The rise of social media marketing

The use of social media is growing at an exponential rate globally and Pakistan is no exception. In fact, in Pakistan, the requirements for social media usage are near perfect. About 65 per cent of our population is under 35 years and 50pc is under 22 years. This means a tech-savvy, app-driven youth cohort, whose principal medium of dealing with the world is through an app.

Combine this with the teledensity and GPS (global positioning system) coverage. It is estimated that Pakistan has 169 million unique subscribers of which 87m are smartphone users. With the recent introduction of smartphones built especially for the masses, smartphones with long-life batteries, all popular applications built-in, and the phone provided free of cost if the customer agrees to a 12-month post-paid contract, it is expected that smartphones will be 80pc of the market within 3 years.

Ownership of a smartphone enables a user to access apps. YouTube leads the market with 44m monthly active users (MAU), followed closely by Facebook with 36m MAU and then TikTok at 24m MAU. The number then drops for Instagram at 6m and Twitter at 4 million. LinkedIn has 6m users in Pakistan. Local apps are also showing scale and some have the potential to become super apps. As these apps scale up, they will also become potential mediums for social media marketing.

Pakistan does not have a significant marketing industry since in a country of 220m the estimated spend is $700m and this number has been shrinking over the past three years

Pakistan in reality does not have a significant marketing industry. In a country of 220m, the estimated spend is $700m. This number has been shrinking over the past three years. If we further peel the onion, the split between conventional media (television, print, radio, and outdoor hoarding) versus social media, is 72:28 in favour of conventional media. On the conventional side, television dominates the segment commanding 70pc of the spend. On the social media side, Facebook and Google command 80pc of the spend.

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