I'm Manal Assaad, aka The Manalyst, a Branding Fanatic, Marketing Enthusiast, and Media Addict.
By profession, I'm a marketing specialist with a keen eye in design, a quirky style in communications, and avidity for social media.
By passion, I'm into psychology, sociology, mythology, movies and TV series, technology and gadgets, music and dancing, languages, art and culture, fashion designing and styling.
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Posted by Manal Assaad on Monday, April 9, 2012,
In :
Events
Do you follow me on Twitter? Then I must have spammed you a week ago for five days tweeting about the largest digital event in the region: Arabnet Digital Summit
I had the pleasure of attending Arabnet 2011, and a greater pleasure returning to Arabnet 2012 as an official blogger among some other great bloggers. This year’s event was bigger, with more workshops and talks, and more focus on details! Read on to know what you've missed ;)
Starting with the Developer Days on March 27 – 28, ther...
Posted by Guest Post: Arabnet on Friday, March 9, 2012,
In :
Events
Over 100 leading global and regional ICT professionals are set to take the stage at the ArabNet Digital Summit 2012 to share their expertise on the latest trends and topics in the field of online business.
The dynamic line up of speakers will include respected professionals from well-known organizations such as Osama Bedeir, Vice President of Payments at Google; Shervin Pishevar, Managing Director at Menlo Ventures; Amina Belghiti, Head of Platform Partnerships, New Markets EMEA, Facebook; a...
Posted by Manal Assaad on Friday, February 10, 2012,
In :
Events
When you work in the social media field like I do, it becomes inevitable to run into startups that are eager to launch the newest idea, the most tech-advanced service or the best-specialized network. As a startup, it is perhaps important to believe that the product you’re developing will be a success, will bring you fame, and help you cash in, hopefully sooner than later.
I do not claim to be an expert on entrepreneurship and startups, but if there is one thing that I can deduce by common ...
Posted by Manal Assaad on Monday, September 26, 2011,
In :
Social Media
A Facebook Page for your brand is almost always an obvious must-have in your social media platforms. Despite the contrary belief, or what some so-called online marketers would try to sell you, having a facebook page is not about the number of fans you have… it’s about attracting your true target audience and engaging them in effort to achieve your business goals.
Your target audience is easily your customers, potential customers, or any entities you’d like to get a message to. Reaching ...
Posted by Manal Assaad on Friday, August 19, 2011,
In :
Tech & Gadgets
There’s nothing like spending a week in Lebanon hanging out with friends and having fun… except commemorating it with a golden mobile phone, the Nokia Oro… A phone that’s easy to use and easy to carry, with no compromise on beauty or elegance.
18 carat gold, premium leather and a sapphire home key were surely attention-grabbers every time I held the phone to use it. My friends had a few good jokes about taking it & running away with it :P
Posted by Manal Assaad on Saturday, August 6, 2011,
In :
Social Media
I live in the Middle East and you don't need statistics to know that people here are more of Facebook fans, probably because we tend to be very talkative and 140 characters simply doesn’t cut it for most of us. Or perhaps because FarmVille doesn't have an account on Twitter (for which I'm really grateful).
I asked some friends about that, and read some other people's opinions on it, and barely any of them seemed to really like Twitter. But I kept seeing it everywhere online and was curious ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Manal Assaad on Monday, June 20, 2011,
In :
Tech & Gadgets
My favorite colors are red and black as someone who've always sought out passion and power. However, when I was designing my personal brand about a year and a half ago, red and black didn't feel to have the right touch. In a shocking twist, it was pink with black that felt very inspiring to me, I say "shocking" because everyone who knew me knew that I was an anti-pink girl. Ever since I launched my website, my branding identity and my online activity, I experienced growth more than I ...
Posted by Manal Assaad on Thursday, April 7, 2011,
In :
Personal Branding
As you've read my previous post on the importance of personal branding (hopefully); I'm sure you've been waiting for the second part of my tips on your personal brand name and logo/avatar (hopefully). So without further ado, read on...
Your Brand Name:
In its simplest easiest forms, this can be your own name. However, the thing is your name might be special to you, but it would mean nothing to most other people. Unless you're creating your brand to make your family name recognized and popul...
Posted by Manal Assaad on Thursday, April 7, 2011,
In :
Personal Branding
You don't have to be in the marketing field to understand what a brand is. Most probably, you have been a brand all your life and you don't even realize it. Whether you are the cool funny person in your family, the geek in the office, the go-to guy or girl in your click, or the troublemaker in your neighborhood, chances are you have been branded with some label… quite possibly some people have even branded you behind your back with labels I can't point out here...
