Viral is Nothing New

How You Market on FaceBook

One of the most common questions we are asked at Catalyst is “How do I market on Facebook (FB)?” Some traditional marketers seem to understand MySpace better than FB. One reason is that marketing on MySpace is largely page-centric, meaning that you set up a profile page for a brand much like you build your own website.

But on FB, not so much. The essential difference in the way the two communities work, in my opinion, is that MySpace is an environment in which you primarily visit pages of others, whereas FB is more geared to using your profile page as a home base and having information brought to you.

Not to say that you cannot visit pages on FB. You can. And you will. But because of the plethora of widgets and other applications available in FB, there’s far less need to go a wandering.
That's a small part of what makes this site FAR more popular with professionals, because it isn’t so much a seeking environment – meaning I seek information and contacts – but rather more of a having environment – one in which news, functionalities, games, and other useful and divertive bits of data are brought to you.

Because so many business people are on FB, interest in using it for marketing is strong – stronger (I think) than using MySpace despite MySpace’s significantly higher uniques and page views. What I want to do in this post is offer some basic information on how to market on FB using techniques more suited to that environment.

For simplifaction, I'm going to do some lumping together of options and say there are really three kinds of marketing on FB: profile centric, ad centric, and app or widget centric.

PROFILE CENTRIC MARKETING

Brand Page: Anyone can build a page on FB, including a brand. Sign up, put together an appropriate business page, and you’re set. It probably makes more sense for a marketer to get a business page than a personal page. FB itself says a business page is better than a profile page because:

“These pages come pre-installed with custom functionality designed for each category. For example, a band Page has a music player, video player, discography, reviews, tour dates, a discussion board that the artists can take advantage of. Third party developers will also build an array of applications that they will compete for Page Admins to add to their Pages. Facebook Pages are also not subject to a fan limit and can automatically accept fan requests.”


In addition, savvy engineers can actually create an attractive environment – with graphics and colors and video and photos and of course text that can fit the brand standards of most brands. You can get started now, BTW, here.

But now what? First, a bit of language distinction. You friend people, you fan brands. The thing is, for most brands, the number of people who will make an effort to find your page and fan you is probably fairly limited. Don’t hold your breath unless you are going to make a concerted effort to create an environment with valuable experiences. Of course, that’s true on MySpace as well.

It’s also true that there are some viral aspects of FB that will help spread the word of your brand page. When you are friended by someone, the news of that friending will appear in the “Newsfeeds” of everyone in that person’s circle. This is usually found on the center of the user’s start page, and informs her of what she and her friends are up to.



Getting in Newsfeeds could prove very valuable for some brands, let’s say…adidas, but less valuable for others, let’s say…Pep Boys. That’s because the news will only have value to the extent that the brand itself is compelling enough to the Newsfeed viewers that they will click it.

Another interesting viral feature is the Minifeed, which appears on the profile page of the user and lists the things that the individual has done recently. News that a person has fanned your brand will also appear here. Ditto when the person performs an action on your page. The people who visit the profile will see it. Some may click the news of the fanning. But don’t expect the number of people who do that as a result of the average profile will be enough to fill a stadium.



Hey, I’m not poo-pooing it, it will get you some members. But if you think in millions like I do, you’re not gonna get there with just this. But every little helps. And it mushrooms of course, over time. If three people fan you and each generates three more fans, and so on, you get that exponential growth curve we all know and love.

Do all this. Absolutely. But once you have a profile and are getting a trickle of fans, there a number of other things you can do to boost your brand communication. Here are four of the most important ways:

Founding a Group: FB brands, can create groups and invite others to join them. To take a simplistic example, suppose Honda was trying to reach “tuners”, people who buy cars and modify them for better performance. Yes, there's a lot more to being a tuner than that, but you get the idea. There is a very specific demographic profile that has a high composition of tuners. By creating a tuner group and inviting likely suspects of tunerdom, Honda could build an environment that would allow them to dialogue with this audience effectively.

Here's an example of an independent tuner group, for reference:


With this as an example I bet you can see how a brand like Honda might want to build a group of its own.

As the creator of a group you will have some control over the content. Ensure you use it to make a better consumer experience rather than a shilling platform. Or all your fans will go away.

