If You Build In Second Life, Will They Come?
I've been spending an unhealthy amount of time in Second Life lately as my avatar, Harvey Weinstein. Apparently, so have a good number of brands including the first movie studio with its own island: Fox Atomic.
Right now, I'm just sipping the koolaid. Nursing the drink in case I have to drive to another party should this one be a dud. Dont' get me wrong. I really want to believe. But right now, I'm teleporting to a lot of empty islands, wondering what I'm supposed to do.
The best thing a brand can do after they've spent upwards of $20K to build a monument to themselves is hire someone to at least greet people and answer questions. The new marketing agency, Crayon, does this very well by stationing a receptionist named Britney in the lobby during normal work hours.
The next thing you can do is give visitors a clear reason to be there or something fun/worthwhile to do. Fox Atomic offers free soundstages with several backlot-style sets (western town, city street, etc.) to in-world filmmakers to use (called "machinima"). Nissan gives away free cars from a giant vending machine and while some have scolded them for not being imaginitive enough in their execution, I gotta say, I love my new Sentra and have fun driving it around the Adidas island and seeing if I can drive it inside the American Apparel store for lack of anything better to do on those islands.
CBS has launched a Big Brother island that seems promising and is very popular with residents. So that's encouraging. Steve Rubel has a great round-up of media moves in Second Life.
I'm hoping we're just witnessing the growing pains of what may someday become a really cool dimension to social media and activity on the web.
