Rodvik’s Twittering has got tongues wagging, opened a dialogue and started to exemplify the reach of Twitter. The official @secondlife Twitter account has 22,862 followers as I type this. That figure could change during the course of this blog post, but not by much. Now some of those accounts will be dormant, many of them won’t see any official Tweets, but it gives a good idea of the potential for promoting Second Life on Twitter, because some people will retweet any initiatives, which then extends reach further.
This is low cost advertising, Twitter is free to use but there’s a cost implication with Linden Lab getting someone to Tweet, so it’s not a no cost operation, but it’s pretty damn low cost. Advertising is something Linden Lab don’t do well, some people find advertising a bit tacky, but it’s a cold hard reality that it needs to take place and Linden Lab need to open up their eyes not only to advertising initiatives of their own, but also of advertising via their customers, be that on the forums, blog sites, Twitter, Plurk ……. yes even bloody Facebook! Although the jury is out there with their silly no pseduonyms BS, but we’ll come to that later.
There’s plenty of advertising inside Second Life, notecard givers, touch activated advertising boards, inworld classifieds, show in search places. All of these can extend one’s reach, there has also been a worrying sighting of ad farms recently, which will do nothing more than get people to call you horrible names!
There’s more that could be done inworld though, improved Group chat and messaging, allowing advertising at infohubs and welcome areas, even if it’s paid, there’s nothing wrong with paid advertising. However it’s not just inworld where advertising works, the forums have space for advertising, they also have room for discussion which leads to word of mouth advertising, for example it wasn’t until I was looking through the sports forum that I realised there was American Football played inworld.
There are plenty of other forums on the official site, Roleplaying, Music, Machinima and events. The only one that is really for advertising more than discussion is events, so don’t go spamming the forums thinking that will help you, but by engaging in discussion you’ll spread the word about issues and that can potentially go further, as I’ve just mentioned regarding American Football in SL, and I’ll tweet this, so six people might see it!
However hopefully you get the gist, discussion about Second Life can lead to good promotion. However, I’m not fully convinced that Linden Lab themselves quite get this. The Forums themselves and the dashboard could be better utilised without being tacky or leading to accusations of favouritism. Getting the balance right is tricky, the dash deal is going to fall into the iffy category, because it undoubtedly promotes certain vendors at the expense of others in a not too subtle way. This is part of the problem of the marketplace not being independently run, the reach Linden Lab have with the marketplace is massive, indeed you’d think that understanding that potential reach would also make them understand why Twitter has great reach and I’m told Plurk has a very active Second Life userbase too.
Now I am biased towards Twitter, I hear Plurk is ok, Linden Lab keep on insisting on sending me to Facebook, I’d rather they didn’t. As I said earlier, reach is important and Facebook can give reach, but it’s also, well Facebook. The recent issue of Chinese Blogger Michael Anti shows what’s wrong with Facebook. The real name stuff simply isn’t good for Second Life, add to that that we just don’t go around RL like this, I’ve known people for years by their nickname, I don’t even know their surname and I don’t need to. I’ve said this before but in virtual world circles, virtual world names carry more weight, Desmond Shang and Anshe Chung’s real names wouldn’t carry as much weight, and yet Facebook imply if you don’t share your real name, you’re not authentic. Authenticity is earned, not stamped by a name. However what’s worse is that Facebook aren’t even consistent, when it came to Jon Swift, a Robert Scoble blog saw them back down. Ok enough ranting about Facebook, it has its uses and some people love it, like my nephew! As a tool for keeping in touch with folk you know, it is useful.
Where was I? Oh yes, advertising, advertising is not a dirty word, talk about your Second Life activities, the great places, the fun you had, the venues you enjoyed, it’s all good advertising but we also need Linden Lab to step up to the plate and do their own talking. The Lithium software can intergrate nicely with Twitter and whereas that may not impress those who find Twitter tedious, having Tweets go in and out of the forum allows those who don’t use Twitter, to follow the conversation too.
Advertising is a powerful tool, use it wisely.