The key issue here is creating an environment of value to the audience. No one is going to sit still to watch Sell-a-thon commercials. But groups can be of enormous value to members. If you are a member of FB, click here to see a group of sneaker collectors. I have no doubt that a Nike or adidas sponsored sneaker collector group could garner thousands of member with the right content and inducements, for example advanced access to new shoes. O-Cel-O sponges might have more difficulty acquiring group members. But I am certain that some creativity applied to the O-Cel-O challenge could also make a group of value and interest to the target.

Joining a Group: Brands can communicate in groups they crate or sponsor. If there are ways to add value to the discussion, you comments may be most welcome. But too much overtness or commercialness in your communciaiton stream may get you kicked out of a group or have your entire presence in FB shut down. The FB people don’t mess around. They are very committed to the idea of consumer defined experience.

The next tool was a complete mystery to me until I read the excellent Bible of Facebook Marketing by Justin Smith. Thus I publish his entry below verbatim:

Joining a Network: Facebook Networks are like group pages for everyone who’s a member of an Educational, Work, or Geographical network. While no Facebook members “own” any pieces of network pages, network pages offer 1) another way for users to discover events, posted items, and marketplace listings, and 2) discussion forums and walls which any members can post to.

Network pages are probably the most commonly accepted places to spam in Facebook. While you can post there, keep in mind that your messages may be considered spammy even if they’re real and relevant.

Event Marketing: As with groups, event marketing allows FB users to invite people to real or virtual world events. For example, a vodka brand could invite people to a vodka tasting in a real bar in a city or group of cities.

Events automatically receive a special page on which you can put in all the necessary and tempting details. You can invite all your fans to an event, and the
page even collects RSVPs if you want to anticipate crowds and needs.

AD CENTRIC MARKETING

Whereas the tactics above are more geared to the hands-on marketer – one who is herself trying to integrate the brand and its messages into the fabric of FB, there are also a variety of other tools to consider. Many are simply FB versions of other forms of Internet advertising and Google AdSense (or Yahoo Publisher Network) . Here are some of the majors.

Beacon: Ah yes, beacon, the system in which users’ purchases on e-commerce sites were published as news in Minifeeds and Newsfeeds.

Started last November, the system is a sort of keeping up with the Joneses application that tells your friends what you just bought or did. The equivalent of how some people used to honk their horns in the street to brag to the neighbors when they brought home a new car.

Imagine yourself on FB, minding other people’s business in the Newsfeed, and you see, “Elaine just bought a St. John sweater set at BlueFly." Intrigued, you hustle on over to BlueFly and buy one yourself.

Beacon had problems in the beginning, principally because they did the classic Internet “you must opt out” in order not to participate in the program. Why do companies continue to do this crap?

In one widely reported scenario, a website providing the purchasing info to FB would deploy a 3 second pop-up saying, ‘do you wanna opt out?’. I have no idea if it was actually 3 seconds. But it wasn't enough. Problem was many people didn’t understand or notice. And the result was that, in one instance, a husband’s jewelry purchase was broadcast to his personal network – including his wife, who was the intended recipient of the ring as a gift.

Now, there was more damage here than a spoiled gift. It also led to rumors among those who read about it that the jewelry was not for his wife but for someone else. And a character is assassinated by a marketing app.

To their credit, FB responded quickly with program changes that, in a nutshell, made it an opt-in instead of an opt out. Responding quickly was incredibly important because there were thousands of people very ticked off, and activist group MoveOn was even driving a petition to stop the practice.

Since the wedding ring and other incidents occured last December, FB has changed the way it works. As they describe it on their site, “When you send an action to FB, the user is immediately alerted of the story you wish to publish and will be alerted again when they sign into FB. The user must proactively consent to have a story from your website published.”

I am not a fan of Beacon. The people at FB pitch it as a service to customers (“Enable your customers to share the actions they take on your website with their FB friends.”) I view it as an invasion of privacy, regardless of the changes. Target does not broadcast my Swiffer Mop purchase on a billboard, why on earth does FB?

Beacon’s certainly better than it was in terms of privacy. I still don’t like it. But there are people who honk their horns when they get a new car, and blingy people, and insecure teens, and and and, and so this may be an effective tool for transactional sites or other sites where relevant data are collected – for example a ratings site that records my “thumbs up” for a pizza parlor in Oakland CA.

