Photon does social media with The Population Tim Addington
The former marketing director at Ninemsn has emerged as the head of a new social media marketing agency which is backed by the Photon Group.
Tony Thomas, who quit Ninemsn in June, is the founding partner and managing director of The Population, which aims to use social media as an ongoing touch point between advertisers and consumers.
The Population will offer services including social media monitoring and Ripple, a product created by fellow Photon agency Naked, which creates “influencer panels” to help spread advertisers’ messages by using social media.
Naked Australasia CEO Mat Baxter is a non-executive director of the new company.
The Population has four foundation clients, although Thomas refused to disclose their identities.
“It is a specialist social media marketing business,” he said. “A business primarily looking at providing businesses with a way to change the way they interact with consumers. If you look at the fundamentals of social media it is about conversational or consistent dialogue marketing. The opportunity that it provides to business is much more than at the end of the communications process.”
Thomas said while many would regard social media as predominantly a youth channel, half of Australians are in some form of social media network.
However he conceded more had to be done to convince advertisers of this fact, and claimed many digital and traditional agencies had misrepresented social media as an addition to the communication plan.
“There is certainly education that is going to be needed here. Social media is not about building a brand page on MySpace or a Facebook widget. This is a much bigger and broader and more engaging. It is changing the way you interact with consumers.”
He added: “Whilst I don’t think social media has been portrayed in the right light up till now, our job is change that and show what the opportunities for business across all departments.
“We are not sure it’s getting the right treatment in this market as long as smart individuals in digital and traditional agencies are talking about it as part of a communication plan.
“This market is ready to go. It is behind the US where big businesses are building social media teams. That is where we see the market going.”
Thomas said The Population was talking to clients “across all demographics” and not just youth brands.
The company has started with a team of three, including Naked propagation planner Nikki Stammers and social media specialist Julian Cole. Thomas said further hires would be announced shortly.
