Do Virtual Worlds Have a Place in PR?

One of this week's topics is the idea of virtual worlds and their role in social media for companies. Personally, no matter how much you tout virtual worlds, I don't think I'd be convinced that they have a place in true PR practices. Many companies have used virtual worlds like Second Life to promote their brand, they would even make whole islands for their virtual target audiences to visit. However, the question that they should really be asking themselves is, "is it worth the effort?" 


Consider how many people you are actually engaging and how you're engaging them when deciding to put the time, energy and resources into building a virtual world presence. How big are the audiences? As of 2011, Second Life has about 1 million active users. But how active is active? I could create a Second Life account and play for 2 days and then log on next month and still be considered active. So when you really look at that 1 million people, you have to consider that a chunk of that number will not really be present. And then, you should think about how many of those 1 million users would actually want to listen to your message on Second Life or visit your island. How many of those users actually fall into your target audiences? How do you even know? 


These are questions that I think a lot of companies need to ask themselves before committing to a presence in a virtual world because I really think that there are much better and more efficient ways to reach those same audiences. Having an appearance in Second Life may have helped the Obama campaign, but considering what you're sacrificing, will it really help your company?