Interestingly, I have a friend that works at FB that made the following remark when I asked him about it. “Your real problem with this is in the idea of conspicuous consumption, not privacy. You don’t like it that people advertise wealth.” As I read my words above, there is clearly some truth to that, but there’s also an issue to me about an ecommerce or other site sharing personally identifiable info with others without my explicit approval, except as given by my accepting a site terms document that runs on for 12 pages of seven point type.

Well anyway. You may have no problem with any of this.

Social Ads: What Social Ads does it that it delivers product information in a Newsfeed and Minifeed when people perform an act related to the product advertised. If I told people I was going motorcycling, then that statement might get paired with a text ad providing info on where to buy a specific brand of motorcycle, or for a local cycle shop.

You can, BTW, opt out of this easily.

Here’s how FB pitches it:

Reach the right people.

Instead of creating an advertisement and hoping that it reaches the right customers, you can create a Facebook Social Ad and target it precisely to the audience you choose. The ads can also be shown to users whose friends have recently engaged with your FB Page or engaged with your website through FB Beacon. Social Ads are more likely to influence users when they appear next to a story about a friend's interaction with your business.

Social Ads offers a broad range of demographic targeting options. Obviously, the closer the post is related to your brand, the better it will convert. You buy Social Ads with a self service application on the order of Adwords or Yahoo Search. They can be bought by CPC or CPM. As such, it appears to be an especially good tool for local retailers.

The key distinction from a privacy perspective is that the ads are paired with posts made through the FB environment. If you are willing to have your action posted in FB, pairing it with an ad doesn’t seem a breach of privacy. To me.

I don't opt out. I think FB needs to make money somehow, and this seems an excelelnt way to do it.

WIDGETS AND APPLICATIONS

Ah, widgets, the media darlings of H2 2007. Let me start by saying that I am very pro-application, pro-widget. The idea that you choose the information and functions that are brought to you on your pages is great.

There are tens and tens and tens of thousands of widgets out there. No one has any idea of the exact count. Some are in incredibly broad usage – Slide’s photo application is an example. Something like half of the FB users have this app in their FB presence. Another is FunWall, a service that soups up your comment wall with multimedia.

But what’s interesting is that with all this supply of widgets and apps, relatively few brands have really been able to take advantage of this phenomenon in a giant way. Why? Because they either haven’t tried or they haven’t done it right.

I’m gonna focus on “haven’t done it right.” Let’s start with the example of Sony’s Christmas Snowball. I should tell you that I had never heard of the snow globe until I did a search on FB marketing tips and found this post by Tim Faulkner on Valleywag. Here BTW is a picture of SnowGlobe:

SnowGlobe was pretty but got less than 500 downloaders. Why? There’s no point in my even trying to describe this better than Rodney Rumford did at FaceReviews, so I will print his comments verbatim:

Here is what is right about the Sony Snowglobes application:
* Creative idea
* Allows self expression and customization
* Visually exciting
* Uses notifications & mini-feed correctly

Here is what is wrong with the Sony Snowglobes application:
* No tabbed navigation
* No clear way to invite friends (I can’t believe they missed that!)
* It does not remember that I created a globe (very frustrating)
* After i create and send a globe i can’t navigate anywhere else (like to make a new one)
* No way to see which snowglobes my friends have created
* Text instructions are too long.
* Only allows for Christmas snowglobes. Too short of a product lifecycle window
* It makes me take an extra step to add the snowglobe to my profile page
* They promote 3 other apps in a very visually dominating way on the homepage (none of which have any success)
* The about page does not even have an image of what the app does. DUH!
* The profile page does not have messaging that makes we want to add the app.
* No one from Sony or their ad agency has responded to any of the reviews written on the applications wall.

There you have it.

You can do this right, but it’s tough. Not tough and therefore don't do it, but rather tough and therefore you should get help from someone who knows the space well. Frankly most brands need the help of a company that lives eats sleeps breathes social media. The key is finding an idea that has real consumer value, and then making it easy peasy to viral.

App Sponsorships

But let’s take another example. Also from Sony. Sony Studios rebranded that popular and (to those of us whom are sane) exasperating app called Vampires, which is from RockYou!

They rebranded it as part of their launch strategy for the Halloween picture 30 Scary Nights.

