The explosion of social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace has driven communications group Photon to launch an exclusively online social media and marketing company.
The new company, called The Population, will attempt to change the way marketing groups think and interact with social networking sites to expand their influence.
Tony Thomas, former marketing director of ninemsn, started the group to help develop the use of social networking in Australian corporate settings.
“Social media has been a passion of mine for some years,” he says. “The first seed of the idea manifested about three or four months ago when I started having a look at the full offerings of the business.
“We really want to move social media from where it currently sits within marketers’ minds, to a transformation about how they interact with their consumers across all disciplines.”
Communications group Photon, a majority shareholder in the group, says the company is the first of its kind in Australia.
“Well, it’s certainly not the first in the world,” Thomas says, “Companies like Pepsi in the United States are developing social networking development teams. But I honestly think the time is right because the basics of marketing are here.”
Thomas says The Population’s first goal is to simply educate the market about developing new ways of using social networking as a marketing tool, and merging the use of technology and branding.
“We’ve had over the last few weeks a lot of success allowing brands to interact and get value,” he says.
“I’m passionate about technology changing the way technology and brands need to interact. This is the future of communications models, and that’s absolutely exciting. I’m jumping from the rooftops.”
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