After speaking only a month ago about the 2009 Australian Social Media Revolution being an article in the Australian Financial Review. It was great to see that the company (The Population) that I moved to Sydney to help form and work for, got a great feature in today’s AFR.
The Population will be Australia’s
This is a once in a lifetime opportunity which I believe will make up for everything that I had to give up in Melbourne including an amazing girlfriend, my close group of friends, my Masters degree and a close relationship with my family.
22 comments:
Hi Julian, Congratulations on the move. I look forward to hearing more. But "Australia’s first pure play Social Media Marketing Agency"? That's a huge call...
Hey Steven, thanks for the great words, I don’t know of any other agency which is soley concentrating on social media marketing. I know that there are a number of agency (digital, research and advertising) who are offering social media marketing solutions. However feel free to correct me.
Julian
Congrats on the announcement of The Population. Have been keen to hear what it was going to be all about. Wish you guys all the best.
Depending on your definition of "solely concentrating", examples might include:
Fnucky
Blather Skiter
Hoodlum
Shifted Pixels
Additude
Zest Digital
Tick Yes
Cheers! :-) Steven.
Well done mate. Well deserved.
Thanks Craig, its good to finally be able to tell everyone for my arrival in Sydney. You will have to tell me when you are next up so we can organise another catch up.
Hey Steven,
That is a great list, with some really interesting companies. I think you are right it would be hard to argue we are the first, however I think we would probably be better of suggesting we are the fourth ; )
I would suggest that these companies are probably doing social media marketing (this is on a very quick look of the websites)
Zest Digital – Social Media Agency for sure
Blather Skater – Online Commmunites, they are doing social media marketing.
Shifted Pixels – Online Influence Agency
However I would suggest that the core of the other four is not solely SMM;
Fnucky – Advertising
Attitude – Digital
Hoodlum – I don’t know what they are but it sounds really exciting, thanks for the hat tip (Branded Entertainment)
Tick Yes –Digital
I think the reason that I made such a point about being the first pure play Social Media Marketing is because I think that a lot of (advertising and digital) agencies who see themselves as social media marketers are limiting the power of the medium. As you know it is not just about having a campaign, it is about a sustained effort in the space and being able to not only listen to what is being said online but also respond to this. There are number of big Advertising Agencies who are claiming they are doing social media.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24289809-7582,00.html
This is not social media.
However, Advertising Agencies can do Social Media (Sticky Advertising), however the big agencies who are used to a campaign model of business are going to really struggle to offer value to the social media marketing space.
@ Jye, thanks mate
Well, simply through being the first agency of this sort to have the backing of the likes of Photon (or a similar conglomerate), The Population has grabbed our attention. I'd be especially interested in how you end up resisting the inevitable pressure to take a short-term focus and campaign-based approach. It's going to be a long haul.
I am looking forward to the uphill battle. However I think that there are also solutions for the short term which although they are not using the full power of social technology they are still powerful short term strategy. An interesting area I think about social media marketing for short term is the idea of idea propagation.
http://adspace-pioneers.blogspot.com/2008/06/idea-propagation-social-media-marketing.html
If you want a campaign style result, do not try to enter the social media environment yourself and start conversation you need a strategy of finding the people who already exist in that community and offer them value to promote your message. If you are thinking about short term, invest in the community that already is there don’t try to create a new one. I think this is at least a solution in giving companies an opportunity to get involved in the area without a massive long term investment. Also the ideas around just listening to the conversatiosn that are occurring online (Marketing Intelligence)
http://adspace-pioneers.blogspot.com/2008/06/marketing-intelligence-social-media.html
This should be something that a company would want to do long term
Does The Population have a website?
The Population rocks!
Julian, good luck with the new venture...it looks exciting.
P.S. kick traditional advertising ass...
Hooray!
Very, very exciting Julian.
Good luck to you and the team!
P.S Love the name too.
Exciting stuff - i look forward to hearing more from The Population.
Hi Julian,
Congrats fab move! Look forward to hearing how it progresses.
Hopefully we will connect through the Photon group.
Cheers
@Matt, we are so web5.0 that we dont have a website. Nah mate we are currently building the website as we speak, we just got a little pushed on the public release of the company. However you can check out the totally awesome holding page thepopulation.com.au, we went for minimalist. ; )
Gordon, Katie, Zoe and Jenni thanks so much for the kinds words and you guys will be kept in the know about everything exciting that happens with The Population.
Hey Julian,
Just read the news. Sounds great.
Congrats.
Looking to hear only more good news! ;)
Deb
Congrats on the job & move Julian (harder to get that coffee with you now); the PR spin certainly managed to pull the wool over the 'old trade media's' eyes... "Australia's first pure play etc..." bit cheeky if not misleading.
Gerry my old comarade, what would a celebration be without old PR Disasters coming through and finding the negative angle. Love your work mate, definitely have to catch up for that coffee when I am next in Melbourne. ; )
Thanks Deb, would not of had the courage to launch the agency if it wasn't for the great social media marketing agency from OS like Crayon, keep leading the pack and I look forward to getting to the cutting edge of social media marketing hopefully very soon! : )
Oi; less of the 'old', junior! But vigilant Steven Noble initially challenged Photon's 'first' erroneous claim.
Gerry, my youthful amigo. Don't worry I am happy for you too call out my mistakes. I think the great thing about the blogging platform for journalism is the ability to re-edit, when I was proved wrong I was quite happy to make changes. I was actually also proved wrong on the recent post I did on CntrlC/CntrlV Awards when someone left a comment proving that the Droga5 was not a direct copy and paste, I was able to re-edit it.
I have never been trained as a journalist (I am sure you can tell by my horrible grammar skills) but I think that functionality of being able to edit your work while more information occurs is a very important feature of blogging as a form of journalism.
Didnt someone once describe bloggers/citizen journos as 'an army of fact-checkers'?
I look forward to hearing more Julian.
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