Results? Jeremiah Owyang, a great analyst at Forrester, reported the following results on his blog (his text, not mine):

The campaign was only live for 3 weeks, and there were 59,100 sweepstakes entries. (success was deemed at 10k, this clearly moved beyond that)The visits (I don’t know if they were unique or repeated) were 11,642,051 for the bite page, and 17,652,567 for the stats page (I believe these are part of the interactive experience of the game.

This time Sony clearly got it right. They leveraged a pre-existing community and an app that had already proven its worth to consumers.

So should you make your own widget or other app? Perhaps, though perhaps you should consider sponsoring an existing one instead. But again, getting the counsel of a company that has social media in its DNA is critical. You can’t wing widgetry or widget sponsorship.

Widget Advertising: A couple of companies are offering graphical and text ads on their networks of widget applications. Generally this is a REACH play, cheap tonnage. There is a role for that for some brands. My understanding is that CPMs are running in the $2-$3 range, which is good eatin’ these days. You can target by site and by some demo info,as well as activity level on FaceBook.

Interestingly, one can also advertise widgets in these widget ad networks, which could really grow your install base if your app is any good. Here are a couple of examples I found on either widget network sites or on the Widget Summit website.

Vortex: Vortex is a modular app developed by Catalyst client Real Time Matrix that I will be talking about in Monday’s post. Their offering is really more than a widget, it’s a communication platform not limited to FB or even the web.



What is different about Vortex is that it is essentially a more serious application – no vampires here. It delivers real time content related to a particular topic to the user’s desktop or pages on Facebook, iGoogle, or Netvibes. Video, audio, text, all linked to their original locations online. A number of publishers have adopted this platform already, and brands are beginning to as well. It really is worth a look and I will provide more info Monday.

I make no bones about my professional interest in this platform, but my personal interest in its value for a brand is genuinely quite strong. So look to tomorrow’s post, or visit VortexMe if you can’t wait.

OH, AND MAJOR PROGRAMS

Major Programs: So here’s the one some of you are waiting for. There are lots of brands that don’t have the people resources to make events and participate in groups and buy key words. FB is certainly willing to build a program for a large budget that involves any combination of the above or maybe custom tools. My understanding to large is $300K+.

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Justin Smith, the creator of a wonderful site called InsideFacebook, offers a veritable catalogue of marketing methods and specific details on his site. Far more than the topline I have provided here. His comments are particularly relevant for brands who embrace the concept of guerilla marketing, whereas I try to focus solely on the needs of giant brands. But no matter how big or small you are, you owe Justin’s site a visit. He's got plenty for big brands as well.

I am indebted to his willingness to provide such info to the world on his pages because it allowed me to enrich the content in this post, and set me straight on two misconceptions I was under.

Also, I want to say that many traditional marketers will be put off by the number of options and the seeming complexity of directions you can go on FB. Actually, it may really frighten you to know that there are a number of OTHER tools that I didn’t mention above.

There’s no one standard executional platform like a :30 TV ad. But the beauty of that is you get to develop a program that is PERFECT for your situation.

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to write.

Like Seinfeld Had a Show About Nothing Making a Show About Nothing...

If nothing else, Second Life Newbies will see what that world looks like.

Antisocial Networks

We’ve been discussing social media here all week, so perhaps it makes sense to also talk about social media backlash. Specifically social media backlash sites.

Yes, of course there are social media backlash sites. I’d even go so far as to say that there are variety fo genres of backlash sites. Let’s take a look:

Get a First Life




















This one page parody of the web site Second Life is packed with clever and cleverish aphorisms, my favorite being “Fornicate using actual genitals.” Its motto, however, is the rather cynical “Work. Reproduce. Perish.” Perhaps that’s all there is to existence, but I’m not willing to go there. At one page, it’s not a place you’re going to go often, but it’s good for a 60-second chuckle.

HateBook

A giant collection bucket of hatred and bile, Hate Book lets users sound off about what ticks them off. Posts are categorzed by topic, so if for example you want to share in others’ political hate, it’s available in just one curmudgeonly click.

