Myspace Marketing in 2006

How to market to billions on myspace

MySpace is the worlds most well known social networking site. What started as a way for small bands to share their music has mutated into mainstream popular culture. MySpace offers users the chance to create their own profile which they can use as a blog, to contact and create their own network of friends, upload photos, videos and music.

MySpace is huge. Currently is judged by Alexa to be the fourth most popular English language website. 4.5% of all internet visits in the USA are to MySpace. The site was bought in 2005 by News Corp for $580 and is now reportedly selling its main advertising spots for a little less than $1m per day.

MySpace has also spawned a crop of secondary social networking sites using a similar formula. Some other well known names include Bebo, Facebook, Faceparty, Friendster, Hi5, and Orkut.

So with social networking sites starting to take over the web, is it possible to harness their huge power for marketing your own business?

Social network marketing has a huge potential for business’ with the correct demographic – think the hard to reach teens and early twenties market, it’s suited to the affluent iPod generations need for quick, informative, cool and trendy.

Obviously not every product or service is suited to this demographic, but if yours is and you can pull off a successful campaign, then you can see huge returns on your investment.

As with most forms of internet marketing, with social networking sites marketing methods range from being completely legitimate to downright spammy. I’ll describe the various methods in full and leave it up to you if you wish your business to be associated with various methods.

Firstly direct advertising can be purchased from the various sites themselves. There are a huge range of advertising opportunities available. As I mentioned earlier, the top advertising banners on MySpace sell for close to $1m per day. Obviously not many businesses’ can afford these rates, though you may be pleasantly surprised at the rates charged for lesser spots on the site on a CPM basis.

Social networks have a huge potential for viral marketing. You could use your profile to promote a unique and interesting aspect of your business. If your products themselves don’t fit the bill then think of creating something that does. Think funny or shocking, something people will pass to others.

The profile itself is a hugely important part of your company/personal image. Take some time to customise and populate it. Seasoned regulars on MySpace treat an uncustomised profile as inactive or spam and will simply ignore it. Don’t take yourself too seriously, a light-hearted approach is best and encourage people to interact with your profile, which in turn will lead to more visitors as your network grows.

Use rich media such as music or video on your profile to encourage people to stay longer than a few seconds.

There are several websites dedicated to the customisation of MySpace profiles. Two of my favourites are,

http://myspacesupport.com/

http://www.pimpmyspace.org/

Try placing an email signup form on your profile page as well as the usual links to your website. Even if the visitor doesn’t convert on their first visit to your site then you should be able to turn them into a repeat visitor with a well targeted and engaging newsletter.

The darker side of MySpace marketing involves creating ‘fake’ profiles and using automated software to generate huge followings of ‘friends’

With some automated tools it is possible to specify a demographic of people that you wish to add. For example you can create a profile that has a friends list of thousands of females aged between 20 and 23 that list horse riding as an interest of theirs, or a list of males aged from 21 to 35 that smoke.

Something that is powerful enough for a company to engage their specific target market for a very small investment is an extremely powerful tool.

So once you have this huge list of specific targets, what can you do with it?

One of the main features of MySpace is the bulletin tool that enables you to send a bulletin to all on your friends list. This can be sent on a one-off basis or you can send regular announcements to you list.

Bulletins are already heavily used to promote bands and services. So it’s important to make your stand out, though at the same time to give it an air of legitimacy, or you’ll quickly find you ‘friends’ dumping you from their lists.

Be honest in your title, ‘Free Image Hosting’ ‘Free Music Downloads’ should grab their attention while avoiding generating negative feelings by duping them into clicking.

The bulletin itself allows HTML, so take the opportunity to create something that looks and reads professionally.

MySpace and other social network sites have a huge potential for targeted marketing with a personal feel and gives companies a chance to really engage their customers. Remember to keep it fun, light-hearted and you should find yourself generating a constant source of targeted visitors.

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