Name: MPW Moment: Going Viral
Uploaded: 2025-05-21
Duration: 6 min 41 s
Description: TikTok’s general manager of operations for the Middle East, Turkey Africa, Pakistan and South Asia breaks down the biggest trends in the creator economy and explains why a surge in regional content is key to the future success of the platform.

TikTok’s general manager of operations for the Middle East, Turkey Africa, Pakistan and South Asia breaks down the biggest trends in the creator economy and explains why a surge in regional content is key to the future success of the platform.

MPW Moment: Going Viral

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OK, we are going to continue in the creative vein with a discussion about the creator economy, and we're going to look at the surge in the popularity of regional content here in the Middle East on TikTok, and we're going to be doing that with Kinder Ibrahim, who is the general manager of operations for the Middle East, for Turkey, Africa, Pakistan, and South Asia at TikTok. Get you think OK. Tinder, thank you so much for being here. Um, I wanna kick off, just referring back to what I said in the introduction, TikTok is really experiencing amazing growth in this region. What are the biggest trends you're seeing within that? Uh, first of all, thank you for having me here today. It's a pleasure to be back in Riyadh. Uh, I think the main reason of the surge in popularity for TikTok in the region is that there are millions of creators in Saudi and the entire region that are coming to TikTok to create content. They are turning their passion into creativity and that, you know, that allows them to connect to their, to, to, to audiences here, um, and you know, allowing people to basically come come to the. Platform and connect uh with the and and interact interact with the content of these creators uh that resonates with their passion and uh that's there's not that's from my creative side and I'll talk a little bit more about this the business side but there's no surprise because actually a large number of these creators are uh making a significant portion of their income via TikTok so we're we're committed through the tools that we provide through the economic opportunities. That that we provide to really unlock the creative economy and uh help help these creators in um in the creative journey for businesses we talk just about small medium sized businesses uh in Saudi there's more than 150,000 businesses that are basically uh leveraging the power of the platform, leveraging the opportunities of the platform, uh provides to connect with their audience. uh, and they've seen amazing success. I can like, uh, be it like, be it businesses like a lot of tourism film festival where creativity means opportunity or smaller, smaller businesses I'd mentioned the chefs who'd seen more than 150% increase, uh, on sales and a business like Aromatic that uh that witnessed more than 5% in, uh, return on ads spent and, and what is it those people those people, those small businesses who are here. In great success. What connects their content? Is it very specific? Does it have a human in it? How, what really makes it sing and resonate with audiences? It's really, it really depends. I think it's, uh, uh, it's a creativity, uh, meeting opportunity, right? So it's basically connecting to the audience in a more creative way, in a more relevant way, in a in a more we say we say we say that businesses make ads they they make TikToks, they don't make ads so it's a. It's a way to connect to the audience in a way that resonates more and feels more authentic uh and that's one of the reasons that uh they have a great success and obviously we, we're committed to providing them with the tools that enables them to grow and connect. So if there's a leader in this room who thinks, uh, I'm not on TikTok yet. My company isn't on TikTok yet. I know I should be. What's your advice on where to start and how to convey that message? I think, I mean, just the, the advice is just start. Just start, uh, I think the, the beauty of TikTok is, is the authenticity again, uh, it, you don't have to have millions of followers to be successful. The beauty of the of the TikTok is that has the content plat the content graph versus the social graph, which means a video that resonates with passions of people can go viral because of the way the algorithm works. It basically break uh and so it does not have to be, you don't have to like. Work work your way to buying millions and millions of followers to start seeing return on your investments. That's, uh, that's that also applies to the creators as well, not only businesses, yeah, um, globally, let's look 123 years down the line, what kind of content do you think we might be seeing on TikTok that maybe hasn't quite taken off yet? Where is it going? I mean, so, so the beauty of TikTok if we talk about what makes it unique is that even those global trends. When they transcend uh like different markets they took it they take its own exactly it's because of what creators um what creators, uh, do with it and make it their own. So, uh, give us an example of one like that we haven't got much time, but give us an example of one is that one that springs to mind? I mean, I say that, uh, I, I say that, uh, one of the one of the main main things and one of the key things that we're focusing on right now and we've been. Uh, for example, the STEM feed that we launched in the US but we brought it to Saudi Arabia in the Arabic language, uh, because this is a way for creators to kind of take what they're seeing on creators, teachers, experts, they can seeing what they're seeing what on the global scene and translating it and making it their own to be able to resonate with students, with people who are interested in learning about a certain subject, uh, in their local flavor so. These these are the trends that we're gonna continue to see and how it could be financed it could be more on the education front, it could be more in sort of the edutainment, but how do you, how do you take a global trend and make it their own, make your own so that enables you to connect with your local audience at the same time exposes you to collaboration and basically connecting with communities globally. Kendra, it was very short. It was very sweet. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you for having me. Thank you. OK, staying in tech, our next speaker, Julie Brill is the corporate vice president of global technology and regulatory policy at Microsoft, where her remit is data protection and a whole range of other things, including how new technologies uniquely impact the lives. Of women and children, and as the conversation around how companies and governments regulate AI heats up, Julie is a key figure in shaping the future of tech government from the inside. Please welcome her to the stage with my 14 colleague Mihal Leevram.