As we reach the end of 2017 Twitter has been reflecting on the year that was: from breaking news, entertainment, sports, and local conversations, if it happened anywhere, it happened on Twitter.
Early this year, Twitter launched its Moments guide in Arabic that enables people to discover new content by displaying curated “Moments,” a feature that creates a moment based on a collection of tweets. Located in Twitter’s “Explore” tab, this tool features moments from around the world and regionally on topics that include news, sports and entertainment, that are also tweeted from @MomentsMENA.
One of the key highlights that made 2017 unique was when Twitter’s Co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey (@jack) Tweeted Arabic Eid wishes for the first time to celebrate Eid Al Adha:
Take a look at how 2017 unfolded on Twitter, and share your biggest moments and memories of 2017 with #ThisHappened:
Saudi Arabia’s most tweeted moments
In 2017, the most retweeted tweets in Saudi Arabia were from King Salman @KingSalman; the top tweet being when he tweeted the celebration of Saudi Arabia’s national day. This message also falls under the top 100 global retweets. The second was when the king tweeted his wishes for the Saudi people on the occasion of Eid Al Fitr:
Another top tweet in Saudi Arabia in 2017 was by football player @fahad_almowalad who posted his congratulations when the Kingdom’s national team qualified for the 2018 World Cup:
Following Saudi Arabia’s announcement that women were to be allowed to drive in the country, people both locally and globally took to Twitter to air their views on the topic, generating over 2 million tweets within the week:
The region also witnessed the launch of the “Retweets Challenge.”
Carter Wilkerson’s (@carterjwm) call for a year’s supply of free nuggets from @Wendys was heard around the globe, and became the most retweeted tweet with 3.6 million Retweets, surpassing Ellen’s infamous selfie that she took at the Oscars in 2014, as the most retweeted tweet of all time.
The trend continued and spread across the MENA region, where Saudi National, AbdulAziz (@Mr_Abdul3ziz) tweeted to a well-known fast food chain (@ShawarmerSA) asking how many retweets it would take for the chain to donate 100 Shawarma sandwiches to underprivileged workers – that post request eventually spread to other brands:
Below are some of the top trending topics that generated popular hashtags in the Kingdom:

Source:Arabnews