Ideas for Marketing and Promotion to Help Us Grow

[Bagheera]

No pose balls, required. What I put out were scripted skates with a skating animation in them. I had started with the idea of the solo dance ball (the script is open source) but realized it would not respond to an avatar's starts and stops, etc. A dance ball, like pose balls, doesn't interact with the avatar but just plays the selected animation until it is manually told to stop. So the skates are a rudimentary AO (in that they do detect and responsd when an avatar starts and stops) but don't do much else because they only have one an animation in them, it is by Bits and Bobs for ice skating, they make nice animations. No pose balls

[Trebor Warcliffe]

I feel one of our first priorities in regards to marketing is a permanent placement on the Destination Guide under the Categories section. Personally I see three categories where I feel our community would be relevant but only one of the three where we truly fit.

Academic Showcase – it’s time to go back to school! Check out these examples of interactive learning in Second Life
Currently there are 24 destinations in this category:

• Virtual Mine
• Art Ark
• First World War Poetry Digital Archive
• Global Learning
• Shakespeare’s Macbeth in Second Life
• ARCHI21
• EDEN: Avian Influenza Prevention
• UW Project: Maya Island
• The Frontier Project
• Anti-Violence Campus
• Nuclear Power Plant Tour
• SBCC Explore It!
• CyberWatch
• Pharmatopia
• The Tech Virtual Museum Workshop
• The Life and Times of Uncle D
• Testis Tour
• Medical Examiner’s Office
• Murrow Center 3D Newsroom
• Neil A. Armstrong Library & Archives
• Four Bridges Project
• Survivors of Suicide Project
• Etopia Eco-Village
• Garden for the Missing

Discussions & Communities – Meet new people and connect with communities by topic, hobby or special interest in the virtual world Second Life
Currently there are 24 destinations in this category:

• Parvana Rya
• Center for Positive Sexuality
• Cape Serenity Library
• Occupy SL
• Witches Island
• Wheelies Club
• Book Island
• Just Genealogy in Second Life
• Bay City Community Center
• TongRen Beach
• Club One Island
• T2 Virtual PTSD Experience
• Sci-Fi & Fantasy Portal
• 198fur
• SL Bar Association
• Luskwood
• Thothica Community
• Philosophy Island
• Sacred Cauldron
• Western Geisha Heaven
• Philosophy House
• Bookstacks Isle
• Virtually Speaking
• New Objectivist Institute

Education & Nonprofits – Learning in a virtual world? See examples of education and nonprofits in Second Life, the leader solution for virtual meetings, events, training and simulations.

Currently there are 60 destinations in this category. Universities such as Arkansas State, Indiana University, National University of Singapore, University of Texas, University of Western Australia, DePaul University, San Diego State University, University of Southern Florida, Oregon Community Colleges, Penn State, University of Delaware, Saint Leo University, Washington State University, North Carolina State University, Eastern Iowa Community College, University of Kentucky, USC Marshall School of Business and Stanford University. The remaining destinations are nonprofit organizations such as ones for Cystic Fibrosis, the Mayo Clinic, the UK’s National Health Service and the American Cancer Society.

Of these three categories I think the second one, discussions and communities, would be the most applicable for our situation. Currently we have no academics in the CDS and after exploring some of the academic destinations and the level of involvement required, I don’t see the development of academia in our immediate future. Even though living in a democratic virtual community may be an educational experience I don’t think we compare to the education destinations I’ve mentioned above.

Exploring some of the destinations in the discussion and community categories I think this is the category we fit best in. Here is a link to the Linden Lab Official: Destination Guide FAQ. http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Destination_Guide_FAQ When reading this page keep in mind we are not promoting a venue, event or business; we are promoting the concept of a democratic community in a virtual world. I’ve also included a link to the Destination Guide Suggestions page. https://secondlife.com/my/forms/destinations.php? Two points of interest on this page are the Description and the Editor Notes. The description, in my opinion, is going to be the most important section. We have 400 typed characters including spaces to describe what the CDS is all about.

