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 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 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 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...
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.
