Here’s a great video demonstrating some real life uses of social media in business. Not just large corporations either but also SMEs.

Since the open beta period for Blue Mars began I’ve noticed that some Second Life content creators have been dismissing it out-of-hand. Mostly they claimed that the tools for creating content in Blue Mars were too hard to learn. Many also said that they were not interested in providing content for Blue Mars, and some even inferred that without them to provide the content Blue Mars would wither and die. As I stated in my earlier article, Blue Mars – Being Different, Blue Mars will ultimately be able to draw on a wealth of content, possibly more than Second Life currently does. So if I were generating real world income by providing content in Second Life I would seriously consider taking the time to evaluate Blue Mars as a prospective new market. It makes good business sense, and I can tell you that there are hundreds, perhaps thousands out there, who are eagerly waiting for you to let this opportunity pass you by.

Let me state up front that Blue Mars may fail. It’s an uncomfortable truth that all the developers may be wasting their time, that Blue Mars may never reach the critical mass necessary for it to generate a return. But then again, at the other extreme Blue Mars may be the Microsoft or Google of virtual worlds and just as Microsoft and Google have, Blue Mars may have such a strategic advantage that it sweeps all its competitors – including Second Life – into insignificance.

What should you be looking for?

It’s too early to tell whether Blue Mars will mature into a viable market. It’s too new. There’s still so much important work to be completed. However, there are some elements that may be appealing to an SL entrepreneur wishing to expand. I don’t have any insider information but I expect in an attempt to woo both developers and residents into this new environment land prices are going to be very competitive. Maybe only a fraction of what the equivalent would be in Second Life. This means lower startup costs.

Also, being an early adopter means that the lines of communication to the developers of Blue Mars are likely to be more open. At this stage the community is small and if you have an issue you are more likely to be heard and have that issue enacted upon. This is especially important with regard to governance issues.

What difficulties may you face?

If you’ve only ever used the Second Life tools to develop with then you’ll need to learn a set of new skills. However, much of what you have learnt will still be relevant, only the application and name may be different. You also have a choice of tools – from the free like Google’s Sketchup to the professionally priced Maya. Now is the time to learn how to use those tools – when most of your competitors are on an equally footing and everyone is learning the system. Your consumers are more likely to forgive your mistakes in such an environment. If you are already using these multi-industry standard tools then you may have existing content that you can import directly into Blue Mars. This will save you time and perhaps money. Your upstart time could be slashed.

Unlike Second Life, most development happens outworld. If you’re used to having a social aspect when building then you may miss this. However, it is possible to supplement this need by using social networking tools like Twitter, Facebook or IM. Developing offline does have a distinct advantage in that you can always back your work up.

Probably the biggest difficulty you will face is that Blue Mars is not Second Life. Your expectations about what is possible and how things should be done are going to be skewed in favour of how you do them in Second Life. The best remedy for this is to keep an open mind. Blue Mars is a rapidly evolving platform and you’ll see improvements over the course of time.

What can you bring to Blue Mars?

Your brand is the most obvious. If you have an established brand that is beloved in Second Life then you have an opportunity to bring it into Blue Mars and expand its influence. You’ll already have an advantage over new developers because you’ll have an existing client base: your fellow SLers.

The other thing you can bring to Blue Mars is your knowledge about how to run a successful small business. Running a small business is hard. It doesn’t matter whether that business is in the real world or the virtual world. Workflow, marketing, customer service. Those hard-learnt lessons are just as applicable in Blue Mars as they are in Second Life.

You may believe that you can ignore Blue Mars until it evolves into an economically viable platform. This wait-and-see approach is giving a free-kick to your competitors. They’ll be able to learn the system, guide the development and develop a reputation that will make it harder to compete with when you do finally decide to make the transition. Now is the time for evaluation and even if you choose not to make the leap immediately it is important that you learn the skills that will help you compete in this new environment should you eventually utilise it.

Blue Mars is an exciting opportunity, but every business is different. Whether it is the right thing for your business will depend upon you and your desires. It is vitally important that you spend enough time to carefully evaluate it. Blue Mars will not be a viable option for every SL entrepreneur, but you should make that decision for yourself based on a solid analysis. Otherwise you may discover that not only have you missed a valuable opportunity but that your competitor has snapped it up.

