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Brett Linden

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Brett Linden last won the day on July 10 2020

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  1. Her eyes match her bird! Coincidence or coordination? Today's pic of the day is Noa by Xana Newall. For a chance to have your image featured as the Second Life pic of the day, submit your work to the Official Second Life Flickr Group, but don't forget to read the rules! Connect with Second Life on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Flickr | Pinterest | Tumblr | Plurk | TikTok | Reddit | LinkedIn
  2. Linden Lab is pleased to announce the Second Life Endowment for the Arts (SLEA), a new community arts initiative developed in partnership with Tansee and Hannington Xeltentat. What is the SLEA? SLEA is the spiritual successor to the former Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA), a decade-long partnership with the arts community that aimed to help new artists, cultivate art in SL, and foster innovation, collaboration and education. Due to open to the public in January 2021, the new SLEA is a multi-region experience that aims to provide opportunities to further fuel interest in and spotlight the work of both established and emerging artists in Second Life. It is hoped that the creations and art featured in SLEA will help draw attention to the overall arts community in Second Life including driving both traffic and awareness to many of the established artists and exhibits found across Second Life. In addition, SLEA would like to reach out to new residents of SL and help them to discover the arts in SL and all the creative tools that are offered so that a new generation of creativity will unfold. Pictured: A map of the seven-region SLEA experience including central hub and related art regions and sandbox. (Image courtesy of Tansee and Hannington). Since LEA ended in late 2019, many members of the community have expressed an interest in reviving the idea of establishing another official showcase hub for the arts in Second Life. In particular, both Tansee and Hannington led a grassroots effort to revive LEA that resulted in the formation of the Hannington Endowment for the Arts in late 2019. That initiative, which has drawn the interest, respect and participation of many artists in SL, proved the concept and the demand from the arts community in Second Life. SLEA promises even more access to engaging events, exhibitions and experiences in the arts for the Second Life community. It is anticipated that the HEA will continue as a separate entity for those who wish to participate in its activities At the heart of the SLEA presence in Second Life will be a new central landing and information hub featuring a teleport station that will help visitors easily discover current exhibitions, as well as a public park, “art challenge corner,” arts education center and SLEA Theater. Here’s a peek at the work-in-progress layout: Image courtesy of Tansee and Hannington. How can artists and creators participate? Specific details of how the community can get involved in SLEA will be revealed in the near future. Keep an eye out for the application where artists and creators can apply for consideration for use of full or partial regions at SLEA. There is also a new SLEA group inworld that interested parties can join, too. To learn even more about SLEA, tune in next week to a special episode of “Designing Worlds” for an insightful interview with Tansee, Hannington and Linden Lab execs Patch and Brett Linden. Image courtesy of Tansee and Hannington. Note: Linden Lab and the SLEA wish to express our deep gratitude to all in the community who have supported and promoted the arts in Second Life over the years. In particular, we want to express thanks to the many volunteers who contributed to the original Linden Endowment for the Arts during its almost decade-long run from 2010-2019. We are grateful for your ongoing passion and support -- and we can’t wait to see what the new year brings with SLEA in 2021.
  3. That's a great idea. I can't promise anything on timing as there is still a long regulatory review process that is underway, but we will discuss internally as this seems like a "no-brainer" and I think most of the community will like what they have to say. I would imagine we'll have one or both investors on "Lab Gab" or some other form of town hall.
  4. Great question! We look forward to being able to share more as soon as we can and I know that Brad is eager to meet the community as we get closer to the closing/approval date.
  5. Good day, all! Just jumping in to respond to a few of the comments... A few folks are speculating that this is the end of SL and nothing could be further from the truth. Any talk of dismantling or radically changing the fundamentals of SL that we know and love is inaccurate. While we can't get into specific details about the deal itself, I want to emphasize the fact that this keeps Linden Lab as an independent venture led by two investors who have a great deal of awareness about what SL is and isn't. They are excited to join and help us grow both SL and Tilia while also respecting and recognizing the needs and sensitivities of the existing culture and community.
  6. I'm pleased to announce that Luca (who originally started this thread) will be the guest on this Friday's "Lab Gab". Luca will share thoughts about machinima as a platform for marketing and spreading the word about SL, as well as other observations. The livestream will be available on our various social channels at 10 a.m. (SLT).
  7. Just a heads up that we have a very special guest on Friday's "Lab Gab" - someone active in these community threads...to be announced tomorrow! Also, we're still reading all feedback in this thread as our team continues to evolve our marketing focus for the coming year. One clarification: Some of the feedback in this thread speaks to product development and features (which I'm passing on to the Product and Product Operations teams). Those decisions are outside my pay grade! I see mobile mentioned a few times - I'm hoping that we can have a dedicated "Lab Gab" community chat about mobile in the near future once we have more to publicly say about our in-development mobile client...
