Naja Faysal | Blog

Everyone around is saying that 2011 was a horrible year, in fact, to me, 2011 was one of the greatest. In 2011, I’ve lived in an amazing city (Dubai), got the chance to meet wonderful people, traveled to fabulous countries, worked on amazing projects & clients, partied like a rock star, experienced mind-blowing adventures and most importantly learned a lot.

But of course, “there is no free lunch in America”, in 2011, I’ve also had little struggles:

• Although I lived in fabulous Dubai, I wasn’t lucky with the neighbors , especially the ones right underneath (25th floor), who complain on every little tiny noise and called the police in our great house parties.
• Although my trip to Europe was amazing last summer, I still had to cancel/change some plans in the last minute.
• Despite meeting amazing people, I’ve also had painful break-ups. And now that I have moved back to Lebanon, its even worse to be separated from the dearest people back in Dubai.
• Although I worked on great digital marketing projects for fascinating clients like DEPE, Qualpro, Tamimi, Majid Al Futtaim Malls, Viva Kuwait, Rostamani Group, RAKFTZ and others, I’ve witnessed arrogant yet ignorant bosses and learned what bad leadership means and how the “carrot and stick” concept in management is a damn failure in today’s information age business environment.
• Although I’ve became a regular guest to Dubai’s most glamorous venues at night, and although I’ve attended the “interesting” Aimy Winhouse and the awesome Snoop Dog concerts, I’ve also gained a bit of a beer belly, few centimeters of fat on my thighs and suffered crazy hangovers due to over indulgence .
• Although I’ve done the most insane adventure ever (Sky Diving), which by the way, its “high” is still in my system, I didn’t keep on practicing the activities I started early on in the year (Professional Swimming, Skiing (yes in Ski Dubai, MOE), Kite Surfing, Salsa Dancing and Tennis). I even haven’t persevere enough on basketball, which correlates to the beer belly and the unhealthy lifestyle I’ve been living lately.

Today however is a day to decide on what should we STOP doing, START doing and CONTINUE doing.

Stop doing: problem with new year’s resolutions is that it usually hard to maintain, but despite that fact, this year I’m determined to stop smoking both Cigarettes and Shisha.

Start doing: 2012 is definitely a challenging year for me. I’ve taken on an extreme changes in my professional career and my live in general. I’ve moved back to Lebanon to handle our family business and this by itself require an entire set of “start doings”. The most important is discipline. In 2012, I need to have an extreme discipline to wake up everyday knowing that I am my own boss yet still focus on the targets and mission at hand. Its also a year of perseverance and patience. Our school is small and needs a lot of work. It has been running for 25 years in the same traditional mindset and I need patience to know that change doesn’t come instantly and perseverance to coop with the problem I’ll be facing.

2012 will also be the year where I will go back to school to embark on a masters degree, which I’m still undecided between Business Administration or Education Management.

Continue doing: There are certain things that I found extremely important throughout the years and I should keep on doing. Most important is the genuine interest and care about other people and being warm, friendly and helpful to friends, family and general fellow citizens. Its important that I continue smiling, continue being the happy person I am and spread positive energy in people I meet. Little alcohol is always good and I’m not planning to stop drinking and having good time, keeping the balance of work and play: work hard, play hard.

Its now 9:00pm on January 1st 2012, this is the beginning of a new year that we hope it brings delight to all of us. At least I have to say that I welcomed 2012 last night a bit better than its predecessor. Last year, we’ve celebrated the new year in the jammed metro station in Dubai. It wasn’t great, but we made the best out of it. This year however, I was between my beloved family, with whom I haven’t celebrated in ages. So, although it was a humble family and relatives gathering, it was a pleasant warm party, with lots of quiz games, poetry and fun activities.

2012 is definitely an adventurous year for me and I wish it’ll be a lucky one for all of us. Warm greetings to all of you.

How my skydiving experience brought “Skydive Dubai” tens of new customers with little to no marketing money.

Skydiving is an extreme sport that not too many people have even heard of. It was something on my list-to-do, and finally took the decision. I went ahead and posted on Facebook my intentions to skydive with a link to an article written about skydive Dubai. This article was written by a  journalist, colleague and dear friend of mine (Pauline Forte) on the matter. My tweets and status updates are not usually super-dooper interesting but this status update was extremely appealing in attracting many likes and comments. The threads around my skydiving experience were the most popular of all my activities on the social media sphere so far, and on the big day, people were encouraging me and anticipating my big jump from 13,000 feet over the palm jumeirah.