From a marketing perspective, what’s wrong with the scenario displayed in the photo above? I see these sort of ‘leased’ signs all the time and usually I don’t pay much attention to them. They’re just there, and as I’m not in the market for real estate they don’t interest me. However, this time I did notice this one for one very good reason and that made me realise that they can be a wasted opportunity.

I feel it is important to celebrate your successes. It helps to motivate you towards achieving the next goal. I even believe in advertising your successes. Everyone wants to be associated with a winner and so that can generate more leads and hopefully further successes. All things in moderation however. It’s easy to get carried away. Like a story I once heard about two guys who made a huge sale to a company in New Zealand. It was a big gig for them and they boasted outrageously on the flight home. Unfortunately an executive of the New Zealand company was seated a few rows behind, overheard their boasting and promptly called his office to cancel the deal. The story is most likely apocryphal but it’s still a valuable life lesson.

The sign in the window too could be considered to be a lesson in what not to do. The reason I even noticed it was because two business men were desperately attempting to work out what the phone number on the sign was. Unfortunately the number on both signs in the window were obscured by the enormous ‘Leased’ celebration. I think the two business men managed to work out the number but the real estate company didn’t exactly make it easy for them.

It’s usually not wise to make it difficult for potential customers to contact you. In many cases they’ll move their attention to your competitor. You need to consider this when announcing your successes or just marketing in general. If you’re going to tack something across your signs to denote a sale, then at least design it so that you can still real the contact details. After all what’s the point of telling everyone that you’re a success if nobody can reach you to hop onto your bandwagon?

The Business section of the Sydney Morning Herald has an article on Twitter. It’s somewhat superficial, but at least it covers the emerging importance of social media to business. One thing it does mention is the trend of using social media not just for marketing but for damage control. I think we’ll see more and more of this over the coming months and years, as businesses attempt to better manage their public relations through social media.

Today I attended the VIO business seminar in Second Life. The seminars are scheduled every Sunday at 11am SLT (US Pacific) and each has a speaker talking about a specific virtual-world business topic. Today’s speech was on machinima and AWM Mars and Ariella Languish gave very good presentations. One of the issues that was raised by an audience member was whether it was worthwhile for a purely in-world business to run a machinima advertisement. I’d like to discuss that amid a broader aspect of social media marketing.

Of course the short answer to the question is: probably not. The longer answer is much more meaningful to the broader business community in that it depends on what you’re trying to achieve.

The reason it is probably not worth it for many purely inworld businesses to run video advertising is that the costs involved in producing and streaming are quite high (possibly in the thousands of $US), whereas the exposure for your target market is likely to be quite minimal. In strictly monetary terms the apparent ROI would appear to be inadequately low. That said and done, I do know business owners that swear by it and who regularly run ads on SLCN. You ask them why and they will tell you that the times when they don’t run the commercials their sims and their web sites suffered a noticeable decrease in traffic. Obviously, for them, machinima advertising is having a positive effect. But I have to say that they are probably the exception to the rule.

One of the problems is methodology. Mimicking television without having the benefits that the broadcast medium brings is ill-conceived. There just simply aren’t the numbers watching and, more importantly, buying. My figures for SLCN are old, but even the ratings for our local community TV station exceeded SLCN’s viewing figures by an order of magnitude. I’m not trying to take anything away from SLCN, I’m just simply pointing out that using the same techniques that television uses will more than likely not work. And this applies not only just to in-world businesses but also to real-world entities that are using the web for promotion. It needs to be done differently.

Television, radio and print advertising as well as the majority of business web sites are push media. That means they push the information out to all and sundry in the hope that a large enough percentage will view, notice and act upon it. They tell us how great they are, that our lives are incomplete without their widget, and why it is better than all the other (similar) widgets on the market. It works – for some – but there is also a different approach.

Most commercial transactions are based on trust. We trust the local store to sell us a product, hopefully with a friendly smile and the minimum of fuss. But what happens when there is no smile or we have a bad buying experience? We usually find an alternative. Maybe travel a further kilometre down the road to another store.

If you build trust then you’re more likely to have repeat customerage. One of the excellent ways to build trust is to build communities. Consider it just another facet to delivering outstanding service. By building communities I’m not just talking about collecting a bunch of email addresses or snail mail addresses and sending out a weekly email of bargains and new products. That’s push media. What I’m talking about is creating pull media – an environment where customers are not only actively engaged in discussions with you and your staff about your products and business, but actually readily return just to engage you and the other customers. This is the essence of social media marketing.