Being someone who definitely wasn’t one of the most popular kids in high school, my initial glance at the site was a bit agita inducing. A global platform for teasing? But upon closer examination, I found that the site has “hate-readers” who screen posts before they appear, ensuring they avoid (list taken directly from the site)

...being non-descriptive: I hate apples. why?
...more than one topic: Just post a couple different ones
...naming people: or use first name only. Celebrities are ok. No contact info.
...responding to others: Disagree with what others hate, but don't attack their posts.
...hating this site: Site feedback can be sent to ihateyou@hatebook.com
...using obnoxious formatting: all CAPS, too much profanity, etc.

Apparently hatred has rules in the digital world.

Michael Arrington's piece on TechCrunch introduced me to two “antisocial networks”.

Isolatr is another one page parody site, offering the mission statement “Helping you find where other people aren’t.”

By contrast, Snubster is an actual community (or is that uncommunity) that offers a great deal of collaborative lists, telling us who is the most hated, etc.

BTW, the top nine most hated at the time of this post are:

George Walker Bush (Bush the Father)
Scientology
Emo Kids
MySpace
Paris Hilton
MTV
Tom Cruise
Republicans
George W Bush

Yes, our President appears twice in the top 9. Under different spellings.

But I bet you’re interested in what BRANDS make the top 50 and why, eeh? Here goes:

Starbuck’s – Pricing andkilling off independent coffee houses.
Wal*Mart – For allegedly bad working conditions, low salaries, poor merchandise, and exploitation of women and children.
McDonalds – For poor nutrition, product changes, and marketing to kids
Sony – For PS3, DRM, proprietary formats, bad customer support

What’s interestng as one reads the posts about a company is how ideas seem to build into consensuses of negativity . A few people make a complaint and that seems to beget bitching at a breakneck pace. Proving that we humans are basically followers. And that uncommunities end up connecting people, albeit with the common denominator of fury. This site seems to operate like a microcosm of the web in this regard.

All these sites sort of remind me of two things:

The old web site F*cked Company from the dot bomb era, that offered a minute by minute chronicle of job losses nationwide

The forums on the techie site SlashDot where people bitch about Apple and how it’s very easy to modify a toaster and get exactly the same functionality as an iPod, “for a lot less money and without DRM.”

Me I like my iPod. And my toast.

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to write.

A Video Gift For Loyal Readers Chris and Adam

I couldn't find the ad we discussed. But this one's pretty good anyway.

On a Mission from God

This morning I read an interesting article in Time that I thought I’d rant about today. The article discusses religion in America, and cites some important new research from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life about the number of people who change faiths over the course of their lives.

But for we digophiles, the most important takeaway is about how MANY Americans identify with a faith – any faith. A total of 4% of the US population calls itself Atheist or Agnostic. Note to my Bay Area readers: that’s 4% not 40%. Here, let me make it more plain. Check out this pie chart offering a simplified version of the Pew data:















Get the figures by denomination here in a handy dandy pdf.

Those who know me have heard my arguments about the merits of addressing people of faith in certain marketing plans. Net net, when we talk about religious people, we’re not talking about people who put their hands in a sack of rattlesnakes to prove their faith. We’re talking about 8+ out of 10 people you see on the street. In other words, mainstream America.

So it’s only natural that a social network called FaithBase is in the soup now. FaithBase, one of the specialty sites from Community Connect (they of BlackPlanet, Mi Gente, AsianAve, and GLEE fame) grew over 2000% between Q2 and Q4 2007 (off an admittedly small starting base.)



One of the interesting twists in this community is the focus on finding local connections – this makes sense given the idea of fellowship through going to church.

I joined and had a little wander on the site. And naturally the members do look like 8 out of 10 people I see on the train every morning, The pics are, of course, a bit different from what you’ll find in a random walk through MySpace. I clicked on an app that randomly selects photos by gender and age and was given 24 pictures of women. NOT ONE low cut halter top in the bunch.





















Lord knows what I’d get if it served up 24 photos from a mainstream network. ;-)

Interestingly, this is an 18+ community, which may slow it’s viral growth, but will also keep it out of the pedophile hunt headlines. This seems a wise move given the need to maintain a squeaky clean image and the potential for pedophiles to use a common faith as an entry point for their exploitation goals.

FaithBase is still small by leading social site standards, but it’ll be interesting to see how it does.

And let’s not forget that colossus eHarmony has its roots in the Christian community. It has since branched out, but for years devout Christians were its bread and butter.

