Twitter and Sky News Arabia Sign Memorandum of Understanding to Launch Interactive Panel Discussion on Twitter

Abu Dhabi - MENA Herald: In a groundbreaking move, Twitter and Sky News Arabia signed a memorandum of understanding to launch an interactive panel discussion on Twitter. The initiative represents the social media platform’s first partnership with an Arab media organization.
A panel discussion program featuring some of the top influencers on Twitter from different fields and industries will hold monthly discussions, each dedicated to a certain regionally or globally trending issue.
Nart Bouran, Head of Sky News Arabia, revealed the name of the program today on his official Twitter account @Nartbouran: "In partnership with Twitter, I am happy to announce the launch of the ‘Niqash Tag’ program, in a bid to cope with the rapid advancements of our audience’s interactive communication patterns, while using innovative methods of content development.”
He added: "Sky News Arabia is a media organization that has always adopted a multi-channel content delivery workflow, whereby we broadcast live news stories across all platforms simultaneously, and interact with the audience all along. In addition to the well-known TV channel, our platforms also include a website, multiple smartphone and tablet applications, an FM radio channel that airs in the UAE and several other Arab countries in partnership with local radio stations, as well as several active accounts on almost all key social media networks”.
Each panel discussion will run between 60 and 90 minutes, aiming to highlight a certain issue according to the interests of the audience represented on different Arab social media platforms. The participants, selected from among prominent Arab Twitter personalities, will Tweet their input in forms of text or video, while a Sky News Arabia representative will moderate the whole discussion in accordance with a certain set of rules.
Followers will be invited to Tweet their opinions and questions using the program Hashtag that will be announced ahead of each session. The audience can follow the course of the discussion even after the conclusion of each session on the Sky News Arabia website, where all discussions will be curated in chronological order.
Sky News Arabia and Twitter will announce the date of the first session along with the topic of the discussion and the participating guests on this particular date.
Kinda Ibrahim, Director of Media Partnerships for Middle East and North Africa, Twitter said: “Our partnership with Sky News Arabia represents a pioneering initative to engage our users on important topics currently being discussed across the region. Twitter’s increasing popularity has given users a powerful medium through which they can express themselves, in addition to providing governments and businesses with a platform that allows them to interact with their audiences and the wider public. Our aim with the ‘Niqash Tag’ program is to promote dialogue between users and raise awareness of the Twitter tool as a communication platform between individuals, companies and a variety of other users.”
Sky News Arabia has 13 million followers on social media around the world of which six million follow the network’s two Twitter accounts while the rest stay up-to-date with its Facebook, Instagram or YouTube accounts.