Female Arab singers increase activity on Twitter, vie for followers

The activities of female Arab singers in the virtual world have been increasing of late, especially on the social networking website Twitter, where the number of followers reveals how interactive a singer is with her fans.

Lebanese singer Haifaa Wahbi is the most active on Twitter, for her followers have kept increasing and reached 170,000 within just five months. This leap is basically attributed to her keenness in personally replying to each and every fan and to the spontaneity of her replies.

Wahbi is, however, new to social networking websites and for a long time preferred to keep a distance and not discuss her personal life on the internet.

Those barriers were pulled down when she joined Twitter and started updating her fans on her trips and concerts and publishing pictures of her in the most casual situations like when she is working out in the gym.

Syrian singer Asala Nasry also created an account on Twitter recently. As soon as she did, she started posting pictures of her family, especially her twins.

Her tweets are also distinguished by their political nature, for she is known to oppose the Syrian regime. She also refers to works of other singers like the tweet in which she praised Haifaa Wahbi’s latest song “Mama.”

Emirati singer Ahlam has the largest number of followers at half a million. Ahlam’s Twitter activities increased remarkably after she served as a jury member on the MBC talent show “Arab Idol.”

Arab female singers with the least activity on Twitter are Najwa Karam, Nancy Ajram, Nawal al-Zoghbi, and Carol Samaha. The four Lebanese singers are also the most critical in their tweets.

Lebanese singer Elissa is quite active on Twitter, yet she never mentions her work, upcoming albums, concerts … etc. Her followers call her “The queen of green tea” because she always tweets that she is drinking green tea.

Her reservations about her work and focus on what is seen as trivial details of her have been criticized by her followers. She seems to have fixed that and has begun tweeting about taking vocal lessons with a trainer called Lesley.

(Translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid)