I have pasted Phil Bilbrough's article below:
Phil Bilbrough: Yummy mummies and milky daddies
Thursday, 21 May 2009, 9:29 pm
How do you advertise on social networking sites? It is a struggle.
You are a thirsty stranded marketer and over the desert horizon a
shimmer of a vast network appears to quench your parched sand-dried
throat. Between you and that cool cool feeling of success, is the
"What is this again?", the "How do I do it?", the "You have to
guarantee it will work", and the "I don't want to risk my brand"
are the points that keep that social network mirage hanging over
the horizon.
So you could pay me to squirt a social network campaign down your
throat, or you could follow this example, the Hot Milk Lingerie
people have it sussed.
Think what you like about me, its probably all true. Hot Milk
Lingerie is on Facebook and look to be doing well. Ad agencies will
be shitting themselves.
And I met them on Facebook. One of my friends had become a fan of
"Breasts" and when she did that, all her friends got notified that
she was a fan. There is no hiding and no shame. I couldn't resist -
yeah go ahead and judge me. So I checked out Breasts and got taken
to Breastmates.
So I was both disappointed and impressed. These Breastmates know
the web and how to market. They used an existing social network
(this is me foreshadowing the next blog topic) to talk about
themselves, breasts, their fans, their fans' breasts, they then
fitted up some offers, and cupped together a (late nite
competition) to keep them snug.
This is what you do. The mates have pretty much done it. I'm sure
that they are causing a few nipples out in the social network
pond.
This isn't for every brand. Talking about lingerie is sexy and
fun. Talking about life assurance or income protection on Facebook
isn't fun. Facebook is a SOCIAL network, it isn't a BORE ME INTO
THE GROUND network. There is escapism here. It's online
pub-talk.
There are networks that discuss important world changing issues,
my friends at the Bioethics Council won world recognition for their
deliberative social network site. Yet the Bioethics network and
others like it aren't in the Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, and Twitter
league.
The Facebooks of this world have 10s of millions of people and
those people maintain and develop their own entertainment and stay
engaged. This is their potential and this is what marketers get off
on. Just not many know how to climax.
*************
Phil Bilbrough is a freelance online advertising specialist who
has recently begun blogging on the subject for Scoop at
Advertising.scoop.co.nz. He can be contacted at
phil@bilbrough.com.