ENGAGING ARABIC-SPEAKING VIEWERS WITH NEW SAT-7 SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

To meet the growing needs of viewers online, a new social media strategy is being rolled out for SAT-7’s Arabic-speaking viewers. Within the first month, it is already bearing good fruit with our young audience.

“With this new strategy, we want to build active social media followers, create long-term impact in their lives, and distribute continuously relevant content to each audience segment so we can better engage and follow up with their requests and needs,” shares Shady Francis, SAT-7’s new Arabic Digital Director.

The year 2020 was the year where everyone’s eyes were on their screens. Whether through computers, smartphones, or tablets, the global community was engaging online more than ever due to the COVID-19 pandemic and their deep desire to feel connected to others during times of lockdown and isolation. People were leaning towards specialized content to meet their individual needs; many searching for meaning and answers from God as to why all this was happening.

Stats from the 2020 Arab Youth Survey

To better meet the desire for engagement and curated online content, Shady Francis and the social media staff came up with a future-oriented strategy to help funnel SAT-7’s audience towards content that addresses viewers’ personal needs and struggles. This strategy also allows SAT-7’s staff to better respond to requests from viewers, provide one-on-one counseling and prayer, and offer posts that nurture their specific interests more regularly.

With the new strategy, SAT-7 can maintain these relationships through five new brands tailored to viewers. The brands are: SAT-7 Family, SAT-7 Youth, SAT-7 Women, SAT-7 Worship, and SAT-7 Daily Bread, along with the previously existing pages for SAT-7 ARABIC, SAT-7 KIDS, and SAT-7 ACADEMY.

“Only weeks after the strategic shift from many social media pages to these selected brand pages, we began to see that it really works. We are seeing testimonies pouring in,” shares Marianne Awaraji Daou, SAT-7 Arabic Channels Audience Relations Manager.

One such testimony came from a 20-year-old Muslim woman from Algeria named Sara, who had been heartbroken and disappointed by love. She shared her comments on the SAT-7 Youth page. Sara disclosed that she had a disability, which made her feel that she was not worthy of love as other girls are. She wanted to be loved but felt inferior. Marianne helped her to understand her value through God’s eyes and that she is worthy of being loved. “I feel so relieved just talking to you guys,” Sara confessed to Marianne. “I’ve never seen these values in my community, and I love the way you Christians love each other.”

Marianne shares that she told Sara that anyone can have a relationship with Christ. I said to her, “‘He sees what’s in your heart.’ We are continuing to communicate with her and pray with her. If she wants to know more, when we feel she is ready, we will encourage her to join a discipleship course online,” Marianne says.

As for SAT-7’s YouTube channels, the new strategy will include edited and curated short clips that would then encourage viewers to watch the full episode exclusively on SAT-7’s new Video-on-Demand platform, SAT-7 PLUS.

“This new social media strategy, the new Video-on-Demand SAT-7 PLUS platform, [together with] our long-standing satellite channels, have the potential to reach more people and give them access to the Gospel and God’s transformational love, for their spiritual, mental, and physical well-being,” shares Rita El-Mounayer, SAT-7 CEO. “For now, our strategy has begun with the Arabic-language pages. We are developing similar plans for our social media pages in Farsi and Turkish.”

Please join us in praying for each of the 5 new social brands:

• Please pray for SAT-7 Family, which aims to address the spiritual, psychological, and educational needs of families in the Middle East and North Africa. Pray that families dealing with divorce, relationship, and parental struggles will access the life-giving messages of this page and allow God to transform their troubles to triumphs.
• Please pray for SAT-7 Youth, that it will equip the new generation of young adults to maintain and grow their relationship with Christ, understand their identity in Him, and develop the emotional resilience they will need to build their careers, their families, and their future.
• Pray for SAT-7 Women, that it will speak to the hearts and minds of women across the region, so they can see themselves through God’s eyes as valuable, empowered members of society, deserving of equal rights to men.
• Pray for SAT-7 Worship, that more viewers will be inspired by the praise and worship posts, which will will help them to connect deeper to God.
• Pray for SAT-7 Daily Bread, that our audience will regard it as a valuable resource to grow deeper in their relationship with God, and that seekers will learn the true nature of Christianity and have their questions answered.

To financially support the ongoing development of SAT-7’s social media strategy, reaching a growing audience of people who are looking for answers to life’s greatest questions through the technology at their fingertips, you can give here.

Thank you!

Banner image from SAT-7 Family