Aleen Zakka

My story begins as early as 2005. As a young Lebanese woman discovering the new website that was Facebook, I was in awe of the significant potential such a platform could provide to its users. I started dreaming of working in the domain, teaching people about digital marketing and becoming successful in it. I was able to reinforce my passion and test my abilities as an entrepreneur by building Net2work Branding from scratch in 2016.

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EXPAND YOUR BUSINESS BRAND THROUGH YOUR PERSONAL BRAND IN THE MIDDLE EAST

In the Middle East, the idea of having your personal name directly attached to your business brand is a fairly new concept. Most entrepreneurs in the business world already understand the significance of being recognized in the industry and how it strengthens their market, presence and revenue. How often you present and describe yourself will help you stand out from the competition as well as keep your clients in the loop of your business growth.

Social Networks were made to connect people to each other. Regardless of that, most online businesses do not recognize the value that social networks have on their ability to create relationships online. Trusting online referrals and public relations is still a difficult process for most businesses.

When closing a deal, people from the Middle East believe that a handshake should be in process. It is obvious that networking is the core of each business and a successful entrepreneur understands that if he or she wants his or her business to grow, he or she needs to surround himself or herself with the right audience and relate to the best people in the industry. He or she connects with the people he or she trusts through business meetings and relations, events or dinners.

What causes Middle Eastern entrepreneurs to find it harder to connect online is the fear element that is produced from trust. Face-to-face events and connections are held more important than online relationships due to the fact that people trust others more when they see them in person.

How Do You Eliminate This Fear to Become More Successful in the Middle East?

Despite the fact that most entrepreneurs and business owners understand the significance of having their personal names and branding when building a trusted reputation, the concept is not usually applied in the correct manner.

In this day and age, it is important to utilize technology in personal branding. Integrating the self and the personality in a business exposes it to a wider global audience and embeds people’s characters in their brands. This helps support their vision and brings uniqueness to the business. In other words, become a futuristic leader that people can trust by paying attention to these points that I have included in this article:

  • Allow yourself to be seen in global magazines by making sure to feature yourself in around ten well-known print medias every year.
  • Work on your social media presence and create an influential and friendly environment for your clients.
    In the Middle East, people are big consumers of content on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. Despite the fact that LinkedIn is not one of the highest used platforms in Arab countries, take advantage of various creative means to engage people in your business. Dream big with your customers and include them in your journey.
  • Be a trendsetter and share your story online by letting your followers on social media know the steps you’ve taken to reach the goals you have completed today.
    Older entrepreneurs believe that engaging with people through a personal brand commits you to a life of no privacy and allows people to understand your experiences deeply. This worries them because they think that the growth of their business should be kept a secret to protect their success. This mentality has been slowly diminishing over time with a new generation of leaders inspiring and supporting people with their success. Let your followers know about your inspiring stories, the value of your content and the human side of you that they could relate to. Listen to their concerns about their own businesses, let them learn from your failures and inspire them through your success stories. Let them see your name everywhere and keep it at the top of their minds. You will then open up their minds to the new western techniques of leadership and personal branding and make them respect you and your journey more.
  • Stay in check with the new leaders of today and learn from the techniques they use. People and businesses in the Middle East are always up-to-date with the new leaders of the day in various fields. It is important for you to notice what big Western entrepreneurs and public figures are doing to represent such a strong and stable business. People only want to work with the best in the business.
  • Localize your online presence on social media and expand your audience by helping them relate to your content. Focus on the culture, language, social behavior and perception of your clientele by making use of branding experts who are always available to help you create your space while preparing a flexible stage for you to meet your potential clients. People feel more secure and comfortable when they know that you understand their expectations and their cultures.
  • Stay up-to-date with Middle Eastern challenges and give your opinion online by mentioning a few real-time suggestions and solutions that you might be thinking about. The Arab market is constantly hungry for solutions and valuable opinions.

With the new ways available for building brands, most leaders have already started changing their behaviors for the growth of their businesses. While some still believe that personal branding is a practice reserved for public figures, new up-and-coming entrepreneurs understand the connection between allowing your followers to know you and the growth of your platform. Owners of businesses have made themselves memorable by making an impact on their clients and the business world.