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to write.

Papa Eddie: The Original Village Person?

Before there was an indian, a cop, a construction worker, a sailor, and a leather guy, there was a grocer showing us how to make the letter A.

Will Multiply Be Fruitful?

A couple years a go there was a new beauty line available from Revlon called Vital Radiance, targeted to the boomer woman who wanted to look HER BEST as opposed to embarking on an endless quest to look 21 again. It was a nice idea, but Vital Radiance is no more.

I have no idea why Vital Radiance is gone. But I bring it up because of a larger question of whether people over the age of 40 want to buy into brands targeted to their age segment. There are examples where boomers and beyond do buy into such ideas – the best I can think of being Centrum Silver, a vitamin designed specifically for the older set. But I can also think of a number of brands where it didn’t work. Quite a few actually. The defunct magazine Lear’s is an example, but there are lots of others as well.

Which brings us to boomer social media. I have been fascinated by this segment of the social networks category since it began. You can picture the VC decks – lots of boomers, they are online, not interested in the “holla holla” apps or being eaten by zombies, big incomes, big disposable incomes, advertisers waking up to their economic power.

It’s quite a story, so it’s no surprise that there a a virtual cornucopia of these sites. Gather, Multiply, Boomj, Boomertown, Rezoom, teebeedee, and gosh knows how many others.

Boomers apparently are stickier than the fickle Duff/Efron generation, according to an interesting post from David Lanzer, Director of the Program on Networked Governance at Harvard.

But we apparently require less jumping from site to site. I say that because most of these sites combine profile pages with photo sharing, blogs, and certain eVite-like features. So these sites are sort of myspecesmeetsflickrmeetsblogspotmeetsevite.

Well , thank the Lord for that. If boomers can drive some consolidation in the number of social application sites, then we will have once again altered the world for the betta.

Another interesting idea from these sites is the concept that their primary role is as a utility to stay in touch with people we already know as opposed to being tools to constantly make new friends and acquaintances. Multiply, for example, offers three tiers of personal networks – close for our BFFs, medium for fair weather friends, and distant for what we from Philadelphia might call “Hey Yo” friends. You know them well enough to say “Hey Yo,” but not to invite to your house or something.

So who’s winning? Multiply seems to be kicking tush so far (see below.)

















So let’s take a walk on the Multiply side.
The Multiply site claims 8 Million registered users. If we assume that 10-20% are active, that’s 800K to 1.6MM. Nothing to sneeze at, not in the same ballgame as MySpace or FaceBook, but pretty good.

Some tasty nibbly bits: You get to select a template for your page.



Pretty! I like this sort of compromise between the DIY MySpace approach (proving why there are decorators in the World) and the Erich Honecker “Ve must haff order!” Facebook white.

Building your page is a breeze. There’s a place for everything. You click and you add.

This attention to experience is not surprising given the backgrounds of the founders.

It’s not just personal pages of course. Multiply has a healthy set of 581 groups in 17 categories. I checked for an Obama group because he has a presence in many social nets, and sure enough, there it was.

From an advertiser's standpoint, it’s IAB leaderboards and towers, and the ads I saw screamed inexpensive network Direct Response. But that’s often true of the social networks, even the giant MySpace. In my view, none of the soche sites have figured the marketing part out yet. And if I were Multiply, I’d hold off on investing a lot in a technology and wait for MySpace and Facebook to find something with traction.

Will Multiply be fruitful? I say that this community will continue to develop. It has some really nice elements and a good intuitive understanding of the boomer’s net sensibilities. And I like any site that lets me make a pretty page in a few minutes.

The challenge will be to get the virality really going. Boomers don't send 200 text messages every afternoon that read...

-------------------------
OMG OMG
*.COM ISC
BFF JIM
-------------------------
Translation:
Oh my God. Oh My God.
Multiply.com is so cool.
Best friend forever, Jim

Another site worth noting is Gather. While less successful so far on the traffic front than Multiply, Gather has some nice features and has been arguably the most effective at getting on the radar of buyers and planners. This site is sort of a cross between Multiply and Divine Caroline (discussed in yesterday’s post) and offers the added feature of gather points that reward participation, blogging, referrals, etc.

