Target social media

Tonight I was again invited to speak at RadioLynx (where Ciprian Gavriliu, the person behind IMTO, is doing Online Shift, a show about marketing and online) and the thing that stuck with me was the overpowering belief of some of the chatters on the RadioLynx open chat that Facebook is full of viable targets and HI5 is just white trash and stupid idiots (cocalari si pitizpoance :-).

This was actually a reminder of something I was thinking of a couple of days ago when I decided to take a long walk in the evening and ended up waiting for a bus in a deserted stop close to the city centre. As I was waiting, a young man sat next to me and I got the chance to watch him while pretending to be fiddling with my ipod. He was wearing clear fakes (Mike shoes, etc) and listening to music from his Nokia phone (not a great model) while drinking from a 1l bottle of Coke. I realized I had nothing in common with him and then realized I was the minority because I had an iPod and was wearing Converse. And also because for one moment I had felt superior to him. I knew nothing about him and he cared not for what I was wearing or handling. Two worlds apart.

The same works for Facebook and HI5. People on Facebook take quizzes to find out what famous novel character they are, they invite their friends to indie pop concerts, travel to remote and exotic locations. Minimal knowledge of this kind of target tells you they are reluctant to listen to advertising, despise mass market and follow niche trends. Hard to sell to.

On Hi5 you add widgets which grow hairs in various parts of their bodies, upload pics of yourself in the toilet and flirt. Here a small phone as a prize is exciting. Up there, it's pathetic.

And then, there is the small matter of numbers. 3 MILLION on HI5, between 120k and 500k on Facebook according to sources. "Many, but stupid", someone said tonight on the radio chat. "Many" I would say, "and more open to marketing..." but we choose to judge and despise instead of trying to connect with what accounts for the majority. We do minority marketing: it's less effective but we feel special...bof