  8. Hi, Luca. I just want to acknowledge that we've read and are discussing your detailed feedback here. I am so impressed with the infographic and other details that you've provided. We're looking at all of it and discussing internally as we continue to iterate our video and campaign strategies for the coming year.
  9. So, it was YOU! LOL -- thanks for being honest and open with your feedback - we're taking it all in! Our marketing team and video production partner are reviewing all feedback on this thread and in our social comments. We have plans to continue doing video this year so this is helpful info to get "outside our bubble" a bit more. We've gone from one video ad a year to dozens last year so admittedly we've focused heavily on quantity and diversity to quickly get a large number of different theme-specific campaigns underway. I agree that the communities mentioned (Furries, Roleplay, Cyberpunk, Fashion, Anime, Exploration, etc.) are worth focusing more on - and we definitely have these communities in our segmentation roadmap for current and/or future campaigns that span display, search and video (as mentioned on "Lab Gab" and our blog post). You mentioned seeing a "bang the hottest 3D babes" ad - I don't think that is one of our own as we don't have anything like that in our current paid ad mix -- but if you see again then please screen capture and we'll look into it to see if it is originating from one of our affiliate partners. I also want to acknowledge your other comments and feedback about SL in general. While I only work specifically on the marketing side of things, this feedback is also being seen by those who work directly with the product and its infrastructure.
  10. Thank you for the clarification, Beth. To your point: I think it is much more likely you'd see us experiment more with suggestive ads vs. anything explicit. I'll talk to Darcy about your feedback - but it is just a matter of what imagery we'd use, where it would run...and whether it fits into the overall mix of messaging so that there remains a good balance of themes across our campaigns.
  11. In advance of our "Lab Gab" chat on Friday about SL Marketing, we've just published a new blog post "The Heart & Science of Second Life Marketing" with some info on current initiatives. We're also collecting questions for Friday at this form, too: https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLSfoP1oDEhfRV4ksqs…/viewform While not addressed specifically in the blog post, I want to acknowledge that we're internally reviewing and discussing some of the ideas, questions and feedback shared in this thread (such as TinyLand idea, Luca's fantastic insights, debate on the advertising of adult content, etc.). We'll speak to some of these directly on "Lab Gab" this Friday...
  12. We’ve gotten quite a few questions lately about how we market Second Life to potential new residents. Insight into our current and future marketing strategies is important because it provides a glimpse into our efforts to help grow the Second Life population and economy as it enters its 17th year of operations. That’s why our current Marketing team has been working hard over the past year to sharpen our growth initiatives with more efficient and targeted campaigns that reach across many paid, organic and social channels. Keep reading to learn what we’re doing now and in the near future - we’ll be discussing our plans in even more detail this Friday on the live video stream of our weekly “Lab Gab” program (found on YouTube, Facebook, Mixer and Twitter). PAID/PERFORMANCE MARKETING On the paid/performance marketing front, we modernized our acquisition efforts last year by putting into place the use of new technologies that allow us to more precisely target new users across numerous themes, communities and genres. As part of this effort, we’ve identified a few dozen strategically-relevant, high-impact community segments and themes -- all of which now have new related display, search and video ad content served against specific matched keyword inquiries and sites. Some ads are also served across social media to those with social profiles that express an interest in some or all of our targeted themes. That means that you might see new sci-fi roleplaying ads appearing on some sci-fi fan sites, social media pages, or new romance ads on long-distance relationship forums - the list goes on… In many cases, Second Life ads are also set up as multivariate tests that help us determine which combination of images, text, and call-to-actions perform the strongest for click-through rates and retention. So, some ads may look identical except for one variation in text or imagery as we test and learn which combinations convert best. Among the themes with high traffic volume and interest among potential new residents are those that involve fashion and/or avatar customization, identity exploration, fun socialization and chat (“meet new friends,” etc.) and several specific roleplaying communities (with many campaigns going deep into specific areas such as maternity, fantasy, sci-fi and vampire themes). One consistently high-volume (but often polarizing) theme is “romance” as these ads tend to have high click-through rates that ultimately bring a large number of new people into Second Life. However, SL is so much more than a place where you might meet or hook up with a potential partner - so we aim to balance out the overall portfolio with a range of themes across the overall marketing mix. Striking the right balance with a combination of heart and science in our ad creatives is a key concern and goal. DISPLAY AD CAMPAIGN EXAMPLES While we have hundreds of ads in rotation at the moment, here are a few examples of some of our more recent ads that are performing particularly well for click-through and conversion rates across multiple languages: To be clear, we don’t want to limit our messaging just to those themes that get the most clicks - that doesn’t do justice to the true creativity and diversity of the Second Life community, culture, and overall experience. That’s why our overall ad strategy includes campaigns that aim to appeal