Entrepreneurs have also worked on connecting with each other online to find new opportunities in the global market. Investors and entrepreneurs especially know the importance of finding a potential partner through various well-known business magazines, the way you brand your voice online, as well as the way your character is perceived.

The majority of profiles today lack the development of personal branding strategies. A clear branding strategy will allow you the right positioning when coming up with your personal brand or putting your name on the market. By being aware of the real time exposure of your brand, forecasting potential risks to the industry and your skills in communicating with new connections, you will be able to attract a larger audience as well as potential partners.

Expand Your Business Brand Through Your Personal Brand!

Read More: Your “edge”, and why it matters.

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WOMEN’S BUSINESS EMPOWERMENT IN SOCIAL MEDIA AND COVID-19

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous facets of our day to day lives have been negatively affected. From the world’s economy and health care systems to businesses and profits, this crisis has harshly halted the steady growth the world has always been accustomed to witnessing. But more specifically, women in businesses have been facing numerous challenges finding the suitable resources to establish and grow their presence in the workplace.

Entrepreneurs, especially women entrepreneurs, have also been suffering from the hardships the pandemic has caused. The simple and quick solutions they used to adopt to help maintain their businesses and succeed have become less and less available and profitable.
At this point, the pandemic has moved beyond the health crisis and has turned into a challenge for the labor market. But how do women entrepreneurs around the world overcome this long-lasting obstacle?

Women All Around the Workforce

The COVID-19 pandemic has turned most businesses towards social media and adopting an online presence. Every woman around the world had to shift her business to survive, despite the fact that some might not have been ready or knowledgeable enough to take on this huge step.

An online business requires a various number of upkeeping and focus to succeed. From leveraging the business’s online presence, social media, website and sales to online social events and promotions, women entrepreneurs need to make sure they have all the necessary tools to ensure they keep profiting off their work.

Women in developed countries are opening up to this opportunity and the need for change to maintain their lifelong work and keep their business empowered and successful.

If you are still confused about where to start, check out how I could add value to your expertise and business.

Despite all this, it is important to mention that many women around the world do not have easy access to these necessary tools to profit from these facilities and, in turn, the online world.

I find myself constantly thinking about business women in the Arab world, but more specifically Lebanese woman, who have been horribly affected by what can only be described as the worst and darkest time for women in the workplace this past decade. Not only do Lebanese women have to handle a health crisis but also a financial, economic and social crisis. The pandemic has created a long-term problem that women have to tackle when it comes to their businesses in terms of security, earnings, unclear costs of production caused by the unpredictability of the Lebanese currency as well as limited access to Internet, in a country that is already facing problematic political situations that lead to an unstable infrastructure development.

“Woman is the solution to poverty. Woman is education. Woman is hope for change. Woman is power at work. We can stand on our own and face obstacles together.”

Since the Lebanese Civil War, Lebanese women have put their minds together to restore what is left of the business world. While living in a vulnerable community, they have reinstated hope and faith in other women as well as empowered them to build a stronger career.

Unfortunately, the current situation leaves Lebanese women standing on unstable grounds, while attempting to be more productive and creative in a society that gives them little to no payback. They are forced to survive through this global economic war and local financial crisis by keeping their cash cow income strong to protect themselves in the case of another threatening low-growth market.

Where Do Lebanese Women Go From Here?

I have trained women of all age groups so I know that no matter her professional field, her age or her social status, any Lebanese woman deserves to reserve her place in the global market to become a priority online. Living through a crisis does not mean that she needs to give up or retire. Every woman is capable to manage and master at least one or two platforms on social media.

If you are a Lebanese business woman suffering from the crisis, keep your digital presence growing to give you advantages in the global market and to be known around the world. You never know when you might find a business partner, an investor or even a potential client that would help expand your business globally.

In addition to that, it is important to keep in mind the various other services you could provide to people in these difficult times. Freelancing, coaching, selling products online and selling online services are some of the many different things you could add to your business to help make it more prosperous.

It is a time like any other to hold onto your passion and to prioritize it. Take the time to master social media techniques and profit from home through online methods. It might be a long road ahead, but it surely is profitable!

Check the different online packages I offer to motivate Lebanese women here.
If you need to know more about further applications, let’s connect!