Gather also offers a much broader set of advertising features. In addition to banners, they do sponsored content, sponsored sections, paid advertorial, custom icons, and a number of other programs. A very substantial assortment is available.

For Gather, the trick is going to be to get the traffic way up. It’s a challenge in a category this crowded, but they have done an excellent job raising their profile among the media industry, so I wouldn’t count them out.

There’s clearly going to be a winnowing in this segment – there are just too damned many boomer social networks. But I like how these companies have recognized that the boomer is a different breed. We should no more be expected to act like LonelyGirl than we should be expected to join teens in calling American Idol 200 times every Tuesday night. 100 times is all I can manage before bedtime.

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to write.

Heidi Klum, or "Holla Holla"?

OK, so you want to be in social media, but you’re feeling like MySpace is a little too young for your kind of consumer. Well, you should probably check the current demos for MySpace, because I think the average user is now about 35. But no matter. I hear you. And if your brand is more Heidi Klum than “Holla Holla,” you want a place that’s consistently high quality and brand safe.

Well, this is social media week here at OLDMTA, and I want to tell you about some amazing sites that are worth a look. I’m gonna start with Divine Caroline, the product of Real Girls Media, an SF-based start-up targeting women. Divine Caroline is their first offering, and seems targeted at the 25-44 set.

The first thing you’ll notice when you go there is that it looks more like a magazine than a collection of bling bling profile pages. The concept is to make members into citizen journalists in the sense that users are asked to write articles, reviews, etc. which are then filtered by an editorial team and presented much like a site like Sunset or New York Magazine presents professionally produced content.

Divine Caroline still has profile pages, but its raison d’etre is as an editorial focused environment. It’s a different definition of self expression than the sparkly pages and mass friending of the giants.

What’s most interesting about this site to me is that it totally flies in the face of my snarky theory that 80% of the public has very little interesting to say. Divine Caroline members prove that ordinary people can write, and write rather well. I would imagine there are some metaphorical red pens at DC doing some editing, but people really have passionate feelings and stories and messages and the site is a delight to read.

Who’da thunk that there were THOUSANDS of women who have the time to write long edit – high quality edit? All points of view are represented as well. It’s not a site with a “political” agenda beyond empowering women to connect and go through life together.

I’ve been watching Divine Caroline for awhile and I am happy to say that their traffic is becoming strong and sustained. And that is just great. What’s more, it’s hard for me to imagine a brand that wouldn’t want to be in the midst of this editorial environment. No F-bombs here.

Divine Caroline has also developed some really excellent DEEP partnerships with advertisers. The first one I saw was a combination video and sweeps for Sears appliances. The vid was a great cinema verite about the very real excitement we feel when we get a great new appliance.

Right now, they have a infectious promo running for Pam Professional, which is a “high heat” cooking spray. There are four vids, starring Jamie Lauren, the Executive Chef of Absinthe, a tony SF restaurant. The videos are gorgeous, and clearly DC found an ideal spokeswoman in Lauren, who delivers an engaging set of cooking tips and recipes. Additional elements of the promo include a tasteful sweeps befitting a product for the Viking Stove set, and some nice interactive flash ads.

This is the kind of thing that will really make a difference for a brand. It’s not just a bunch of ROS 728x90 banners that people won’t notice. Rather, it’s creating great exclusive content that people will actually enjoy and remember.

I could go on about Divine Caroline, but check it out yourself. When the Real Girls Media team cracks the nut of UGC video and photos, this site’s going to explode. Till then, it’s a great place to reach an upscale opinion leader audience that’s large enough to make a difference for a national brand’s marketing efforts.

If your brand is more Heidi Klum than Holla Holla, Divine Caroline is a good bet.

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to write.

Bad Marketing Ideas Live Forever Online...

Give Me Fewer Choices!!!

eMarketer is an amazing resource. But even if you can’t afford the subscription or the studies, you owe it to yourself to apply for their FREE newsletter, which serves up tantalizing bits of data every day. The goal, of course, is to get you to buy a full study. And in my experience, eMarketer studies do not disappoint. But even if you are a cheap person or a person on a very strict budget, the newsletter is of enormous value. It is my only “absolutely must open” of the day.