So, how can an in-world business use social media (and in particular machinima) in their marketing? Well the first thing is create something you want to watch – preferably multiple times. If you want to watch it then chances are others will too. Don’t make it an advertisement, make it entertainment. The trick is to create content that your customers want to use. And then you need to create avenues for your customers to engage with you. For an in-world business that may be a weekly chat session disguised as a party or some similar event. Get out, have you and your staff meet the people and have them meet you. Enjoy yourself. For an online business, you can always use blogs, forums, virtual worlds or establish a twitter feed. But don’t fall into the trap of using them solely as a push media tool. What you want is to engage your customers and create something they want to come back to repeatedly.

Used well, machinima is a powerful marketing tool. There’s no better way to provide information or to emotionally influence your customers. But it can only ever be part of the solution. To make the most of it you must entertain as well as inform.

Likewise, be prompt. Even show up a little early to show you’re eager. If you’re unavoidably delayed or detained, message ahead. Tell the person you’re meeting so they’re not waiting around for you. Being late or not showing up at all leaves the worst impression. Especially for those that are used to dealing only in the real world.

Doing business is a negotiated partnership. Use every advantage you can.

Video is such a fundamentally superior information source that it just gobsmacks me when a business fails to employ it. Especially when they instead choose to utilise another source: like a 4-colour brochure. A 30-60 second video can do a better job of advertising and informing your consumers than a brochure and it costs about the same to produce. Furthermore, a well-produced viral video can potentially reach millions.

Unfortunately, far too many business people have to be told this.

There is always a problem with trusting a new client. Just as they have a problem with trusting you. Until the relationship is established and there is a successful and mutually beneficial consideration both sides are somewhat wary. Many clients think that only they are at risk when entering into a transaction, but those who have been in business know the contractor also runs the risk. That goes double for freelancers and it multiplies again every time a client fails to pay. After a while you start to get a nose for the dodgy ones. It’s not foolproof by any measure but it’s close.

One of the ways we tell is how they came to choose us. Usually this is a referral or as a result of our advertising. There are lots of other ways but if you’re pleading for contractors on an obscure and unrelated forum, while claiming to be a big-player in the industry, then we’re going to be a little suspicious. Then there is what they want, and how they plan to achieve it. If they want the world – 5 camera coverage of a 2 hour show 3 times per week – then it starts to raise alarm bells. Especially if they believe a fair price is in the tens rather than the tens of thousands per week. Finally, there is how they behave. Especially around others. If a potential client introduces us to others as ‘our video guy’, while we’re still negotiating (or, as happened recently, before the job was even discussed) that’s usually another red-flag.

That doesn’t mean that we won’t do a 5 camera coverage of a 2 hour show 3 times per week for someone that pleaded on our blog while referring to us as their video guy. It just means that we’ll be wary and we’ll do some checking as to your bona fides. To see if you are in fact the Vice-President of a major recording label. And if you check out and accept our price then cool, we’re only too happy to do business with you. But if, like this new potential client, our search shows major discrepancies then chances are we’ll deem you too much of a risk. Sorry.

BTW all those are real world examples from the last 6 months.

One of the big differences I’ve noticed between real life and Second Life is that people doing business tend to be more relaxed. This has both good and bad aspects. On the one hand there’s much less pressure. For example, nobody gets upset if you make a joke. Even a bad one. I’ve had real world clients that look like they haven’t laughed since Kennedy was president.

On the other hand, people doing business in Second Life tend to be a lot less prompt than their real life peers. Missing a meeting deadline by as little as 5 minutes can be the difference between sale and no sale in the real world, but I’ve seen people rock up 30 minutes or more late, and on occasion not show at all, in Second Life. I’ve had proprietors make promises about delivery and then miss them by a week or more – usually with some lame-arse excuse. In one case I had a business owner promise to deliver, fail to answer enquiries for a month, deliver a lame-arsed excuse and then decide that they didn’t want to sell the item they had advertised at all – would you be interested in this other item I have for sale? Of course in the real world such business owners would fall foul of the anti-bait and switch laws, but Second Life’s laissez-faire approach means that currently such businesses not only exist but flourish.

Second Life is like being in a foreign country. Doing business there has it’s own strengths and weaknesses, but it’s really all a matter of learning the rules and applying them.