Sat 1 Mar 2008
StorMagic Double Dips on Web 2.0 Marketing
Posted by John under Communities , Enterprise 2.0 , Marketing , Social Media , Startups , Storage and Data Management , Viral MarketingShortly after I started working with StorMagic, I suggested they create a Facebook group. One of the initial target markets for StorMagic is the education market, and given the number of college students on Facebook, it seemed like a logical fit. We’re only a few weeks into this, but I’m pleased to see that the number of members is up to 46 and includes some pretty well-known, well-connected analysts, venture capitalists, and potential partners and customers. Facebook groups are a great way to notify interested people about changes, enhancements, new materials and upcoming events.
That brings me to the Web 2.0 double-dip comment. Facebook is one tool that can be leveraged for marketing and community-building. Another is YouTube. StorMagic just completed their first video and uploaded it to YouTube. You can see it here. But they also notified the 46 members of the StorMagic Facebook group about the video, by posting a notice on the group’s posted-items board. We’ll see what kind of traffic it generates, but having created the video, YouTube is a low-cost way of beginning to circulate it. I just watched it, and it does a pretty good job of demonstrating the simplicity of implementing a StorMagic iSCSI storage area network.
I’d really like to hear your opinion on two things:
- Using Facebook as a community building and marketing tool
- Using YouTube to cost-effectively demonstrate key features of a solution
I’d also like your suggestions for other Web 2.0 tools that are effective in raising awareness and building communities for a supplier’s customers, partners, and prospects.
One last thing. Can you give us some feedback on the video?
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:31 am
Hi John,
Facebook - haven’t tried it yet, but I’m struggling with the proliferation of Facebook-like sites. As a marketer, how do you choose the “right” place to be, or manage content across multiple social sites?
I’ve been using video on YouTube as well. I like your “no fluff” approach to the demo. Still needs to be shorter - I believe 5 mins is the max. Also, even less marketing - get a user to demo?
storageeffect.com
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Hey Pete,
I agree with you. Regarding the length, shorter is better. Besides Facebook, what other sites come to mind? MySpace seems to have too much spam, so would avoid that one. I have had no spam problem on Facebook.
I’d love to have a user agree to do a video. We’ll work on it.
John
March 4th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Here are the pros and cons I think:
Facebook: Its a great idea - a vendor can shrink the gap b/w its employees and customers. Brings the next-best thing to face-to-face conversations, debates and communications all while marketing your product. You can talk to customers, survey your community - look like an active vendor.
Cons are that these communities and conversations can die out pretty quickly - the novelty wears off, topic excitement cools, maybe a new community or “Facebook” pops up, etc. The second someone shows up to a community and sees the last post is 2 months ago - they leave…
So I think it is important to have some sort of comm plan - that sends updates to the communities, etc. A steady pace of good topics and conversations - that keep e-mails going out to members saying “so and so has made another post.” And if the original community dies down, and another pops up elsewhere - make sure you have pointers in that old community telling members to go to the “next big thing.”
YouTube: I honestly don’t see any downside here. A company or product video can be used over and over again. At events, at meetings, over YouTube. All employees and customers can blog on the video, link to it, embed it in their websites. YouTube, to me, is a huge ROI channel for vendor videos - especially for start ups.
And let me answer your last question and prove my point at the same time - as you know, I run a department that does market strategy and intelligence for the 4th largest storage vendor in the world. As of yesterday I had heard of StorMagic, but couldn’t tell you what they did. After watching the video, I sent this e-mail to my team of analysts: “fyi - check out this StorMagic video - making iSCSI SAN’s easier to deploy - the two-click data migration with video running in the background is pretty impressive - T ”
Go Web 2.0
March 4th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Taylor,
Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. You’re correct about the content on Facebook sites, or blogs, or any other social media tool. If the content isn’t fresh, then people lose interest quickly.
Regarding StorMagic, let me know if anyone would like a deeper dive.
- John