Second Life and other Web 2.0 venues: Maybe you can, but should you?
June 26, 2008 at 5:17 pm shodge 3 comments
Sally Saville Hodge
Here’s a situation sure to make every PR person cringe. You arrange for your author-client to participate in a book club discussion group with other would-be writers and fans only to have a series of embarrassing mishaps occur at the venue. She sits first on a stool (where the guests can’t see her), is prompted to move to a chair, but instead lands on a lap, and from there goes to the table before finally finding her chair.
Welcome to a new era in book promotion. The Second Life writer’s tour.
Second Life is the virtual world where you create a virtual you in the form of an avatar, and where you can meet up with other like-minded people, casually or formally, and buy and sell everything from virtual dollars to spectacles to real estate. I’m still not quite getting the appeal – my real life is busy enough without mucking it up more with virtual doings. Still, some of the PR and marketing aspects related to it are kind of intriguing.
Like many things under the Web 2.0 banner (haven’t we advanced to Web 3.0 yet?), Second Life, and the different ways to leverage it, remains a work in progress. Gartner has apparently predicted that by 2011, 80 percent of all Americans will have a “Second Life.” And big business, natch, is trying to get a jump on it. IBM, for example, has spent big bucks establishing a virtual island on Second Life. Nokia has hired greeters in Second Life to stand by its virtual kiosks. Dell has a virtual factory there making virtual computers.
The virtual book club guest spot opportunity was one I happened upon, and forwarded to a friend for her Sisters in Crime (SinC) client. The association’s president, Roberta Isleib, was tapped to participate, and she describes her experience more fully than my little recap in a very funny post on her blog.
The club’s organizer has been able to draw some respectable names to the group’s weekly sessions that typically attract 20 to 40 participants: marketer/author Don Peppers. Author Sarah Susanka. Pat Davis, CEO of Passion Parties and an author. Attendance doesn’t make it sound like there’s enough of a return to make it worth a client’s while at this stage, despite the promise of supporting marketing across Second Life’s “vast” social marketing community.
But whether for this sort of endeavor or many of the various opportunities and tactics that are springing up as a result of our Web 2.0 world, you still have to ask: Just because you can, does that mean you should?
Entry filed under: Account Management, Books, Marketing Communications, Marketing Strategy, New/Social Media, Trends, Web Development. Tags: .
1.
juniper cards | June 30, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Nice Site!
http://google.com
2.
Cybergrrl Oh aka Aliza Sherman | August 18, 2008 at 10:39 pm
The question isn’t whether you should just because you can. The question is: If you do, what sort of overall return can you get?
While the numbers IN Second Life may not impress, the lead up to Second Life events and the post-write-ups are more often worth it than not.
Many authors, experts and business owners are scratching their head about how to get more Google hits, how to extend their brand in the noisy spaces of social media and how to penetrate new media venues. Second Life provides an excellent, low-cost, low-effort solution to these marketing queries.
By appearing in Second Life, you can immediately tap into Second Life bloggers, get branding on MySpace and Facebook, be talked about on Twitter, Plurk, Jaiku and Pownce, getting talked about on Second Life-oriented video and audio podcasts and get written about in Second Life publications on the Web. Talk about fast, easy branding and Google-ability!
Looking at Second Life as a singular event or venue is limited thinking. Looking at Second Life as an entree into the entire social media fabric that overlays the Web as we know it is a better way of viewing it. Not participating in something without understanding the full benefits isn’t really smart business.
3.
Sally Hodge | August 19, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Great feedback, and thanks! I think Second Life is still evolving and marketers (and clients) are growing their understanding of how to leverage opportunities there. By the same token, you have to know your markets. Are these benefits that are relevant to the b2b market, for example? Does Twitter have enough users in your targeted audiences to make it a viable benefit? It’s not just understanding the “full benefits” that’s importance, but understanding their relevance to your audience.