The Online Project (TOP) family extends its wishes to all Arabian Bytes on the advent of the Holy month of Ramadan.

The Online Project released its second industry report in 2012, which is under the theme of exploring user behavior trends during Ramadan. Our rationale was that the nature of the Holy month, affects the personal and professional schedules of people in the Arab and Muslim worlds dramatically.

It all started with Ramadan 2011, when our analysis team, which is tasked with keeping tabs on all activity related to the pages of our clients, noticed an interesting change in user behavior on Twitter. This change was linked to a sudden increase in the volume of tweets on a daily basis, and a seismic shift in the times that users become active on the platform. We opted to measure these changes through propriety software developed at TOP’s lab, and then we measured the volume and frequency (timing) of tweets outside of Ramadan. This resulted in a few interesting findings, such as:

  • Post-Iftar (after sunset) is the best time for brands to engage with individuals, as the volume of tweets increases sharply. The exception to this rule is the UAE, which could be reasoned due to the high number of expats living there.
  • Suhour (dawn) is the time that witnesses the least amount of activity on Twitter, as the number of tweets drop considerably in most countries covered in the research (UAE, Kuwait, Egypt and Jordan) in comparison to late hours of the night.

Our research also concludes with five recommendations of tools that could help you find patterns within your own community, such as finding the best time to post, which of your tweets got the highest engagement and interaction with your community, and figuring out which posts achieved the widest reach.

The spirit of Ramadan revolves around sharing, meeting with friends and connecting with families. The Holy month emphasizes a unique social element that is fused with a festive, positive spirit, so it is no surprise that we find this same spirit online. We hope that brands in the Middle East adopt this outlook when engaging with their communities during the Holy month as well.