What is the point?

Using emerging marketing channels to reach our audiences can be fun, but controversial. Many of these channels are in their infancy so it is still unclear on what will stick. Second Life fits into this category. Second Life can take up an entire blog entry, so I will reserve that for another time. Some of the most common questions I get pertain to our social network marketing activities. "Why do we have a [enter social network site name here] page?" "What is the point?", "Is the [enter social network site name here] audience appropriate for Sun?" "Do we really want to have a presence among teens and high school kids?" "Shouldn't we continue to focus on Sun's traditional, core audiences?". The best answer I can come up with for all of these questions is that we simply do not know yet. Many of the activities we have on MySpace, Facebook, Second Life, etc. are pilots. Part of the goal is to test out various social network medium to see what features and applications ("widgets")folks use. To truly understand social networks, one must be part of the process. The other part of the goal is to establish a presence on these sites and see which messages and content resonates with our audiences. The cost is minimal to promote our brand and technologies on these sites. Our social network presence is a tiny part of our overall software marketing strategy and is meant to complement, not replace. Every little bit helps. And speaking of "every little bit", I was just informed that our SDN MySpace page increased by over 200 members over the past 24 hours. Someone out there is noticing!

Posted at 01:44PM Oct 12, 2007 by kcelestre in General  |