Nicholas Haralambous is the CEO and co-founder of Motribe.com, a platform that allows users to manage their own mobile social communities. He started off as a journalist, but quickly moved from print media to the online space. He has worked with the Sunday Times and Financial Mail. Nic is also the head of the mobile division at Mail & Guardian, and the General Manager at Zoopy.com. He also adds product manager of Vodacom SA’s mobile and social networking division to his resumé. With such success, we thought we would chat to Nic about mobile and the various platforms that are necessary to flourish as a brand.
You describe a “plug-in agency”. Tell us about that concept?
Motribe has created a toolset that will assist agencies in their use of mobile and the Motribe platform. We’re seeing an increase in usage of the platform and tools that we have for brand campaigns on mobile and want to help agencies create better mobile campaigns. We’re educating them not only on the use of Motribe but of mobile as a medium.
You have had some customers that only want to target one platform. Yet as you have said before, you need to have a run through line, and be everywhere, all the time. Explain why choosing a singular platform does not work?
In the emerging markets it is tricky to know which platform is the right platform to choose to market on or to. If you choose Facebook then you ignore a significant portion of the population, if you choose Mxit you ignore another, if you go desktop then you forget about the majority, but if you ignore desktop you receive criticism.
I believe that there is value in owning the chosen platform and feeding the other media through a single portal. Creating a mobile web destination and connecting with Facebook, Twitter, your blog, website and Mxit can work due to the single marketing touch point. On all advertising you promote one destination as a landing point and in the emerging markets it’s probably smart to make that one destination a mobile website or community.
If you fragment your audience from the very start you will have a fragmented message and community throughout the campaign.
This is not a one size fits all approach though. Each campaign, brand and client needs to be considered individually and the outcomes of the campaign specifically targeted and understood.
What are the features for the Facebook app that you plan on using this year, that will help with integration?
We’ve devised a way to help brands create mobile-enabled apps for Facebook. As of right now it’s extremely difficult to build an application on Facebook for the mobile user. Using the Motribe platform we’ve managed to solve the problem for the brand and agency.
You made a great point about how First World countries are emphasizing that this is the year for mobile, yet in Africa mobile has always been the only way to reach the masses. Because of this, do you think that developed countries might actually be learning something from us for a change? Have we developed skills on this platform ahead of the rest?
I firmly believe that when it comes to building on the mobile web for the masses, the emerging markets are leading the way. Not only are we ahead but we are implementing and succeeding where developed markets are failing. Again this isn’t a generalized statement that everyone in the developed markets is losing to everyone the emerging markets. This is a specific statement that there are leaders in the emerging markets who are dominating mobile. Companies such as InMobi out of India are beacons of success for the developed markets to watch and follow.
When redirecting people to a site off of Facebook in order to allow them to engage with a community privately, does this limit the site management or control? Or is a separate registration encouraged once they arrive on the site?
If you are going to attempt to move users off of Facebook, firstly there should be a valid reason for this. Secondly, using Facebook Connect, the user shouldn’t need to reregister. The Facebook mobile API is sufficient to allow developers to integrate without destroying user experience.
Thank you for sharing your time with us Nic. Motribe can be emailed at sales@motribe.com and you can find Nic on Twitter here.
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