Someone read the article that I wrote in iMediaconnection and contacted me. We then meet in world and had a great chat! She sent a follow up email with a rant I wanted to share with everyone.
My gripe with a lot of marketers and others in the ain't-it-cool crowd is that they don't seem to take a lot of time to walk around in SL and see what's what, to see how it works from a mechanical or technical point of view, to see what people want to get from SL and what seems to be most popular. Yes there are some who get it but from what I have seen from some big brand-name marketers they're all about using SL to shove a product at the people. You would think at last 15 years of interactive marketing should have taught them that you can no longer be successful with one-way marketing.
My other gripe with a lot of the marketing efforts is that there's little opportunity for live interaction. Take the Nissan vending machine. If it doesn't work, whom do you contact for help? And unless they've rescripted the car, you almost have to have an IT degree to make it work. Whom do I contact to explain it to me?
A lot of the marketing seems to be beside the point for most of the folks I have become friends with, none of whom are marketers or involved in out-world marketing or branding efforts. I also don't see the big-name guys making much of an effort to reach out to the mainland community. I seldom see any events or classified notices in the search engine, although Cnet does do a good job. And for the most part, they don't even have groups you can join to get info and updates on activities. Although Cnet, Crayon and Millions of Us do have groups, they don’t send out notices regularly.
Some of the independent businesses, especially the hair shops and the clubs, do a good job with this. They would be worth copying, but I'll bet the marketing establishment wouldn't even consider it.
EvansMom Goodspeed
Tags: EvansMom Godspeed, Second Life, Cnet, Crayon, Millions of Us, Nissan, SL, iMediaconnection, branding, marketing, SL Business