MYSPACE MARKETING

Marketing With MySpace

With over 300,000 new users daily it is a wonder why not every business has a professional MySpace profile. Being one of the most popular sites on the internet with one in four Americans using MySpace, everyone has at least heard about MySpace. Social Networking sites are where people spend the majority of their time online. During free time an estimated 17% of people are using social networking sites like MySpace. With a professional MySpace page your business can tap into the millions of social networking users.

MySpace, like many popular things, has had bad publicity, with “girl fights” and other crimes being advertised. But what is not advertised are all the positive things MySpace has to offer. MySpace allows visitors to search for jobs, get valuable information from blogs and keep in touch with friends. MySpace also offers businesses an excellent advertising opportunity. At one point MySpace was thought of as a teenage website, but in reality about 85% of MySpace users are over the age of 18. Having a vast amount of users over 18 years old makes MySpace a great target for businesses.

In addition to having a mass amount of users and being one of the largest sites on the web, MySpace also offers an assortment of marketing tools. Over 8 million music groups and bands have taken advantage of MySpace’s tools to promote themselves and announce upcoming shows.

In order to take full advantage of what MySpace has to offer businesses need to request as many “friends” as possible. MySpace allows its users to post “bulletins” that reach all of their “friends”. Similar to email marketing, MySpace bulletins allow businesses to promote specials or upcoming sale events to all of their MySpace “friends”. This means the more MySpace “friends” a business has the more people they have to market to.

Another great marketing tool MySpace offers is its blogs and forums. By blogging about products and/or services they offer it allows businesses to get the word out about them. A link to any blogs that a user posts in can be found on their MySpace page allowing all of their friends to read them and stay up to date on the business. MySpace Groups allow businesses to visit categories relevant to their product and post useful information along with links to their website. This offers businesses a unique opportunity to go after those interested in their products and put information directly in front of them. MySpace also has its own classified site. MySpace classifieds allows businesses to post classifieds selling their products or services not just to “friends” but to anyone on MySpace. If the classified ads include a link to their website, businesses can not only advertise their products but also generate more traffic to their website.

MySpace also hosts their own video website. Although not as popular as YouTube, MySpace video has over 60,000 uploads daily. Videos are a great way for a business to market its products. The best way for businesses to take advantage of MySpace videos is to have an unprofessional video that highlights the importance of their products.

The fact that MySpace has over 115 million active users from around the globe makes MySpace a great source to reach people from all over the world. Tapping into a global market can be great for some businesses, but what if you are a local business with a brick and mortar store trying to reach local customers? When searching for MySpace friends simply target a specific geographic region to reach people in your area. This allows businesses to advertise in store sales and specials to bring in customers.

Not only can you target a geographic region, but MySpace allows businesses to target specific markets. If you are selling bikes why not just target bike riders? Simply search for bike riders or cyclists when requesting “friends” to target your specific market. Targeting your market allows you to directly go after people that you know are interested in your products. If a business targets their specific market and has a professional looking MySpace page designed around their business it is likely to lead to sales.

MySpace users have a very short attention span. If a MySpace profile does not grab user’s attention quickly they are likely to disregard it. Designing a clean and product oriented MySpace profile is very important. Having a professional looking MySpace profile will not only help in getting new friends but to also stand out among other businesses and profiles. Free premade MySpace profile layouts can be easily found on the web, but the best way to stand out is to create a custom profile. Although MySpace has some limitations it does allow users to create a profile from scratch and design it in almost any manner they wish.

With all of the marketing opportunities MySpace offers one would think MySpace is expensive. But the fact is that MySpace is completely free. It is free to register an account, free to advertise in bulletins, free to post a video, free to post classified ads and free to have your own professional MySpace profile.

MySpace profiles can be used to have links to a company’s website to help generate their site traffic. What if a business does not have a website, but still wants to market online? Businesses can use their MySpace profile in the same manner as a website. Businesses can post information about what they do or what products they offer on a profile free of cost.

Sites like MySpace are now not just used for social networking but can be used to promote businesses and organizations. MySpace offers a world-wide market, excellent marketing tools and is free of cost. And with Social Networking sites growing rapidly, MySpace alone in one year had a 367% increase in traffic, it’s an obvious place for businesses to have a presence.

Still looking for more information about MySpace Marketing? WebDuck Designs' online learning center, WebDuck University, has video courses and tutorials to teach you all about MySpace Marketing and other online marketing tactics.