We Are Social steps into paid media

Social media agency We Are Social has launched a new paid media offering and has appointed David Gilbert, TBG Digital's former sales and client services director, to lead the new service as media director.Gilbert has spent the last seven years building TBG Digital to become one of Facebook's largest media buyers and he will work with a newly recruited team of media analysts to embed the new offering within We Are Social's existing social content and community management teams in each of its eight offices. Gilbert will be based in London.A central team will also be created to handle stand-alone media clients and social display advertising, using micro-segmentation and optimisation techniques.With the new offering, We Are Social will plan and buy media across all of the relevant social platforms, from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, to Tumblr and Sina Weibo, and will become a key pillar of the agency's offering across all of its eight offices worldwide.The offering was set with the aim to help brands to evolve their approach to social media, ensuring their social content creation and community management activities operate in tandem with their media buying for social media.According to the agency, it will help marketers to deal with the increased blurring of the lines between paid, owned and earned media by the social platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter asking brands to pay to promote their social content, rather than buying conventional display advertising.Simon Kemp (pictured), managing director of We Are Social in Singapore, said that today's social environment demanded a new approach to media planning being integrated into brands' social media strategies as well as for media buying to operate in real-time.He added that traditional media agencies, "hampered by legacy structures", were not set up to take this approach.