to a more diverse mix of users (even if those themes have a lower volume of potential new users). In fact, some of the most successful retention rates we see come from campaigns with smaller and niche themes. Further, some communities tend to spend more L$ than others and/or login more often and for longer periods of time. Among the most promising new and forthcoming campaigns are those targeting themes that better explore issues of identity formation and creative freedom of expression. In particular, we are looking to expand our campaign efforts to further embrace the furry/anthro, tiny, creator and LGBTQ+ communities. If you think we’re missing the boat on any specific themes or communities and/or have a question about our segmentation content strategy, then please give us your feedback and we may address your comments in this Friday’s “Lab Gab.” VIDEO ADS One of the newer areas of focus in our marketing is the use of paid video advertising. We’re now in the process of developing dozens of new video ads to promote Second Life across YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and other outlets that support video advertising. You may have already noticed our recent “Second Life Destinations” video series, produced in partnership with Draxtor Despres. This web series, which is distributed across our social media channels, explores a different community or theme each week. While these longer fly-through videos are not intended to be ads, we do simultaneously create shorter ad edits from each episode. That means that each episode is accompanied by shorter fifteen- and thirty-second formats that are used for targeted paid advertisements to non-residents. Here’s a side-by-side comparison of how a longer video about surfing destinations was truncated into a fifteen-second ad edit: Original Social Video - "Second Life Destinations - Surfing Hot Spots" 15-Second Ad Edit - Catch a Wave in Second Life Here’s an example of how our “Love Made in Second Life” series was truncated into shorter ads, too: Original Social Video ("Love Made in SL" videos) - Romance 30-Second Ad Edit (Sourced from multiple videos) - Romance So far, we have dozens of these community-specific video ads in rotation with more added each month. Here are some examples of the more popular segment ads currently in rotation: Avatar Customization/Fashion Medieval Roleplaying Communities Online Hangout/Social Chat Art & Creation (French Language) Virtual Travel & Exploration (Japanese Language) These examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Among the dozens of other active video campaigns are those that focus on virtual pets (horses, cats, etc.), 3D art and exhibitions, cyberpunk, haunted attractions, adventure and exploration, SL Pride, motorcycle enthusiasts and skill gaming. There's even an ad that's all about Second Life hair! AD REACH With all of these new video, search and display ads, we are running MORE ads now than ever -- across more channels than ever. So, where then do these ads run? Some of these ads and the longer social media edits are found organically amidst Google and social media search results but also on the open web: display, social and video ads are appearing across many, many sites and networks. In some cases, we work with external ad or affiliate network partners to help us maximize our ad reach -- but we also now have better expertise in-house to manage and strategize our performance marketing efforts. In the next episode of “Lab Gab,” you’ll meet Darcy Linden, our Senior Marketing Manager who oversees our performance marketing efforts and strategy. Still...one of the most common bits of feedback we hear is “I never see ads for Second Life”...and that is somewhat by design as we don’t want to be inefficient with our precious ad dollars to serve acquisition-focused ads to our existing community. However, that doesn’t mean that we don’t want to reach out to you. In addition to ads aimed at non-Residents, we also have separate “retargeting” campaigns that include content specifically created to inform existing Residents about new events or experiences. For example, we might want existing users to check out a specific high-profile event or experience -- or maybe let them know about Premium memberships and discounts. While these efforts are still in their infancy, we expect to do much more retargeting in the coming year. All marketing efforts have to work hand-in-hand with our product teams to ensure that once we get a new Resident in the door, there is a positive experience once they arrive. There are many ongoing experiments underway (and improvements to be made) on that front that we’ll perhaps address in a different blog post. MESSAGING Einstein is alleged to have once stated, “Imagination will take you everywhere.” That's certainly true in Second Life and we intend to stick with the "Your World. Your Imagination" tagline that captures the many wonders and possibilities of SL. However, in today's world of programmatic advertising, segmented ad buys and keyword search advertising, our campaigns are often customized with messaging and images that are optimized to appeal to and elicit clicks from specific targeted audiences. These efforts can be highly cost-efficient and effective, but we also recognize the necessity of keeping the heart, soul and spirit of Second Life alive amidst the algorithms. This is one of our biggest challenges in the coming year. It isn't enough to be data-driven. We also want to do justice to the community with campaigns that accurately capture and convey the cultural and creative energies that charge our virtual world. To do this, we may need to think further "outside the box" with bolder experiments in messaging and design for future campaigns and acquisition channels. That may include more mainstream ad efforts that reach untapped audiences, including those found on cord-cutting platforms. We'd love your ideas as this is a conversation that is very much alive and active inside and outside the Lab. You can share your thoughts on our feedback submission form for this Friday’s “Lab Gab.” ORGANIC MARKETING, SOCIAL MEDIA & INFLUENCER