Comments on: Pulic Relations in Virtual Worlds http://www.liberatemedia.com/blog/pulic-relations-in-virtual-worlds/ Liberate Media blends online PR with offline PR expertise to form a uniquely positioned social media agency. Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:48:05 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: Aaron Uhrmacher http://www.liberatemedia.com/blog/pulic-relations-in-virtual-worlds/#comment-1142 Aaron Uhrmacher Tue, 27 May 2008 14:48:27 +0000 http://www.liberatemedia.com/blog/pulic-relations-in-virtual-worlds/#comment-1142 Thanks for mentioning our virtual world work here. I should preface this with a note that the blog post you linked to is now almost a year old and the landscape has certainly evolved. One of the most attractive qualities of virtual world environments is the ability to connect and socialize with other people that share your interests. We've seen a proliferation of niche virtual worlds emerge over the last 12 months catering to very specific audiences. The opportunity for communicators is to help brands build communities and to facilitate opportunities for conversations and meet-ups on these platforms. In the future, it might not be Second Life where this socializing occurs, but communications functions within organizations will be more empowered than ever to leverage these spaces for community building activities. It's an incredible opportunity to engage customers at a very personal level. Toyota is an example of a company that is experimenting in several virtual worlds simultaneously to reach different audiences. One last thing - the "banning PR people" conversation occurred more than two years ago. It was largely limited to the Dreamland sim and was a reaction to many companies participating in SL for the sole purpose of generating mainstream media attention by claiming to be "the first" in their respective industries to do so. If a company enters a virtual world environment with objectives that include community building, collaboration or education, the opportunity to be immensely successful is very real. Thanks for mentioning our virtual world work here. I should preface this with a note that the blog post you linked to is now almost a year old and the landscape has certainly evolved.

One of the most attractive qualities of virtual world environments is the ability to connect and socialize with other people that share your interests.

We’ve seen a proliferation of niche virtual worlds emerge over the last 12 months catering to very specific audiences. The opportunity for communicators is to help brands build communities and to facilitate opportunities for conversations and meet-ups on these platforms.

In the future, it might not be Second Life where this socializing occurs, but communications functions within organizations will be more empowered than ever to leverage these spaces for community building activities. It’s an incredible opportunity to engage customers at a very personal level. Toyota is an example of a company that is experimenting in several virtual worlds simultaneously to reach different audiences.

One last thing - the “banning PR people” conversation occurred more than two years ago. It was largely limited to the Dreamland sim and was a reaction to many companies participating in SL for the sole purpose of generating mainstream media attention by claiming to be “the first” in their respective industries to do so.

If a company enters a virtual world environment with objectives that include community building, collaboration or education, the opportunity to be immensely successful is very real.

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