The jump was the most thrilling life experiences i had so far. The anticipation, excitement and extreme fear have substantially changed my life. I always believed that fear is a universal hurdle for people on achieving their highest potential, and when you simply take this leap from the sky, decisions seem to be easier to be made and fear seem to be just a sound in the background. I’ve simply have done one of the most scary and frightening activities in the world and I never regret it. We’ve boarded the little jet and quickly flew over the sea of JBR. From where i was seated, i could easily see the pilot and the cockpit, full of buttons and meters. We’ve looked in the windows just to see the amazing palm and beaches of Dubai. Then the moment of truth came and the door opened. Suddenly a cold breeze filled out the cabin and as my turn start approaching, adrenaline started pumping high. On the door, looking down to a more than 4000 meters of clear space, air, of a sunny day, throwing myself along my tandem, was an extreme moment that takes my breath away. Coming down on more than 800km/h speed of free falling, i don’t remember catching a breath in these moments. Then he pulled the button and from going down so fast, an opposite force pulled me up so fast too, that was the parachute i realized. Later on, it was a cruise in the sky, less threatening in comparison to the fall but still the fear of heights could easily take the heart of a young man.

My life has been relatively easy, i haven’t encountered extreme experiences before. I’ve grown up in a decent family of educators. Earned my Bachelors degree from a top American school in Lebanon then worked in one of the most reputable advertising agency in the world. I enjoy a good social life and lucky to have some really good friends. I have now around 900 friends on Facebook and 600 followers on twitter, and I’m definitely not the only person out there who has more than thousand people on their social networks. However, i barely notice the number of people on my lists since the interactivity is summarized to a small group of closed friends.

The moment my skydive started to get popular, i was overwhelmed and wasn’t able to respond to every like, comment, reply or direct message i received around the topic. I can now feel what does it mean to have a thousand-plus contact on social media. Reflecting back on that incident, I realized that i just had my first hands-on experience on contagious stories. Skydive Dubai has made sure to equip me (the customer) with the tools needed to become their full time brand ambassador before, during and after that experience.

Skydiving is by nature an activity the people would look in amazement to. Some people would love to do it, others would never do it, but both would love to hear about a friend doing it, see pictures and ultimately see video. The brand Skydive Dubai has made sure to deliver the thrill of the experience in the best fashion. I had nothing to complain about. The staff were friendly, things were organized and everything appeared safe and fun. A camera man followed me from the moment of wearing the vet to the moment of landing, capturing my emotions from start to end. Finally, i went home with a CD full of amazing shots and a well-edited DVD video of the experience. What they gave me was content worth spreading and my facebook, youtube and twitter accounts were the perfect channels.

Today, I work for the biggest and most reputable digital agency in the middle east – Flip Media (www.flip.me), and what we do lies at the heart of what i experience with my Skydive jump. Isn’t all about delivering over your customers’ expectations on every touch point with the brand? isn’t about giving an emotional memorable experience? Isn’t about empowering people with sociable content ready for spreading? Isn’t about the basics of word-of-mouth the brings the best of business?

I truly think Dubai – the brand, is one of the most successful experience-driven brands in the world and that skydive Dubai is just one of its manifestations.

Click here for a full album of pictures on my skydive and below is the video:

Social media marketing is obviously the trend of the decade that everyone is buzzing around these days, and most companies jump on the band wagon and create facebook pages or twitter accounts without having a clue on what to do and how to do it. In fact, if you don’t have anything to say there, its better to keep your focus on your website and not go there in the first place!

I understand that it is important to join the conversation, engage with your audience and listen to what they have to say, but you as a brand or company are still in the eyes of the people a business that wants something. People aren’t foolish and with time they grow nervous, cautious and angry with companies following them everywhere to sell them something.

People finally found social networks, a place interruption-free for their entertainment and social interaction needs and what happened? companies start following them there pushing spam messages like usual. Funny thing is many marketeers go ahead and make judgements that social media marketing is not working for them and is not worth their investment.

You know, I can understand why some marketeers make such judgements. It is because social media game is different. They seem not to be able to step out of their comfort zone to embrace a new way of thinking and new way of doing marketing. On social media, you’ve got to be less obsessed about sales and more obsessed about having fun and giving fun to people. The essence of being entertaining is being relevant. So you need to first listen, learn and discover about your audience on these networks. Next step is that you’ve got to have an idea.

When we talk ideas, I think it all has to start from the brand’s roots. If you’ve got an inspiring purpose for your business, that is great, it means that you’d need to represent this in a cool way on your social networks. Make your social network an outlet for a cause or a mission that has nothing to do with your business. If you don’t have an inspiring purpose for your business, so its time to have one.

So to summarize, your social networks presence has to have an idea, gesture, cause, concept anything the makes you a welcome guest to the people’s private life, not an unwelcome intrusion.