I have my reservations about jumping on the Second Life bandwagon, just like Kevin and Darren. It’s still too early to bet the farm on a platform whose market size may equal that of U.S. Saab drivers. (no matter what the projections for 2008 may say)

Marketers and public relations pros thinking of exploring this environment can picky up some hints from the users already blogging their online experiences. Real world practioners will also notice that habits, preferences and human behaviour often translate seamlessly between the two evironments. In one, the names are just sillier.

Cited below are practical examples drawn from SL projects:

- The House on Swan Pond - which is a Second Life representation of a house being designed for a real life family.

- Pimp your own ride: SL marketing 101: Advice for Second Life fashion designers and retailers, and equally applicable to the real world.

” … Shep Korvin at LapGirl may have pioneered this idea in SL, but wherever it came from, I’m a huge fan of this strategy. Once a month he creates a box, shoves some of his best new items into it - not boxes of items, just the items themselves. Then he includes a notecard detailing items names and prices, adds a landmark, and distributes it. The box is, smartly enough, called LapGirl - Reviewers’ Box - May 2006 or something like that. Like so many of the best things in life, this is simple and yet brilliant. …

For designers looking for exposure, I think that selecting a particular day of the month to create and distribute your Reviewer Packs is probably an excellent way to make sure you regularly devote a chunk of time to your own PR and marketing. Call it PR Day, call it Pimp Day, call it whatever you like, but be sure to devote one day a month to organising and distrubuting your wares to the fashionista press circuit. …”

- Renting your first mall store in SL:

“…Just because you are in a mall with other vendors doesn’t mean the traffic will flock to you, you will have to do some work to get people to your store. Also, having an attractive, easy to navigate display is important. If you can, show your products around. Get them into reviewer/blogger hands, and make sure you’ve got a classified set for your stores ( or at least in your picks) on your profile.

Sponsoring events is also a good way to get some exposure, aside from just wandering around secondlife and talking to people. You can also buy advertising on places like SLxechange, SLboutique, the Metaverse Messanger, inworld, etc, etc. Posting your products in the forums and adding your store locations to your signature in the forums is also helpful. …”

- Retail stores may just go out of business suddenly:

” … after receiving a very generous offer to purchase FORBIDDEN and all its products and with the hype of the past months we couldnt decline. FORBIDDEN has been bought out and will be ran under diffrent managament. Zahara has completley decided to leave SL, I however will be staying and see where it takes me. I hope to return to designing one day and hopefully will. …”

- Resurrecting the careers of cultural touchstones that just don’t move big product anymore. Like Suzanne Vega and Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut, by the way, will be appearing on the SL version of The Infinite Mind.

- Apparently, it’s hard to protect your innovations in fashion. From a superficial reading, it seems that SL may benefit in some instruction on the business of fashion from Allan B. Schwartz: it may seem like your designs are being copied and resold, but that’s really just an homage, baby! As Chicago once sang: “You’re the meaning in my life/
You’re the inspiration/You bring feeling to my life/You’re the inspiration.”

- There’s even a touch of Caddyshack: freelance caddies working the Holly Kai Ocean Nine golf course for tips.

BTW - it was Rob Walker who compared his Second Life representation to an “avatard“. Walker’s going to be paying more attention to “in-world” business in the future.

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