CATEGORIES
- NYC COVERAGE
- WEB STARTUPS
- WEB NEWS
- CONFERENCES
- WEB TECH JOBS
- VENTURE CAPITAL
- MICROSOFT
- INTERVIEWS
- ADVERTISING
- VIDEO
- ALL TOPICS
- ALL COMPANIES
CONTRIBUTORS
- ADRIAN CHAN
- ALICIA NAVARRO
- ALLEN STERN
- CORSIN CAMICHEL
- DRAMA 2.0
- DARREN HERMAN
- HANK WILLIAMS
- MARK DAVIS
- RICK TUROCZY
- SANFORD DICKERT
- SHANNON CLARK
- Comment on YouTube Down by DVS01
- Comment on Twitter COO Costolo: Advertising Coming To Twitter Soon by Satoshi Nakajima
- Comment on Twitter COO Costolo: Advertising Coming To Twitter Soon by OMG Stop the Web! Twitter is gonna run ads ? and Scoble says you?ll love it
- Comment on What?s Up With Yahoo Mail Delivery? by MJ
Flickr is smarter than you might think
Who here has a Flickr account? C'mon you in the back, raise your hand. Yes, you. I am guessing about 80% of the audience that will read this post has an account. And of that 80%, I bet over 90% have a Pro account. As I walked around Central Park last weekend thinking about topics, I started to think about badges. Many sites have them. But why?
In the Flickr example, the obvious reason is that it shows you as a Pro user. When you pay the $25 a year you receive some special features. But when I pull up a picture you send to me, do I really give a flying bird that you are a pro user? How does that badge impact me? I can only do what you allow me to, nothing more. So do I really need to see it? Ooh, it shows you paid $25 and have more storage, yadda yadd…
Then I continued around the park and stopped for a knish. Sat down on a bench and looked up. And then it hit me! (ok, I had to go back to my mba education and marketing experience) People also want the badge to show to others that they are cool, hip and with it. Now before you hit me with a Colecovision, let me explain. This might only account for a small percentage of Flickr pro subs, but even that number in terms of revenue might be staggering.
Let's assume Jane (or whomever) is considered an A-lister. She is a mega Internet star. Now on her blog, she links to photos of her at some event. People click over to see the photos. Jane does not have the pro account. She starts to wonder if she is not cool and hip like her readers and friends because of not having the badge. So she upgrades. All is now well in Jane-land. Is this absolutely stupid, perhaps. But it's something that works in marketing. You want what your friends have. Even if this type of messaging works for less than the 10% of the pro subs, even if it is only 1%, that is still an increase. Same reason I bought every Air Jordan made the day they came out. Wasn't because they were the best sneaker out there.
So what am I suggesting? As you consider your pricing plans, think about badges. Ponder how badges can create cliques that can help you move customers from one price level to the next and the next and so on. Last week I told you to "just ask" now I am adding "go subliminal" to the message.
Of course there are other sites besides Flickr that use this type of subliminal, clique/friends style of marketing. While I am not sure that the Flickr team realized this when they created it, it sure does work. Just something for you to consider.
As I read this, it was reminding me of myself when I first got a Flickr account.
Good thought and a good tip :)
Thanks Dimitry – I try to create thought starters for your startup or service.
It’s called branding + social pressure, and it’s been around forever..if you only realized it now ..I strongly think you should check out out Adbusters or No Logo by Naomi Klein
Quote: While I am not sure that the Flickr team realized this when they created it, it sure does work.
Ok, so how does this make them smarter? Under the pretenses that this DOES work, this comment alone debases the entire argument you *might* have had.
You are only making the dynamics of a population something that is assumed to be calculated by Flickr staff. It doesn’t make any sense.
The reality is that they created a site that they knew people would flock to, and to handle increases in bandwidth, extra commodities, etc, they charged for it to minimize the gap. Next, they create an extra option of a “badge” to further minimize that gap. Incidentally, humans are shallow needy people with an apparent hard-coded gene to be envious of “the joneses”…
At best, this is a backwards corrolation.
Flickr is also going to be couping with Microsoft to create a 3d environment of any vacation place. People will take pics and identify… check out this article: http://www.ohgizmo.com/2007/02/20/microsoft-photosynth-now-available-in-beta/
and I still don’t care – couldn’t care less, even though I read a lot of the “A-listers”.
I got Pro for the sole purpose of unlimited uploads (would have taken a lot of time to upload my 1500ish photos that I’ve sorted out for Flickr), and I really like to have more than three (was it?) sets…
But you’ve got a point! Let me just say 9rules… ;-)
I’ll concede the point that there may be a few people who dropped $25 to have the Pro icon and look cool to their Internet buddies, but I’d wager the proliferation of Pro accounts is more closely related to the simple fact that Flickr provides a well-designed, valuable service to most people, and their upgraded service is well worth the $25/yr rate.
According to Flickr, free accounts are restricted in these ways:
That’s compared to no monthly upload limits, unlimited sets, and full-sized photo access for Pro members. To me (and I’m guessing almost all others), that’s the real motive behind getting a Pro account — you’re getting a great deal from an excellent service provider.
Yes, you are right.
I have a pro account, only for the badge.
Not because I get unlimited upload, unlimited storage, unlimited sets, full resolution images, flickr ad-free.
It’s all about the badge.
You know, there are people who shoot more then just five pictures per month.
And flickr’s community for feedback and suggestions is great, too.
Thanks Jakob for the sarcasm :) — While Flickr may not have been the ultimate best example of this as their basic and pro packages are significantly different, there is validity to what I wrote. People do signup for services (and buy things) based on the "look" of what others will think. Same thing can work online.
There’s also the fact that a flickr basic account only gives you 20MB of storage, which fills up quickly for any serious photographer. I think that’s probably the biggest factor in people paying for pro accounts.
Right on the money Allen.
I noticed a similar phenomenon today while promoting my startup in the offline world (handing out fliers on the street!)
If one person ignored my outstretched hand offering them a flier, those who saw the rejection would ignore me also. Likewise, when one person accepted the flier, all those following accepted the flier also!
It happened much too often to be a coincidence and reminded me of the “empty shop” phenomenon. If your shop is barren people will keep walking, but as it fills up more and more will enter JUST because it appears popular.
Same thing with Flickr…the more people you see with the badge the more you want it!
If only we could think of ways to harness this physcological phenomenon more effectively online.
Here I am in NYC, land of the fliers… and you are absolutely correct. Yesterday Chase was handing out pens near times square. No one took one. (I was waiting for the bus so I watched)… then an attractive woman took one, and all of a sudden 10 more went immediately.
And I have heard of eateries paying people to eat there in the beginning so it looks busy.
I think (could be wrong) same thing happened with the ducks on the show. People bought the ducks just to say they had a duck like xyz person.
Maybe you and I can create the first online flier handout!
Amazon bestows badges as rewards to their engaged customers–those who provide significant feedback–such as “Top 10 Reviewer,” “Top 1000 Reviewer,” etc.