Hi everybody! Today I’m going to tell you about my experience with Linden Lab’s Showcase section.
About two months ago, Mercedes Ochs suggested I try to get my Garden for the Missing on Remora into the Showcase. I wasn’t even sure what Showcase was, so I poked around and found it.
When you go to that page on the SL website (and I will give you the URLs at the end of this little talk), you will see there are four SL venues spotlighted on the top right of that main page and sublistings of categories on the left.
So, I applied, having no idea what was about to happen.
A week later, I was being interviewed for an article in SL Illustrated. We were at the Garden for the Missing and people kept popping in at the rate of one a minute. We’re talking about a venue that, unless I have an event, usually gets about 10-20 on a normal day. I finally asked a visitor where they hear about The Garden for the Missing and he said it was on the Showcase page. It was the featured “Hot Spot” listing.
The front page listing lasted a week, during which more than 600 people visited the Garden for the Missing. It was crazy. I had Mercedes and Mel helping me greet visitors as much of 24/7 as we could fill. The visitors came nonstop.
After a week, the listing was moved off the main page to the Hot Spots subpage listing and continues to greet anywhere from 25 to 75 visitors per day. I’d say at this point, between 800 – 1,000 have been introduced to my nonprofit as a result.
Another cool thing is that when it was replaced on the main page, it was replaced with our own Contact a Family, another nonprofit in NPC!
These graphics show how the listings look today on the “Hot Spots” subpage.
One more thing to note is that there were a number of blogs and a couple of articles written about my nonprofit as a result, so the amount of visitors resulting from the Showcase was amazing, but the increased awareness didn’t stop there.
The Showcase doesn’t approve everyone who applies. But it’s very worth giving it a try. And now, here are your URLs.
The Showcase: http://secondlife.com/showcase/
The FAQ: http://secondlife.com/showcase/faq.php
The “How to suggest” section: http://secondlife.com/showcase/faq.php#five
Written by: Ronnie