MARKETING Of course, not everything we do in marketing involves paid campaigns. We recently brought aboard one of our top social influencers - Strawberry Singh - now Strawberry Linden to help with our social efforts - and she worked closely with our former community lead Xiola to help boost our social strategy. On our social channels, you may have noticed we’ve been quite active over the past year. In addition to our ongoing presence on Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, Tumblr, Pinterest, Flickr and YouTube, we’ve recently expanded to Instagram and we are testing out younger-skewing social channels TikTok and Byte. We look closely at what types of posts get the highest reach and engagement and a key lesson is that video posts consistently perform higher than other forms of content. That’s one of the reasons why we have prioritized the launch of new original video programming , such as the weekly “Second Life Destinations” videos that showcase a different location with a fly-through. We also launched the “Made in Second Life” mini-series that offers in-depth interviews with creators and communities (recent episodes showcased the aviation community, museum curators, artists and fashion creators). Interestingly, some of the most-viewed videos we’ve seen are those that explore the true stories of people who found love in SL. Last year, we also debuted live streaming programming across multiple channels including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter/Periscope and the new Mixer platform. Expect to see more “Lab Gab” episodes that include interviews with Linden executives and community creators, as well as many more spontaneous and scheduled live streams that showcase inworld locations and events. Additionally, one of the most visible contributions from Strawberry has been her work on the production of numerous new user tutorials - all of which are localized in eight languages with unique voice-overs in each language - a first for us. Here’s a teaser of how these tutorials sound in each language: PROMOTING COMMUNITY CONTENT We recognize that we have an abundance of amazing creative content from our community - so why not promote it? After all, who knows SL better than those who use it, love it and create content about it? That’s why we recently launched the Second Life Blogger Network (SLBN) to better call attention to high-quality community blog posts, videos, images and e-zines. Through the SLBN, we are now sharing a significant amount of community-created content distributed our social channels, official blog and the login page of the official SL Viewer. In addition to giving the community more reasons to log back in, this effort also aims to build better mutual web traffic as well as to establish improved search engine relevance and indexing for both Second Life and many community bloggers. We are also working closer and more directly with many community members to amplify some of their events and experiences, too. Now we can’t do this for every event or creator but we are looking at high-impact partnership opportunities that we think can help grow SL. For example, SL creator Astralia secured an official license from Sanrio that covers many well-known characters such as Hello Kitty - and we’ve collaborated directly with Astralia and Sanrio for some cross-promotion opportunities that introduce completely new audiences to SL. We’ll continue to look at additional high-profile strategic partnerships with creators and micro-influencers to help grow SL, too. While not new, there is also an ongoing opportunity for Second Life creators and venue owners to continue to promote your Second Life events or locations in the Destination Guide. Each week, we add over a dozen new entries to help drive traffic to new and exciting experiences in Second Life. This gives heightened visibility to participating venues on the official SL website, inworld search, external search engines and even the login page of the official Viewer. ...AND MUCH MORE TO COME IN 2020! We hope that this information helps to demystify some of the machinations and motivations of our marketing efforts -- but we also know that this just scratches the surface of what needs to be done to continue growing Second Life in the future. For example, our Marketing Analyst Maveric Linden is hard at work on several new email marketing initiatives, such as “Rez Day” notifications, a refresh of our new user emails, new community newsletters, and other useful announcements for those who opt-in. We’re also looking to do more to increase awareness of SL in both mainstream and specialized media outlets and blogs with several new “earned media” initiatives that help better connect reporters to compelling SL community stories and trends. So, what are we missing? Are there things that you think we can do better and/or what feedback do you have for the Marketing team as it ramps up its efforts for the rest of 2020? Share your thoughts and questions with us directly via this form - and we’ll do our best to respond on this Friday’s "Lab Gab"! Pictured (Left to Right): The Second Life Marketing team including Sr. Director of Marketing Brett Linden, Marketing Content Specialist Strawberry Linden and Sr. Digital Marketing Manager Darcy Linden. Not Pictured: Marketing Analyst Maveric Linden. Disclaimer: Pictured cats are not official members of the Marketing team.
  13. Just a quick update to mention that the marketing team will be on "Lab Gab" this Friday. Questions for the team can also be submitted in advance via the link in the blog post.
  14. Lots of great ideas and feedback here! The entire Marketing team is reading this thread and we will be posting a blog post this week with highlights of our current and future marketing strategy and efforts. This will also include some examples of display and video campaigns that are already underway. We're also appearing on this Friday's "Lab Gab" to answer community questions, too. My colleague Strawberry will be posting a blog announcement about it with a question submission form in the next day or two.
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