Well, today’s newsletter provided a great piece of data. It shows the growth in ecommerce sales juxtaposed against the rise in web-influenced offline sales. See below:



Signficance? Digital is likely playing an enormous role in sales for your product even if you don’t sell online. Natch, this is not an earth shattering revelation for most of us, but it is amazing how we continue to dump millions into media that may not have a demonstrative, quantifiable effect on our sales, while ignoring this pregnant fact about online

Brant Barton at Bazaarblog offers up a great collection of research on this very subject.

If you want more specifics, surf on over to the Yahoo Search Marketing Blog offers a PDF of research on the impact of search on offline sales here.

Now the idea of researching products online is nothing new. Heck, a big chunk of web leader CNET’s business is built on it. But what is amazing now is that the reviews you find online aren’t only about gadgets and printers can cars. Check out this collection of consumer testimonials for Olay Regenerist, which is anything but electronic.

I am always amazed at how willing people are to help each other online. And people are clearly hungry for info about practically everything.

Which also begs a question: how much choice is the right amount? When the web began, pundits were predicting an age where people could gleefully revel in carefully considering 125 choices for everything. This new era would mean you’d get exactly what you want. But the challenge is, of course, that considering so many choices requires that we have the time and the level of concern necessary to do so.

People prefer limited choice in practically all cases. Perhaps that’s why so many of us are turning to the web for info. Instead of using of using it to expand our choices, we’re appear to be using it to narrow options through reading what others recommend.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.

Amazing UGC From A Schick Quattro YouTube Contest

You May Not Have a Second Life. But Kids Do.

The buzz around Second Life was intense about a year and a half ago. Now, not so much.

Not that that should make you think Second Life is dead. It still gets solid traffic, but its model for businesses appears to have evolved from a focus on building product stores and showcases like Dell Island to an environment where companies, teams, and professors create virtual settings for collaboration. Does that mean they have moved away from fun and entertainment? I don’t think so. I recently met someone who spends a great deal of time on the site as a virtual deejay who says it has simply settled down to a core of avid users.

I never got with the program on Second Life. The idea of virtual worlds is intriguing to me, but I didn't have the hardware to really support all those graphics, so I spent my days bumping into things and being LOLed at. But I hasten to point out that I never really got the hang of PONG, so Second Life may be a user experience nirvana for those with adult hand eye coordination and a better PC.

But by no means is Second Life the only game in town. There are other adult (in the age sense) virtual worlds, and surely some adult (in the XXX sense) ones.
But the kids worlds are booming with a capital B, and for good reasons! They offer easy to learn, easy to navigate environments in which to meet millions of other kids safely.

I recently visited two: Cartoon Doll Emporium (a start-up) and Club Penguin (which was acquired by Disney.)

Let’s start with the Disney site. Users can join for free, and wander around various worlds, communicating with others using very safe methodologies. There are two levels of safety in chat: one allows users only to communicate with pre approved pull down words and phrases. The other allows free chat, but every message is checked against a set of acceptable words and topics before it is delivered to the user.

I made a penguin in a few seconds, watched the demo, and then went merrily on my way, wandering from world to world and then into a surfing game. My score: zero. But it was still fun. As I wandered it was clear that the site is active and that kids are communicating well.

There is no marketing allowed on Club Penguin. It is supported solely through premium memberships. In my walk through the worlds and activities, it appears that Club Penguin is aimed for a somewhat younger consumer than Cartoon Doll Emporium. It was extremely easy to customize an avatar and get wandering.

The look and feel at Cartoon Doll Emporium is different. The site also allows free signup, and offers premium memberships as well. The site accepts advertising and will consider tasteful and age appropriate sponsored content.

This is a stunning destination. A virtual dress up party online. You customize an avatar, create your own space (I learned I am virtual decorating challenged,) talk to other members, view fashions designed by real world designers, and much much more. You could spend days on this site just reviewing the options, and based upon their user stats, many actually do.

The artwork is – well, has to be seen to be believed.

Users can buy virtual money or earn it through play, and then convert it to ever more elaborate and remarkable gear. Note to parents: I’m guessing virtual stuff works out to be cheaper than real stuff. Something to consider, eeh?

There are many many more children’s virtual worlds, this was just a brief peek at a couple of the standouts. If you’re a kid marketer, virtual worlds are something to consider. Many will allow tasteful and age appropriate marketing efforts.

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to write.