Marketers should choose platforms that fit in with their business objectives and are relevant to their target audience. It’s a basic lesson from Marketing 101 but one that Second Life seemed to forget with its tie-up with Facebook.
Search Engine Watch has analysed the whys and wherefores of Second Life’s alliance with Facebook, and has come to some pretty clear conclusions why it was doomed to failure from the start.
Put simply Second Life’s audience and Facebook’s audience are different, as are the two companies modus operandi. Facebook is about ‘real’ people and amassing huge amounts of valuable demographic data on them, whereas Second Life is primarily about giving people an escape from real life, where their online personality can diverge wildly from their offline persona. They are different platforms, reaching out to different audiences.
Despite this, Second Life built a system that recommended its users connect their Facebook account with their Second Life avatar, completely removing the anonymity and fantasy that sits at the heart of many people’s Second Life experience. To counter this, Second Life users started creating fake Facebook profiles; a move which has now caused Facebook to start deleting profiles as it goes against their terms of service.
From the article:
Linden Lab now has a problem- they now have to figure out how to work around Facebook- something they have invested an entire projected model around. This is more than just a simple TOS issue on the part of Facebook. It’s about their core ethos- something that the Lab ignored not only at their own peril, but they specifically devoted resources to ignoring.
This is a cautionary tale for marketers, and businesses, demonstrating how it’s about choosing the right platform for your business objectives, rather than latching onto whatever is ‘popular’ at the moment.
More information is available from the source link:
Source: Search Engine Watch — Eggs and Baskets: How Second Life’s Facebook Marketing Has Backfired