In a recent post we talked about resisting getting too far ahead of ourselves and the need to take a "step back and look at how to use what's out there now."
We were talking about the resistance continually chasing the new thing, while being tempted to ignore the existing online marketing platforms that have present value.
This post at Gigaom talks about the metrics for visitors on Second Life to corporate creations within the virtual community, and overall they're pretty grim.
Many of the big name companies in the world like Sears, Sun Microsystems, Dell, Coca Cola, Reebok, Coldwell Banker, and Calvin Klein can't even draw 500 visitors a week, according to SL demographics expert Tateru Nino. Many of them are even f
ar lower than the 500 number.
We need to think of marketing to and using much more powerfully existing niche content sites, blogs and social networks before we get sidetracked with all the mobile, podcast and virtual world hype.
Sure those with vested interests in the various platforms will always try to emphasis the best performing marketers using their services, but those areas are going to take a much longer time to be figured out. Even online video is in the infance of figuring out the best way to monetize it.
Why spend too much time and money on something that still needs to work out all its problems concerning monetization? Existing platforms and Web sites proven to already exist that provide great opportunities to market on. Those are what we need to focus on while keepig an eye the emerging platforms and their progress.
Contrary to the past in offline businesses, Internet business is different in that those first to the market aren't usually the ones that have an edge. We can afford to wait and see for a period of time as all the problems in the systems are worked out.
In the meantime, we need to focus on what works now.
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