New Media Academy Concludes Second Season Of Faris Al Muhtawa Program
New Media Academy, a platform designed to shape the future of social media by incubating next-generation digital leaders in the Middle East, has just knocked out the second edition of its signature Arabic content creators’ program– Faris Al Muhtawa.
This season’s intake for the widely lauded program saw more than a whopping 1,000 applications come through. It was open to all levels of content creators looking to learn the A-Z of content ideation and creation with the latest software and editing tools. From these, 50 individuals were shortlisted to undertake 1,700 hours of training which included a fully integrated system of weekly classes, assignments, feedback sessions and over 2,000 produced pieces of content to show for it! The 12 content creators who were chosen to take their skills to career-level training, will continue their odyssey for a further three years honing their craft. Each one will be given tools such as state-of-the-art photography and videography equipment to give their content the WOW factor.
And of course, the training wouldn’t be complete without a little help and guidance from some of the top global content creators such as Christian Le Blanc and EMKWAN, who will show them the ropes with best practice tips and hacks when using platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and much more! From how to produce content from conception to completion, to understanding the different needs of each platform, the 12 members will get holistic training from the ground up to set them on their professional path to be fully autonomous as content creators.
Participants in the latest edition of the program truly proved their natural aptitude for putting out next-level content and climbing the ranks as far as followers and then scoring amazing brand partnerships because of their accelerated growth. A notable member was Ahmad AlMarzooqi (@chai_with_ahmad), who grew his followers on TikTok, going from 3,000 to 30,000 during the program.
Meanwhile, the program itself has achieved a 693 percent growth since its first edition, with the total number of followers of the participants increasing to 2.5 million during the six-month program. In its first year, the academy graduated more than 200 professional content creators from 16 countries, who increased the total number of their followers on social media by 10 times, from 124,000 to 1.3 million.
Rashid Al Awadhi, Chief Executive of New Media Academy, said, “The Faris Al Muhtawa program contributes to developing professional competencies, which has become a necessity today to meet a growing demand for digital jobs.”
The world is rapidly changing and moving in a digital direction. According to a report by the World Economic Forum, more than 40 percent of jobs this year will have a digital focus. Al Awadhi also pointed out that the digital economy’s contribution to regional GDP accounts for just 4 percent, compared with 22 percent globally. This situation is compounded by the fact that only 1 percent of all online content is Arabic.
“While the market is growing exponentially around the world – some market analysts predict the industry will be worth more than US$15 billion by this year – it is on the decline in the Arab world. To overcome this, we are committed to sourcing and streamlining content creators who naturally excel in the digital sphere to maximise their reputation, reach and revenue,” he said.
“The Faris Al Muhtawa program aims to turn the tide in digital trends in the Arab region by capitalising on the UAE’s high internet penetration, which sits at a whopping 99 percent. Between July 2020 and July 2021, about 520 million new users joined social media, which sees a growth of more than 1.4 million new users every day,” he added.
Al Awadhi also explained that the consumption of Arabic online content is miniscule, even though there are about 182 million Arab internet users. This is despite the fact that the Arabic dictionary contains around 13 million words, while the language is spoken by more than 440 million people around the world, and it is one of the official languages of the United Nations. A report by the United Nations stated that Arabic content on the internet represents only 1 to 3 percent of the total global content.
