Sorry for the long hiatus: 2 weeks without a post is probably too much. Anyway, let’s go back to our regular programming ;-)
I’ve just read an interesting piece of information in “MySpace, TheirSpace,” an article written by Tamara Simpson and published yesterday in the Valley News Dispatch.
As other articles published recently in main stream media (MSM), this article warns students about the danger of using their accounts on MySpace or The Facebook to share too many details about their lives as employers and college officers are… lurking in the dark ;-)
Ok, nothing new under the sun. But, something else has caught my attention in this article:
“Bernie Punt, director of sales and marketing at the Bryce Jordan Center at Penn State, found an innovative way to use Facebook.
Punt said ticket sales for student concerts have almost doubled since he began using the site to research students’ favorite musicians. When students sign up, they fill out a questionnaire about music, movies, TV shows and other things they like.
Punt searches through the profiles and compiles marketing information he passes on to agents and producers in the music industry. “Traditionally, agents and promoters would want to reach students through regular advertising,” Punt said. “But they’re not watching TV, listening to the radio or reading a newspaper. When they get home to their dorm or apartment, they’re almost addicted to this Web site, this social network.”
By using Facebook, Punt has been able to bring musicians such as Kanye West and Black Eyed Peas to the Bryce Jordan Center.”
High school and college students spend a lot of (too much?) time on these social networking websites, so they have definitely become great mirrors of their interests and likes. Moreover, The Facebook and MySpace are also huge adverstising channels to reach college kids.
The University of Phoenix and other major players in online education have realized it.
Maybe, it’s also time for YOUR institution to revisit its marketing strategy and media mix?
I resent the commercialization of my socializing, so I have a little rule: I don’t use facebook unless I’m on my computer with all the ads blocked. One handy plugin and suddenly I have so many fewer reservations about wasting time on the thing! Obviously my primary motivation is just aesthetics and distraction, rather than some futile attempt to choke off facebook’s revenue stream… but I’m too nauseated by the garish marketing thrown at me through them to tolerate it and still try to use the site. Everything loads faster that way, anyways. So what if I’m undermining the infrastructure?
There is now a new application on facebook which allows you to create questionnaires, surveys, polls, votes and petitions, answer them and invite your friends to answer them. You can display your answers to a questionnaire on your profile so people can get to know you better. We just launched it a couple of days ago, the questionnaires are up and running, polls votes and petitions will arrive in the next couple of days. In a few weeks time we hope to add commercial surveys where users get paid via paypal to answer surveys, but currently its all completely free, and you can view everyones answers to your surveys! We are adding more features all the time – it will soon be very powerful indeed. We are also willing to consider adding any feture you require on request!
Check it out:
http://apps.facebook.com/questionnaires
Best wishes,
Chris