I never know what I will run into when I go out on the weekends, but this past weekend I ran into a real life example of some good offline marketing for an online enterprise. I walked into a bar and there were about 8 guys wearing matching orange T-shirts with black text. I struck up a conversation with them they were out promoting a social networking site called Blastspot. The guy I talked at first was an investor. He had a card with the sites name on it that he handed me, and we talked for a while about the business. Its going to be a social networking site that is a combination of Blackboard and Facebook… which actually sounds like a pretty cool idea. It’s premiering here in Chapel Hill and in San Diego on Tuesday (I think that’s what he said). I missed blackboard by a year or so when I was in college, but from the limited experience I have with it seemed like it could use a lot of improvement. The idea of combining that with a social networking site is an innovative idea that if it catches on could be big business. I talked to the owner for a second and he was a fellow UNC grad.. by the name of Travis I think…. Pretty cool guy, and it looked like he had a lot of friends helping him spread the word.

It’s going to be interesting to follow this sites development. Right now a links search on google turns up no incoming links, and their isn’t even a beta site up yet.. just a logo. Are they going to market directly to colleges? Starting a social networking site is a huge task, one that will take a team of people like he seems to have. We’ll see how it turns out….

Two good marketing ideas here: if you’ve got a message you’re trying to spread wear it on a t-shirt, and be prepared to talk about it. Have a business card or a card describing what it is you are offering because people will ask about it. And in general it’s a good idea to have a business card in the wallet because you never know who you will run into.