This is where we need to get down to the nuts and bolts of who we truly are. We need to go deeper than “Welcome to the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, the oldest democracy in Second Life.” I reprint here Sudane’s comments on the forums in reference to marketing.

The core of my feeling about marketing the CDS is first the identification of who we are, and second the appointing of resources to tell the story of who we are to the larger SL world and indeed, to the RL world.

We are one of the oldest and most alive communities in SL. We have a unique definition, in that we really are within the constraints of SL mechanics, democratic. While the experience of CDS community life is in many ways exhausting, it is also of great interest to students of culture, law, and sociology. We usually think of ourselves entirely internally…we get so involved in the passion of our arguments that we fail to see our outside identity…as a very significant organization.

We are hidden…few know about us. The reason is that we have rarely thought beyond our own boundaries. The idea for us of “marketing” means enlisting volunteer citizens spending time where visitors arrive and telling them about us. Admirable in itself, sure, but in our RL culture today…not what we really could achieve.

For 25 years I worked in commercial media in New York City, in a studio whose clients were ad agencies and marketing firms. People, there ARE individuals and companies in SL who do marketing professionally. I don't know who they are, but I know they exist, because the larger organizations and events in SL are not promoted by amateurs. To my eye that is overwhelmingly obvious.
Now despite the endless hair-pulling about a reserve fund that is too large, and tier that is too high...we are not rich. We are 5 small sims full of argumentative people, with less than US$10,000 in the bank. That’s not a lot in the world of professional marketing. But it’s a good bit in the world of SL, and coupled with the fact of our incredible uniqueness, it’s very clear to me that we could easily attract a professional marketing firm who could get the word out to the larger SL and RL world and expand awareness of us 100-fold. People...let’s spend money on ourselves...tell the world who we are...sure, pay a little more in tier perhaps, but use that money to express our pride in ourselves and make the CDS an incredibly desirable place and... perish the thought, create increasing demand for land, citizenship and shops.

I’ve felt this way a long time. Despite there being a strong paranoia in the community today about spending our money, I really strongly urge people to take a step into the modern world and hire promotion the way it’s done in the modern world...by hiring professionals.

The first 3 paragraphs are the most applicable for what we are discussing here. So who are we? One adjective I keep thinking about is “real.” We are real people participating in a real democracy within a virtual world. We have real thoughts, opinions, ideologies, political views; real emotions and feelings; some of us have formed real friendships where we’ve shared the real trials and tribulations of our real life lives as well as our joys and celebrations.

What are some of the words that you feel best describe the CDS to an individual or a group who have never heard of us before? Here are a few more thoughts I feel help to describe us and some of you may have already heard me express these thoughts. We are a unique community in the world of Second Life filled with a very diverse group of individuals, some with very strong personalities. There is drama in our community and debate in our community.

We are not a community “owned” by one individual who makes up all the rules, rents the land, and puts the profits in their pocket. We are a democracy and we choose whether or not to play an active role in that democracy. Our profits are reinvested into our community. Is participating in our democracy a requirement to live amongst us? No, of course not, but it is encouraged.

Every citizen in the CDS has the ability to make a difference, the ability to be a mover or a shaker, the ability to do nothing but enjoy their little piece of paradise. Let’s collaborate and come up with the best 400 characters, including spaces, to better describe the Confederation of Democratic Simulators the oldest self-governed community in Second Life. This paragraph is exactly 402 characters.

[Bagheera]

Extrapolating off your post, Trebor; I realized I was missing an important publicity opportunity. When I first posted, I had recommended we make a hangout parcel because then anyone could post events for inclusion in the Second Life calendar (viewable at www.secondlife.com & also shown in the big map as landmark destinations). I realized what Bromo and others have said about our Democracy being what is unique about CDS and how to promote that would be to have someone start listing RA meetings in the Second Life events calendar and promote it as something like "See Democracy in Action in Second Life" (although perhaps not EVERY RA meeting and/or we'd want to figure out a way to manage curious crowds if curious crowds came so that the RA could still get through a meeting in a reasonable time).