"VRChat has much of the same discovery issues that've plagued Second Life," notes Adeon Writer, a denizen of both worlds, responding to my observation that Nissan's VRChat marketing campaign doesn't seem to attract many visitors. "Mainly, as there are more and more places to visit, it becomes harder and harder to become discovered and retain attention from so many other possible places you could be. I don't think Second Life ever managed to solve this in a meaningful way. VRChat hasn't yet either."
That sounds very right. Also (I should add) as sub-communities in virtual worlds become more and more cloistered, it becomes an even more difficult challenge for outside marketers to engage with the world's user base as a whole. That seems to be happening in VRChat as well.
Reader and SLer Kaylee West has some solid ideas Nissan could do well to learn from:
"A big company like Nissan needs to do some big events (live music, some free giveaways, some purchasable merch) that are well promoted via social media channels, with maybe a few key social media influencers involved. They also need to do / repeat these events for different time zones. Then they need to think about ongoing activities in their world to attract people back. Other than the cost of hiring acts, the costs to the company wouldn't necessarily add up to big money. What are the really popular worlds doing to attract and keep visitors that they can learn from?"'
To that last question, a Discord server like the kind popular VRChat creator Jar runs would be a great idea. An even more obvious campaign idea is to make Nissan cars playable across the world, as with the RC cars created by this other VRChat creator.
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 
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