[OT] PING

[Chipp Walters]

Google pay per click advertisement is getting so very expensive-- esp for
our client in the auto insurance business where a single ad click can go as
high as $130! Yes, Geico or Progressive or other pay up to that amount just
to have you click on their Google Ad when searching for "auto insurance."

So, there are other ways of finding customers on the net, other than through
Google. While Facebook ads can be expensive (not $130/click expensive), they
are extremely well targeted. For instance, when I log on to Facebook, I see
ads for life insurance for people over 50 (I am), and ads for iPad stuff (I
have one). So, while ads may be expensive, they are surely getting to the
correct audience.

Another way to take advantage of Facebook is by building an online community
around a subject which interests folks, and later soft peddle your wares.
Just putting up a Facebook page for your company really doesn't do much. But
providing information and value additions to your page will help keep people
coming back. The whole idea is to start and engage in conversation with your
existing and potential customers.

Twitter is a bit different. Some companies are using Twitter as a
tech-support option. Others as a direct conduit to their CEO/President (like
37 signals). Celebs are using it to better control their message, bypassing
an increasingly meaningless old and convential media. See what Kanye West
has been up to lately!
http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/04/kanye-west-twitter-2/

LinkedIn is a business networking community, mostly seems to be targeted at
helping folks find jobs, but it also has the ability to highly target ads
directly to customer bases.

All three of these social networking communities have grown in an ad hoc
fashion. Changing quickly to take advantage of the trends. MySpace is an
example of one who didn't change fast enough, and now is left behind.

Now Apple has PING. My partner, Dan Shafer, believes PING is not as much
about being a fan of music, but rather about being a customer-- and that's
not good. And is it really surprising Apple is considered "controlling" by
PING critics? It will be very interesting to see if Apple can pull this off.

One of the problems companies are having with regard to their social network
strategies, is that these things take time. Traditional marketing is used to
being able to create an ad campaign in weeks and deploy over the next
month(s) or so. But, building a successful social network strategy involves
a clear picture strategy deployed over a longer period of time. And,
basically you get one shot at it. Dan is fond of pointing out the problem
with traditional Silicon Valley marketing of social media and networks, is
they start a seedling of a project, then after a couple months, pull it out
of the ground to look at the roots to see why it's not growing. These things
take time.

On Mon, Sep 6, 2010 at 3:38 PM, Dave Cragg <dave.cragg at lacscentre.co.uk>wrote:

> I was hoping you might have summarised the issues for people like me. :-)
>