Social Network Marketing

You wanna hear something funny? I have this thing outside my house, and it's called a mail box. How it works is that it stands out there, like some sort of odd lawn ornament, and every day at a pre-determined time a man comes by in a giant truck. He fills the box with letters that are, get this, written by hand with pens or maybe even typed. And when he's done I go to the box, pick them up, and take them back home with me!

Yeah we all remember the days when we used good ol' "snail mail" to communicate with our friends, and we had to write down addresses and buy stamps and go to the Post Office and so on. Back then this was how businesses advertised their products, and this was the replacement for the door-to-door salespeople. Sears and Toys R' Us and so on would make these catalogs, and we'd get them in our mailboxes. We'd read them, find a couple of nifty items, and order them through mail.

Such days are long gone, today we just need to type a few keys to send an electronic signal consisting of a letter to a friend halfway around the world and it takes a fraction of a second to accomplish, which is a million times faster than ordinary mail. Corporations took advantage of this, obtaining our emails through various ways and sending us offers for various products, which is why "spam" is now a derogatory term.

Then came the social networks; Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. Now the various companies, news agencies, and so on are joining the millions of ordinary people who are spreading their message to others around the world. But instead of talking about what they did Saturday night, they're advertising their products.

This is a new world. The rules are changing. In the past businesses and organizations used word of mouth and traditional advertising on print, TV, and radio to sell products. Today they have a new tool; Web 2.0.

One of the best examples is Facebook. The social network monster that has come to virtually dominate our lives, its presence is growing faster than Google, the "Big Brother" of the internet. Facebook allows users to upload photos and videos of themselves, hyperlink web sites, and according to this article from FOX News a location-based service will be launched in April, which will now allow people to see where their friends are when they update their status.

A man by the name of Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook in his college dorm at Harvard back in 2004. The original intent was to take his mind off a girl who he had completely blown it with, as well as to compare the physical appearance of the students at Harvard (this was done by hacking the network and uploading the photos). What was originally an ivy-league exclusive social network soon went public, and its popularity soared, overtaking the infamous MySpace (which was purchased by News Corp in 2005). Despite offers to buy Facebook from several prominent companies (Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google) it remained independent, and in 2009 its cash flow turned positive and revenues could be as high as $2 billion. Just look at that snazzy HQ!

The "face" of Facebook is the news feed, this is the wall of text that you get when you log on. Here the status updates from all your friends are displayed so you can see what they're up to. Because this is a very "in-your-face" experience, companies use this to promote various products, or even just announce their brand names. One way to do this is by placing ads, sponsored by the organization, on the side of the news feed. Take a look below for an example of this, in this case an ad for the Marines.

The ad is small and seen off to the side of the page, so while it's noticeable it's not intrusive like the infamous Pop-up ads seen across the web. Its presence is designed to appear natural among the feed, and noticeable at the same time. Note that the ad doesn't ask for you to send any information in, or order anything, or sign off to anything. It only asks that you become a "fan" of the USMC's Facebook page. It also shows which friends (mine have had their names censored for privacy) are fans of the page. Also note the small "x" in the upper corner, clicking this will close the ad as well as trigger a pop up box asking why you didn't like the ad, with the feedback being sent to the agency.

When you click on the "become a fan" button, you receive status updates from the pages. Below is an example of posts from two pages I am a fan of; Repo Men, and Glee.With status updates, companies can now throw advertisements literally in your face. Often though they are not blatant "BUY ME" messages, but instead news relating to the products or media in question. For example the Repo Men post has some production photos that users can look at, while Glee talks about an interview with one of the cast.

Status updates make Facebook, and let's face it, it's all we go on for. What is needed is a social networking site that strips Facebook down to merely the status updates. Enter Twitter.

Called the "SMS of the internet", Twitter functions by having users upload posts containing up to 140 characters, and it can be done via Cell Phone as easily as it is done on the computer. Hundreds of thousands of "tweets" are made every day, and while most of them are conversations with others or just babble about nothing, a handful of them are used to promote products. In fact in August 2009 a study was done by Pear Analytics out of San Antonio of the content of "tweets" that are sent out. For 10 days, they studied tweets made between the hours of 11:00 am and 5:00 pm Monday-Friday. Out of the 2,000 tweets in total, 117 (5.85%) were classified as "Self Promotion" which were defined as "typical corporate tweets about products, services, or “Twitter only” promos." The study also states that this could be good news for some "as there appears to be a flurry of companies and businesses joining Twitter to promote products and services."

This is an example of a small business using Twitter to advertise, the business in question is Heather Highlands Golf Club, a golf course owned by my father in Holly, MI.

The tweets are a tad hard to see, but they advertise deals such as "Leagues and Outings book next week and lock in 2009 rates. Hurry this offer can't last. Call Chris today - 248-634-6800" and "Save 10 % on any Wedding that is booked in January." Also the bio says "We will be offering special "Twitter" promotions here ALL season. Follow us for a great value in golf. Who else lets you play free ?" Not only does this work by reaching new target audiences (the survey mentioned above points out that 43% of Twitter users are between the ages 18-25, and 55% are female) but it gives out promotions that are exclusive to Twitter. It's like the business is rewarding people for being addicted to Twitter, how's that for an incentive?



