Media Center: 2 February 2024
The Saudi Media Forum has announced the recruitment of leaders from Google to organize three quality training workshops as part of its third edition, which will be held from February 20-21. The event is organized by the Saudi Broadcasting Authority in partnership with the Saudi Journalists Association.
Pamela Kasrani, a fellow at Google News Lab for the Middle East and North Africa, will be presenting two workshops from Google. The first workshop covers developing digital journalism skills, optimizing search usage while maintaining account security, utilizing large document sets with PowerPoint, and storytelling through maps and Google Earth.
The second Google workshop explores new forms of storytelling, utilizing Google tools for web-based storytelling. This includes optimizing the use of YouTube and YouTube Shorts, exploring podcast features on YouTube, visualizing data with Flourish, and creating engaging videos using Earth Studio.
The third workshop, focusing on YouTube, is presented by Tania Al Khoury, the Regional Manager for YouTube Partnerships in the Middle East and North Africa. The workshop covers the fundamentals of producing effective content on YouTube, understanding common performance-related terms on the platform, engaging with its statistics, utilizing available data to comprehend performance, and concludes with answers to some frequently asked questions about performance.
It’s worth mentioning that YouTube recently announced that YouTube Shorts surpasses over 70 billion daily views and has more than 2 billion monthly logged-in subscribers. In June 2022, YouTube reached over 20 million users above the age of 18 in Saudi Arabia.
In Saudi Arabia, there are over 300 YouTube channels with more than one million subscribers each, representing an annual increase of 15%. Additionally, 55% of the views for content produced by channels in the Kingdom come from outside it.
Google and YouTube’s participation aligns with the Saudi Media Forum’s aim to build and strengthen connections with specialized institutions locally and internationally, achieving positive impact, enhancing the quality of the media industry, and keeping it abreast of the constantly evolving latest technologies.
It’s worth noting that the forum will witness over 30 sessions discussing the future of the media sector, with speakers providing numerous insights and perspectives focusing on the developments and future of the industry as a whole.
The forum’s sessions will cover various sectors, including sports and its relationship with the media, as well as the financial and business sectors, tourism, and major events. The forum will feature a dedicated session for Expo Riyadh 2030, along with a special session for the FIFA World Cup 2034, among other vital sectors such as energy, artificial intelligence applications in the media, and investing in technological infrastructure for media businesses.
