Tales From the Digital Side

Second Life (SL) is probably one of the coolest marketing vehicles out there. It’s way more fun to research than your average media buy with the boring* rate cards, the comScore MediaMetrix or @plan audience profiles, Quantcast data, and lessons learned from past campaigns. In Second Life, I get to fly around, teleport, I made myself a business suit (if you’ve been in SL, you know this is possibly the lamest thing anyone has ever done in there), I’ve made some friends, scoped out some office space, I joined some groups, I visited Dell Island, American Apparel, and Millions of Us (THE experts on using this medium) and I acquired a bed, a desk, a Dell Computer, a bikini, some T-shirts, a chair, some dance animations, and some beer.

For those of you that haven’t heard, Second life is a 3-D community created by Linden Labs, built and owned by its residents. It has its own currency, the Linden Dollar, which can be exchanged, and it has given life to SL millionaires. In world, you can do pretty much anything you can imagine and figure out how to build/create.

The interesting thing about the world, for recruitment, is that it is mostly based on fantasy. This may cause an issue if you are thinking you will be able to go in there and recruit just like you do in real life (RL). People are represented in SL by avatars. In my travels in SL, I’ve yet to see one overweight or ugly (not counting the ones that look like reptiles or rodents) avatar. I’ll be the first to admit, my avatar definitely looks like she makes it to spinning class a bit more than I do (cut me some slack, my RL is busy). If how we choose to represent ourselves in SL is fantasy, how can you get to know candidates and recruit in this space?

You probably can’t, at least not now. Sourcing candidates is not currently the real opportunity in SL. What is really exciting about SL, is the opportunity to offer a truly immersive, unexpected, and unique employer brand experience. Even the most engaging corporate career site cannot offer the candidate the ability to walk inside and be part of your corporate world. Developing a destination in SL for your employer brand will provide a way for SL residents to learn a great deal about your company. You can offer audio, video, games, events, presentations, concerts, simulations of your headquarters/labs/stores/hotels/restaurants/products/etc, recruiters to chat with, and more. You can give away t-shirts, cups, computers, custom animations, content, etc. What you have to be comfortable with, is, that the candidates are there to learn about you, not the other way around. The goal is to get the avatars you interact with to apply in RL.

The other thing you need to understand about SL, is that return on investment (ROI) won’t be measured in your interactions in world. Of the 4.3 million residents, only about 20K are in world at any time. The real ROI is the PR that you will get in RL. The mentions in the blogosphere, the mainstream media, and the word of mouth will take on a life of it’s own (a Third Life, maybe). You’ll need to be prepared to measure the buzz created in order to truly understand how you benefited from SL.

So, it’s not like Vegas. What happens in SL, won’t stay in SL. You’ll reap the benefits in RL.

* I’m totally kidding about media plans being boring - love that stuff!