Then there's YouTube, the multimedia giant that has revolutionized how we share videos and whatnot.

YouTube is the embodiment of everything that is Web 2.0. Everyone from around the world can upload videos, ranging from simple clips from games to professional short films. Here's an example of both: a gameplay clip from Team Fortress 2, and the Half-Life 2 fan film "Escape from City 17"

Even though it's now considered a subsidiary of Google, YouTube has done a lot in revolutionizing the media of videos. This also affects the Long Tail that we talked about in previous entries. On YouTube, users can upload movies, TV shows, etc. that have long since been lost and forgotten, as well as letting you watch parts of the newest TV shows for free (provided that the videos haven't been removed by the evil Viacom or it's affiliates). Sure you can go on iTunes and download the latest episodes of LOST and 24 and so on, but you can log onto YouTube and find specific clips of those shows. Maybe you want to see Katie's flashback of the crash in LOST or maybe a mash up of Jack Bauer's kills on 24. Sure some of the videos you find are of poor quality, and might be plain old mashups like the second video here, but you can watch them for FREE! That sure beats paying whatever the price is on iTunes to download an episode that you only need a 30 second clip from.

Back to the Long Tail, in YouTube's immensely massive servers there are lots of old clips from TV shows past. Looking for the first episode of the first season of Pokemon? Or how about that episode of the Muppet Show where the cast of Star Wars crashed the theater? Chances are there's a couple of users on YouTube who have those clips and have uploaded them for the viewing pleasure of you and all the internet. Now are they available on DVD or whatnot? Yeah sure, but where DVD's can be lost or destroyed these clips arn't going anywhere barring some sort of internet self-destruction, and again you can watch them for free!

Some TV shows have tapped into the Long Tail concept itself. For example the famous "Sesame Street" has a YouTube page that is full of not only the latest clips from the show, like David Beckham explaining "persistent" to Elmo, but also contains "classic" clips for those of us who watched Sesame Street when we were young, but have grown up. My personal favorites are these classic clips, like Bert and Ernie having the appliance war to end all wars and Grover serving his hapless blue-headed customer the "BIG Hamburger." Now these clips were obviously made with the preschool audience in mind, but a lot of Web 2.0 users who are in their adolescence probably grew up with these characters, and so these clips remain funny to us. There is a large market for vintage videos like these, in fact the Sesame Street channel alone has over 2,000,000 channel views, and the individual views for it's uploads total at over 65,000,000. It can be argued that without YouTube, these clips could have been lost forever!

And what the heck, here's another clip of Grover at a fast food restaurant.

With so many users on YouTube, this is a gold mine for companies looking to expand their markets outward. When you open up the main page, you are confronted with a large ad that takes up half the screen, as seen on the right. Note that the ad is paid for by Sony. With Google's purchasing of YouTube, there's now much more space for advertising, and the most viewed videos have ads that play before the movie actually starts, in a format similar to a regular commercial on TV. Sony also has it's own YouTube page, where it has videos promoting new technologies being developed as well as products it is selling like the (in) famous PlayStation 3. Sony's multimedia branch, Sony Pictures Entertainment, also has a page where it posts trailers for the latest movies from Sony Pictures, like the Karate Kid, and The Bounty Hunter.

YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are efficient and fun ways to promote products and they have a good success rate, but there's one other avenue of Web 2.0 that often flies under the radar: Second Life. Second Life is a "virtual world" developed by Linden Lab, and the name is fitting in the respect that it operates and functions a lot like the real world. You have your own avatar (not to be confused with the ones from the movie, though there are some like them) that is completely customizable, in that you get to pick a name, gender, and even species to play as. In Second Life, there are no "winners" or "losers" (though Jim Halpert begs to differ) and what you do in Second Life is similar to what you would do in your real, or "First", life. You can go to school, go to work, get a car, play games, go dancing, you name it. Second Life also has it's own economy thanks to it's in-world cash system which has an exchange rate in tune with the value of real world currency, like the US Dollar. Second Life is virtually the same as the real world, with the exception of a few details (like you can fly).


Because Second Life is overlooked for the most part as a medium of advertising, not a lot of companies sell official products. However users in Second Life can create their own content, clothing, vehicles, equipment, anything they need. To that end a lot of real-world products or brands are emulated in-world. The photo on the left is an in-game screenshot taken by me of me and a friend on a motor boat (I'm the one in the back thank you). It's hard to make out, but the texture on the propeller mount says "Sea Wolf" a nod to the "Sea Doo" brand of watercraft. While Sea Doo does not specialize in boats, the one modeled here is based off of real-world boats, and the Sea Wolf logo is again a reference to Sea Doo, and a clever way to avoid copyright infringement. Another example is this online advertisement of a sports car inspired by the Dodge Viper GT, note that the ad is careful to state that the car was "inspired" by the Viper, in order to avoid confusion that this is in fact a licensed product developed by Dodge.

