people’s wish for the return of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in their full power and authority.

Top accounts that mentioned the event

AlArabiya channel official account was the top in terms of the number of followers. The news channel is always one of the top influencers regarding trending events in the region as it covers almost all events and is followed by 13.21 million followers.

في اليوم الوطني.. فنان العرب يغني بـ3 مناطق بنفس الوقت! https://t.co/dAP1cVocxq #العربية

— قناة العربية (@AlArabiya) September 24, 2017

The most active user was AlShamel for ads, as he published more than 139 tweets featuring the topic. The account's activity was all based on retweeting ads and promotions by other accounts.

On the other hand, Meshal was the account with the highest number of interactions with more than 4.53K likes and retweets. His post was about the urge of the return of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice as an objection to the events that took place during the celebrations of the national day.

#الشعب_يريد_عوده_الهييه
وجود الهيئة بكامل صلاحيتها شيء مهم !
ما رأيناه من منكرات وفساد في اليوم الوطني ، يدعنا نتسأل هل نحن في بلد مسلم؟

— مشعل (@meshal__1m) September 25, 2017

As expected, people interacted more with promotions, special offers, and the objections of the mixed celebrations. Even though these are the main topics that received interactions, none of them was prominent and surprisingly viral. Look at the following chart that disiminates interaction depending on the category of the content tweeted.

Hai'a is The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. The topic was treated as a separate category due to the fact that it received a relatively large number of interactions.

Definitely, there are many ways to use such events and seasons for marketing, yet it is always very different from one market to another. Listening to social media will surprise you with results that might be the exact opposite of your expectations.

Happy National Day Saudi Arabia!