For the most part, I've concentrated on advertising efforts on the top two social networks: MySpace and Facebook. Let's give Bebo, the #3 social network in the U.S., at least the courtesy of a glance. Since Bebo is #1 in the UK, it's easy to think of it as a UK site. It doesn't help that, when reading various copy, words like "favorite" and "color" are spelled: "favourite" and "colour".
If that's the case, then why does the US Air Force not only have a Bebo page, but front page placement as well? Look at the above visual. On Bebo's home page, in the Profiles section (above-the-fold), there is a banner for the Air Force.
The USAF page is interesting in the way that it's practically the antithesis of a social network page. It features three videos (commercials) and three games. You can't see who added it as a friend, who "fanned it". There's no place for postings from other Beboers. It's a micosite without any social elements. There's no way to judge how effective it is.
On the other hand, the GapYear banner on the front page leads one to many pages filled with social media components.
Not to be confused with The Gap, The Gap Year is a contest in which several winners are selected to go out on a six-month adventure.
On the Gap Year main page alone, there are loads of comments, photos and art (via the White Board app) posted by users. There are also mobile uploads, quizzes, polls and skins downloads. A Gap blog, too, (though not with daily postings).
At last count there were over 8,600 friends.
Checking back on it a week later, things have drastically changed. There is a new page just put up, with most of these components gone. No friends anymore, but 268 fans. However, it now has several sponsors: Trident, Canon, Acuvue and Doritos. They all have pages linked to The Gap Year page, with each having their fill of widgets, slideshows, contests, polls, forums and more.
These four sub-pages (seemingly put up 5/21) are way too new to have even a small number of fans/friends.
Skittles has two, count 'em, two front page placements.
Like the Gap Year, the Original Fruit Skittles page uses Whiteboards, so users can get creative and show off their best Skittles sketches. It also features a comments section, photos, and a blog. No contest to speak of, but there is a “Create a Rainbow Game”. So how many friends does this page have? Over 10,200.
One thing to note: The Gap Year page is obviously of UK origin, but the Skittles looks to be all-American. Mind you, I’m just going by how “colors” and “flavors” are spelled.
The Sour Skittles page features many of the same elements: whiteboards, a blog, comments, photos. A few differences include polls, videos, but no contest or games. So obviously, this page will have fewer friends than the other Skittles page, logging in about 6,259 friends. Still that’s nothing to sneeze at. (There's also a Chocolate Skittles page.) Many brand pages over at Facebook would love to have that many friends. Of course, many of those pages are quite lacking in content.
No comments:
Post a Comment