Second Life has attracted the attention of corporations however. 20th Century Fox held a premiere for X-Men 3 in world. Computer manufacturer Dell has set up their own island to sell PC's from. Adidas and Toyota have also established a presence there, offering licensed products from shoes to a Scion XB (the car I drive in the real world). Now you can't use these products outside of Second Life, but the odds are that if you buy them there, you will be inclined to buy from those brands in the real world.

Second Life's freedom with user-created content has resulted in users attracting even government agencies. The International Spaceflight Museum (pics taken by me at right) started off as a small, non-profit organization dedicated to the exploration of Space. It soon attracted the attention of real-world Space agencies, like NASA and JPL, as well as companies with investment into spaceflight, like the Sea Launch venture which held a talk last month in Second Life about how their company operates in respect to launching satellites into orbit. NASA, JPL, and other government agencies like NOAA began setting up official areas surrounding the spaceport, and today the once small island has grown into a vast region dedicated to spaceflight, called SciLands, which you can visit.


NASA and JPL also hold in world events, usually they are talks with people from the organization (sometimes Astronauts!), or in-world broadcasts of Shuttle Launches, or even astronomical events like the 2008 Solar Eclipse. My personal favorite was in August of 2007, when JPL was getting set to launch the Phoenix space probe to Mars, and they had an in-world event to watch the countdown, complete with a virtual rocket launch! My avatar, Helios Eusebio, is an anthropomorphic bird (in case you haven't figured that out by now) and to be specific; a Phoenix. I was wandering around the event site a day before the launch, and the JPL rep was on hand and noticed my avatar. He asked if I wanted to be the unofficial mascot for the mission, and I was more than happy to oblige! There was a great turnout for the liftoff, and I got my picture taken by lots of folks. When the spacecraft landed in May of 2008, they held a landing event and I reprised my mascot role, taking a perch on the model of the Phoenix. I was even featured in an article! (I apologize for the pictures not being available. The one I included here should hopefully convey the scene).

We've covered a lot of ground here, from the ever popular Facebook to the underrated Second Life. But what does all this mean? How can Web 2.0 help businesses get their word out the same way it helps people around the world express themselves?


With the new means of communication via the web, new methods of advertisement are opened up, and they're so natural that their presence is almost completely expected. We all remember the infamous pop-up ads that polluted the web in it's early years, and while they're still around (and have given rise to the annoying flash ads where women with unnaturally high voices offer you a Nintendo Wii), they are slowly but surely becoming obsolete. Part of this is because of the presence of pop-up blockers on internet browsers, but also because of ads like the ones you saw on Facebook and YouTube, that are integrated into the site and don't demand that you give out personal information just that you subscribe to their web pages. These ads are noticeable, but at the same time they are not intrusive, surprising, and unsettling in the way pop-up ads are.

Then there's other areas like Second Life and Twitter, where you can take your business literally into the next dimension. By having exclusive offers on Twitter, or re-creating your products to be sold and used in a virtual world, you are providing a reward for those who throw away their lives to sit around in front of the computer all day, and at the same time selling your products to a target market that otherwise might not be exposed to your goods or services. And with virtual talks, concerts, etc. in Second Life you can bring people together like never before. Now people from around the world can attend the premiere of the hottest movie without ever leaving their living room.

The integration of business with the social networks of Web 2.0 is increasing, and I predict that in 5 years, a page on Facebook or Twitter will be necessary for small businesses to survive. Competition will soon be heating up for dominance of the internet, it's already happening on Second Life where in-world corporations compete against each other to sell products ranging from clothing to complete avatars. It's only a matter of time before this all spills over into the rest of the internet, and when that does we will enter a brave new world of marketing, where just by logging into your Facebook you will attract the eye of businesses that are ready and willing to sell you their products.

To paraphrase Louis Armstrong; I see pixalted trees, Twitter feeds too. Facebook pages, and Muppets on YouTube.

And I think to myself...

What a wonderful world!


References:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/09/facebook-adds-location-based-services/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+foxnews%252Fscitech+%2528Text+-+SciTech%2529

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Windowsat1601californiaave.jpg (licensed under Creative Commons)

http://www.pearanalytics.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Twitter-Study-August-2009.pdf

http://twitter.com/HHGC

http://www.youtube.com/user/SesameStreet

http://www.youtube.com/user/sony?blend=1&ob=4

http://www.youtube.com/user/sonypictures?blend=5&ob=4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Businesses_and_organizations_in_Second_Life

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2006/05/the_uncanny_xme.html

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123126243

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life

http://www.scilands.org/

http://spindriftisland.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/scieye-welcomes-phoenix-lander-to-mars/

http://secondlife.com