Tag: SL News

As both the Lab and I have blogged, members of the Second Life Marketing Team will be sitting down on Friday, March 6th in the 16th edition of Lab Gab to discuss their work and respond to submitted questions (see either Lab Gab Episode 16 Streams this Friday at 11am PT/SLT – Linden Lab Marketing Team! – official blog post) or Previewing Lab Gab 16: meet the Marketing team – this blog).

Marketing work is both an art and a science – and with Second Life, the fact the such is the breadth of potential audience and the rich diversity of opportunities within the platform, it can be something of a an arcane combination of activities that, were truth be told, the majority of Second Life users likely wouldn’t be able to fathom as being part of the ongoing work to attract potential new users, were they to be asked.

So, to help shed some light on matters – and to lay the path towards the Lab Gab session he’ll be attending along with Darcy and Strawberry Linden, Brett Linden has prepared a special blog post, The Heart & Science of Second Life Marketing, that offers considerable insight into the Marketing Team’s work when it comes to promoting Second Life, reaching a audience, and bringing new users into the platform and hopefully engaging them as retained residents. As such, it makes for a worthwhile read.

In particular the post examines a number of channels the Lab users for new user acquisition, some of which active SL users may not be aware of, or may not actually associate with trying to bring-in new users. Take video series like those covering destinations in SL or aspects of SL creativity. While we tend to see them by way of the Lab’s blog, we’re actually not the primary target audience.

Running to around 90 seconds in length, these bite-sized looks inside SL are ideal marketing tools that can be used through the medium of paid advertising campaigns, which are and have been enjoying success such that LL is currently in the process of expanding them, both in terms of the numbers of videos and the channels through which they can be used.

Alongside of this, Brett writes about the concept on performance marketing  – one of the mainstays of SL marketing campaigns. Perhaps two of the most visible elements  of this approach of marketing are the SL ads we me see served by Google, or the themed landing pages I’ve written about five years ago (see Landing pages: marketing Second Life and which have continued to be refined and enhanced since then), while the Marketing Team has continued to build on early experience with performance advertising, also refining and improving their approach and the technologies they use, a Brett notes:

We modernised 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…  

Encompassing the extensive testing that goes on around these ads and their associated campaigns, more organic forms of advertising, use of social media, outreach to SL users, a read of Brett’s blog post should – one would hope – dispel the notions that either LL “don’t promote” Second Life or that they “don’t know how” to go about promoting it.

The fact is rather the reverse: the Marketing Team pour considerable thought and action into marketing SL and do so by revealing the incredible depth and breadth of the platform’s potential. Which is also not to say they’re not open to ideas or feedback from users – hence the Lab Gab session the post helps to promote, and the links to feedback forms within the post.

So do take time out to read Brett’s post, and don’t forget to listen-in to the Lab Gab session at 11:00am SLT on Friday, March 6th, 2020.

Over the last 24 hours, the news has been spreading about the upcoming departure of one of Linden Lab’s most popular members of staff: Xiola Linden.

It was Xiola who actually announced she would be leaving Linden Lab at the start of 2020, as she and Strawberry Linden sat down to host the December 18th, 2019 Lab Gab live stream programme.

I managed to miss the show (I confess I wasn’t even aware there was a session scheduled for this week – so shame on me!); however, thanks to You Tube, I’ve embedded the portion of the show where she makes her announcement below, and you can watch the entire segment via the Lab’s You Tube channel.

In breaking the news, Xiola said in part:

Just a little over eight years ago, I think it was, I showed up for my first day at, quote, “the Lab”, and I basically walked into my dream job. It was a place that I had, for a very long time, been a resident of, so to speak, since 2006, I think …

It’s been a job that has really allowed me to grow … and it’s given me a ton of incredible stories of things that you can not only just image, but also realise. And I learned that from the community, to see the way that they continuously adopt the features of the platform and do it in ways that we never expected or would do…

And here we are eight years later, and it’s still my dream job, and I still cannot imagine who I would be and what I would be like without this community and without Second Life and the Lab. That said, the time has come for me to work on some new dreams.

Commenting on her forthcoming departure from the Lab to me personally, Xiola added:

It is one of the hardest decisions I have made, and honestly still does not feel real. It has been a pleasure to serve this community as best I know how, and supporting all the various communities that it is comprised of. I hope to perhaps one day be able to work with so many of the incredible talents and interesting folks that I have gotten to know over the years here.

Born and raised in California’s silicon valley, Xiola naturally immersed her career in technology, working for the likes of Yahoo!, with a particular interest in creative communities. It was a friend’s invitation that she try Second Life that got her started on the platform, and she remains active in-world on her personal account to this day.

Due to this engagement with SL, she became interested in working at Linden Lab and started keeping an eye on the company’s career page in the hopes of being able to apply for a suitable role. Fortunately, a community related post opened in late 2011, and her application was accepted.

As a part of the Community Team, her first major event was the Second Life Birthday (SLB) celebrations – something she regards as her “SL event boot camp” – helping bring together information on the event as well as helping to organise the festivities.

Since then, over the intervening years, her role has been broad-ranging, encompassing elements of customer support, putting together events like the former Linden Meet-ups, activities like the annual Creepy Crawl and the Meet the Lindens sessions during the SLB celebrations, and moderating Town Hall meetings. She has also been instrumental in building Second Life’s social media presence across various platforms and in revitalising the official SL blogs.

With the arrival of Sansar, she moved over to that platform, taking on the role of Community Manager there, and shouldering the responsibility for building up a weekly social and meetings schedule, getting members of the Sansar team in-world to meet with users and discuss the platform. Once this was ticking along and the Lab could bring in a dedicated Sansar Community Manager, she transitioned back full time to Second Life, where she’s been for almost the past two years.

Throughout all of this, she has acted as strong liaison between the Lab and its user communities, linking them through social events, programmes and activities. Within Second Life, she’s been instrumental in a number of programmes, some of which I’ve been fortunate to have been involved in, the most recent of which has been the Second Life Blogger Network (SLBN).

While she is departing Linden Lab on January 3rd, 2020, Xiola has made it clear she’s not leaving Second Life – she fully intends to remain an active resident and user of the platform through her personal account.

On a personal note, what has always struck me about Xiola through a number of years of interaction with her – albeit it at a distance, so to speak, given we’re on different continents –  is that her enthusiasm for both the platform and its users has never waned, and has always been infectious. Simply put, the Lab couldn’t have asked for or sought a better ambassador to help manage and grow their relationship with users over the last 8+ years. Working with her – be it with things like the SLBN or in e-mail exchanges or direct conversation – has always been an absolute pleasure.

So, thank you, Xiola for your work, your enthusiasm and your involvement. Wishing you the very best over the holidays and in the new career. Do stay in contact – even if only in-world!