Finding success as an artist through social media, with Mooroo

Published on: August 13, 2018

Critics of social media often denounce it for damaging individual creativity, as news feeds and notifications can keep people from more productive tasks. But there are many people who gain immense value from actively engaging with content on social media, or creating it.

Social media provides powerful tools and platforms for individuals to express themselves creatively and share what they have to offer with people all over the world.

Taimoor Salahuddin, aka Mooroo, is a pioneering member of a growing group of Pakistani content creators that have not only been successful in engaging large audiences with their work but have built careers around it – via social media engagement and its inherent value for marketers. The latter often refer to this group as “influencers”.

But Mooroo is no ordinary vlogger or influencer.

He is a musician, songwriter, comedian, actor, writer, and filmmaker.

(Some content creators dislike being referred to as “vloggers”, similar to how journalists don’t take well to being called “bloggers”.)

A graduate from Aitchison College in Lahore, Mooroo always wanted to be a musician, but his parents preferred the computer sciences, which led him to Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. He eventually negotiated his way to enrolling in the film school there. While Mooroo believes one can teach oneself anything with tools available online, he says that one of the important takeaways from film school was that hard work is as important as talent.

“I keep putting myself in situations where I feel I might fail badly. At that edge is where real evolution and progress takes place for a character or person,” says Mooroo.

VCast Online sat down with the filmmaker and entrepreneur of sorts at his Karachi apartment recently, to talk about his journey as an artist. Watch his interview to learn how he came to be a content creator; the myth of social media success (4:02); how he overcame the challenges he faced when choosing this career path (5:36); his creative inspirations (1:54) and learning tools (8:42); his views on exploitation by brands (4:30); and advice for aspiring content creators in Pakistan (5:10).

In his videos, Mooroo takes on funny, quirky characters and talks to his audience, which he often refers to as ‘burgers and paindus’, about social norms, family values, traditions, and travel.

“My interest in vlogging is to portray a first-person perspective of a Pakistani like myself in as much honesty as possible,” says Mooroo.

With over 315,000 subscribers on YouTube and more than 400,000 on Facebook, Mooroo believes that for building a social media audience, one needs two essential elements.

Watch his interview to find out what they are.

To learn more about the power of influencers and content creators in the content marketing industry, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Don’t miss our interview with one of Mooroo’s comrades and self-proclaimed “shy guy”, Irfan Junejo.