Ypulse reader Lucas sent me this Gawker item about Flip's attempt (via the agency Mother) to lure teen influencers to the site with funky USB drives. I love the drives (send one to me!) - but I think the whole experiment speaks to the bigger challenge for any new social networking site (or really any site) trying to reach teens: How do you get them there? I remember marveling at Max Levchin, (Slide's CEO) answer to an interview question where he said, "We have not done any marketing at all." Every brand or company dreams of having a product so good (good can mean good tech, good idea, good execution) that it just spreads virally on its own. If any agency or consultant could bottle that formula, they would rule the web or at least never have to do a new business pitch again.

I don't know whether Flip will succeed or fail, but what I do know is that it's way too early for anyone both internally at Conde Nast or out in the blogosphere to call it a failure. They just came out of beta, and as I've said many times before, community building takes time. The challenge for any of these sites is that teens are already entrenched in two primary social networking communities - MySpace and Facebook (followed by Bebo, Tagged and Sconex). This is where their friends already are. So it's not as if recruiting one teen to sign up and check out your site means they will stay. If they don't get their friends to come over (or if they do, and your offering is not compelling enough), you will lose them. I think the challenge for Flip is to create the right set of incentives for girls to recruit their friends, and then offer an experience compelling enough for them to stay....and then to spread the word. Another metric for Flip's success will be how many Flipbooks are popping up on MySpace profiles (since you can embed the code).

As for the USB drives, it's definitely a cool premium, but maybe a physical flipbook would have been more clear...

Update: I received the package they sent out - thanks Flip! It did include a little booklet explaining the site and came in a great looking tin container with a "Flipesque" sticker on top.

Posted by anastasia