It is very important to remember that Digital Marketing is not a shortcut to earn money. It is significant to put in a good amount of time and effort to learn the basics before diving into it. When you start having a little experience online, you will start to find different ways to earn money. The more you are exposed to it, learn from it as well as practice it, the more you can make considerable earnings from your digital marketing techniques.

As a digital expert myself, my aim is to take on a new approach to strengthen and support women and their business journeys whether they want to grow their careers, pick up their startups online or run their own businesses from scratch. I want to empower women to feel more comfortable when starting a home-based business so they can focus on other aspects of their lives as well.

Given all this, I have created various digital training packages to help women find sustainable means of increasing their economic empowerment in this inevitable crisis. If this idea sounds daunting to you because you simply feel like do not know how to use social media at its full potential, chances are, changing your ways of thinking in your business will help you sell and succeed in completing your goals.

Start earning money online and I guarantee you that you won’t regret it!

Women’s Business Empowerment in Social Media

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SOCIAL PROMOTION AND ANTICIPATION: BEST STRATEGIES OF 2021

Due to the fickleness of social media trends, it becomes quite difficult to anticipate what is going to reach maximum popularity year after year. Numerous prominent social media platforms and various websites and applications have hit large numbers of traffic without any prediction being made possible beforehand. Because of that, it is important to acquire and adopt specific strategies that will help in anticipating the best for your website.

To help you on your journey, I have gathered up the five main marketing strategies that should be adopted in 2021. There are several different factors you need to take into consideration in order to align your online activities with all your marketing needs. Update your social media strategies and be at the top of your marketing game online this new year by planning, anticipating and adapting to the new trends.

Set Your Goals

Before jumping into the creation of your social media accounts, you need to set your aim as well as discover your essential tools. These will give you a kickstart when furthering your reach to the public, building your fan base and growing your followers count. Here are a few samples of objectives that might be relevant to your plans.

• Make sure traffic towards your website increases by at least 50% each year

• Allow a yearly 60% increase in engagement with your website

• Set a minimum of 20% annual increase of revenue generated from your social media

These strategies listed above are just a few of the many significant goals you should set for yourself to allow your targets to be reached faster and your online brand to progress each year.

Choose Your Audience

When step one is complete and you have fully defined your goals, there comes a time where your audience should be identified, set and catered towards. The crowd that follows you are the people that will lead you to accomplish the set goals. This is why it is important to get to know your clientele quickly and to make sure your content works to your advantage.

Start off by identifying your current customer base. You need to focus on the targeted audience and identifying these clients will help you map out the steps you will need to take to expand your goals accordingly. If you do not know how to examine your customer base to find the right target, there exists a plethora of available online tools that will help you simplify the ways clients can reach you, attract future clients to your website and grow your brand. Some of these online tools include Google analytics, Facebook audience insight and LinkedIn analytics. Take advantage of these online channels to assure success in 2021.

Diversify Your Content

Every day, the number of Facebook users grow more and more. People are intrigued by the various diverse content that is available for them to read, watch or interact with for free. This is allowing the social media marketing trend to become more and more promising each day. Allow your clients to engage with your content by diversifying it and making it more interactive through the use of various available tools and materials.

Set a Budget

Before advertising, it is of high importance to specify and set a budget that you are willing to spend marketing your website. Depending on the amount your budget allows, divide it and spread it out throughout the year(s) and make sure to keep track of the results of your ads. Even if you feel like you will reach your goal faster if you spend more, never exceed your maximum budget since that will drastically affect the next year to come.

Publicize on Mobile

Numerous research studies have shown that people are tuned in with their mobile phones to the point where 68% have claimed to perceive vibrations from their devices despite not getting any notifications. Businesses have taken advantage of this reality by focusing on adopting strategies made specifically for mobile devices. Research claims that 33% of phone users use their phones for research while 49% of them use it for shopping. Do not miss the chance of expanding your following as well as growing your business by making your website noticeable and mobile friendly.

Since the birth of social media, it has become apparent to everyone that these online platforms are the best places to publicize various content to succeed. Play on the side of the algorithms and create a website or a blog to take advantage of the success other websites have received online. Raise the traffic on your website and push your ranks on Google, since it is the most widely used search engine on the Internet and will solidify your website in the digital world.

Social Promotion and Anticipation: Best Strategies of 2021

Read More: Expand Your Business Brand Through Your Personal Brand in The Middle East

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