Posted by Manal Assaad on Wednesday, March 23, 2011,
In :
Events
The much-awaited event of the year in the Middle East, ArabNet, kicked off on Tuesday 22nd of March with its Developer Day, or as ordinary people like me call it “Geeks Day” because of half of the technical stuff that flies right over our heads!
The turnout for this day was completely unexpected as most professionals in the region would be more interested in the Forum Day 1 & 2 that host many astounding speakers with talks on digital trends. The crowds in the hallway & the two conference ...
Have you ever had an important meeting or event that got you so nervous that you had a nightmare about it seeing yourself showing up naked and had every one shocked and pointing at you until you realized it and felt so embarrassed that you wished you could just disappear?!
Well this isn’t about that. This is actually about wanting to be there naked! No, not literally. Just read on.
Going back in memory to college years, you must remember that one of the important courses of management was O...
Posted by Manal Assaad on Wednesday, February 9, 2011,
In :
Social Media
After observing the behavior of marketers and brands on Twitter for the past year, I have jotted down some punctilios (☚ word of the day - punctilio: a fine point of etiquette or petty formality.) that you, as a marketer, would need to follow if you want to gather and keep happy followers:
Punctilio #1 Mix business with pleasure, that's today's "must-do":
We all know that you are mainly on Twitter so you can promote a business or a blog or whatever it is you are so proud of (and yes we are pr...
Posted by Manal Assaad on Friday, February 4, 2011,
In :
People
For quite some time, I've been thinking about how to make my blog more alive and engaging; if you've been an avid follower of mine (on twitter) for a while you'd remember me asking on whether I should allow guest posts on my blog as it's been suggested by a few people. Although I like the idea of giving way to other people's voices on my blog, this is a personal blog and I'd like to keep it personal and to have my flavor all over it. So I came up with the best idea to combine both! A "Meet S...
Posted by Manal Assaad on Saturday, December 18, 2010,
In :
Events
On December 11th, I had the pleasure of attending the 1st Arab Social Media Forum in Amman, Jordan. The forum was the 1st of its kind in the region to target only Social Media topics and share both clients' & agencies' experience dealing with Social Media platforms & different social engagement approaches / show cases (according to their website).
The event, held in Regency Palace Hotel (which, on a side note I must say, has AWESOME beds XD), was under the patronage of His Excellency Mr. Mar...
Posted by Manal Assaad on Wednesday, December 8, 2010,
In :
Events
Resuming my first post of my TEDxArabia experience and the presentations after the first beak, Thamer Shaker got it off on the right foot by bringing in lots of laughter to a really serious topic with the video below. In his presentation of "Elf & Giant", he urged the youth on choosing between being elves, small and insignificant, or giants, grand and visible.
Posted by Manal Assaad on Friday, December 3, 2010,
In :
Events
If you were following my tweets on Thursday, December 2nd, you'd know that I was attending one of the most exciting, entertaining and educational events that can take place in Saudi Arabia... TEDxArabia which sought to answer the question "What is Innovation", as well as many other questions under the same theme.
I was invited as the Social Media Associate to bring the happenings of the event to the twittersphere (I knew my tweeting skills would pay off someday :P); and to spread the knowledg...
Some many weeks ago I started this post on getting engaged online with your audience, starting steps 1 to 5. I intended to publish the rest of it sooner but what can I say… procrastination isn’t pretty, unlike what you see in the video above. So without any more procrastinating, here are the rest of the steps:
6- Don't be afraid to step into unfamiliar grounds: It’s known that we’re creatures of habit, and we seldom like change for our fear o...
Posted by Manal Assaad on Thursday, August 19, 2010,
In :
Social Media
If you came in here hoping at the end of this you’ll get out of it with the man/woman of your dreams, then I apologize for misleading you but it was quite intentional!
However, what you can hope for by reading this post is learning how to activate your social media strategy and get engaged with your target audience. Whether you’re seeking potential clients, potential employers, or potential cultists, here are 5 of the 10 steps to get engaged with them:
I'm Manal Assaad, aka The Manalyst, a Branding Fanatic, Marketing Enthusiast, and Media Addict.
By profession, I'm a marketing specialist with a keen eye in design, a quirky style in communications, and avidity for social media.
By passion, I'm into psychology, sociology, mythology, movies and TV series, technology and gadgets, music and dancing, languages, art and culture, fashion designing and styling.
