Our third week of Influencer Month starts with social media specialists, Mosh. Here, Julian Thompson, a partner of Mosh, talks about how brands need a specialised offering to build awareness through different social channels.
How has Most evolved since it was founded?
Over the ten years since Mosh was founded, it has been through quite a few iterations. Initially, we were primarily a consulting agency – advising large New Zealand corporates on this new phenomenon called ‘social media’, and what impact it was likely to have on their businesses.
Over the years, we’ve evolved into a specialist social media marketing and customer service agency. From strategy, to campaigns, to full-service social media management, to training – if it’s social media, we do it. A big part of our focus is content creation. Our in-house photography studio gets worked pretty hard! We’re currently producing around 350 pieces of content a month across posts and ads.
How have the challenges you are solving for clients changed?
The challenges themselves haven’t changed a lot, but the tools that we have to solve them are changing all the time. We’re still helping businesses and organisations understand how social media impacts them, and we’re still driving results such as sales, leads, brand building, event attendance, and so on. But the ways we can target highly specific groups of people, the ways we can monitor, track and measure success, and the types of creative and placements we can utilise, seem to change almost daily.
What have been some of Mosh’s biggest lessons along the way?
I think the biggest lesson has been to stick to what we’re good at. Early on we made the commitment to be specialists in social media. Occasionally along the way we’ve been tempted to deviate from that path, and it’s never been a good idea. For now, social media is such a rapidly evolving space that, for us to be genuinely relevant and valuable to our clients, we need to retain that specialisation.
What’s a marketer’s first step to building brand awareness on social media?
Without a doubt, the first step is to know your brand inside-out before you embark on your social media journey. What does your brand stand for? What kind of personality does it have? It’s also vital to know who your target audience is (don’t say everyone!). What makes you relevant to them? Why should they give a shit about you? Get the answers to questions like that first, and the rest is (relatively) easy.
Is social media for all brands? Why?
That’s a tricky question. In a world of infinite budgets, it is. Unless you’ve got something to hide, or you’re a business involved in something you’re not proud of (in which case, you should probably do something else!), having a presence on social media makes sense – it’s where people go to see if you’re legit.
But, in reality, a lot of businesses are too small to do social media properly, and half-arsing it is probably worse than doing nothing. Small brands who do well always have someone in the business with passion and flair for social media. Without that, it’s really tough.
If you were to work with any international client to help grow their brand on social, who would it be and what do you think you could deliver?
I’m going to answer this one entirely selfishly. For me personally, without a doubt would be Triumph Motorcycles. Their brand has the perfect combination of old school cool, and modern performance, and a whole lot in between. And I’d be able to deliver some great content showcasing riding in New Zealand. Motorbikes, the New Zealand landscape, photography, drones, what more could you ask for? (Seriously, get in touch with us Triumph.)
How does Mosh alter its wide offerings to cater to different clients?
From the beginning, we’ve been lucky to work with a wide variety of different brands. From AirBnB to Hell Pizza, Health Promotion Agency to Zespri, and everything in between. What’s key to making sure we’re delivering value for our clients is nailing the onboarding part of the process. There’s a LOT we have to learn when we start working with a new brand, so our emphasis at the start is doing a lot more listening than talking.
Understanding a client’s business, their objectives, the brand, the products and services, and the customer service requirements is key. We find, if we get that part right, we are much faster, and more effective at delivering value.
How does Mosh measure the success of a campaign?
It sounds obvious, but what’s critical when measuring campaign success is making sure everyone understands what success looks like before you start. Making sure the metrics, targets, and reporting regime are 100 percent understood by everyone involved is absolutely essential.
Where does Mosh see social media in five years?
We’re not sure, and anyone who says they are, is lying (or has a crystal ball!). The space is continuing to rapidly evolve, but the one thing we are sure of, social media isn’t going anywhere soon.
This story is part of a content partnership between Mosh and StopPress. It’s also part of a StopPress series examining influencer Marketing. To read more on Influencer Marketing, click here.
