[Dale King]

Newsflash: Contrary to popular belief, marketing your products and services on MySpace.com will NOT work for most businesses.

Why? Well first of all, it's against their Terms of Service (TOS) which clearly states:

"The MySpace Services are for the personal use of Members only and may not be used in connection with any commercial endeavors except those that are specifically endorsed or approved by MySpace.com. Illegal and/or unauthorized use of the MySpace Services, including collecting usernames and/or email addresses of Members by electronic or other means for the purpose of sending unsolicited email or unauthorized framing of or linking to the MySpace Website is prohibited. Commercial advertisements, affiliate links, and other forms of solicitation may be removed from Member profiles without notice and may result in termination of Membership privileges. Appropriate legal action will be taken for any illegal or unauthorized use of the MySpace Services."

That rule is pretty "cut-and-dried" isn't it?

However, the aforementioned rule is not the reason why marketing on MySpace doesn't work for most businesses. No, it's more complicated than that. It has to do with the "apples and oranges" concept.

Let me explain:

According to comScore Media Metrix. MySpace has about 100 million registered users, about 90 percent in the United States.

Their primary demographic is about a 50/50 split between males and females, ages 16 to 34. However, a common misconception is that MySpace is primarily made up of kids and teens. In fact, 80 percent of the audience is above 18. MySpace's 30-plus demographic is its fastest-growing group. (Source: ClickZ Network)

Regarding the apples and oranges concept: According to branding expert Rob Frankel, "MySpace has only one thing really going for it: eyeballs. Lots of eyeballs. But simply having eyeballs isn't nearly enough. If you recall, that's the mistake people made which led to the Internet bubble bursting. Just because you have tons of people doesn't mean you have an audience. Witness the demise of women.com and other domains that were supposedly gathering spots for people. It doesn't work that way. For a community to really succeed, it must have four elements:

A. A central, specific common interest among its users
B. A means of generating revenue through that interest (brand strategy)
C. A system to establish its credibility
D. A strong, visible leader to manage the community

MySpace in particular has none of these. The users are free to create multiple personalities. There is no verification of anything. There are no true means to focus any users into any kind of channels. There are no user-driven revenue sources. There are no leaders or managers - it's a rudderless ghost ship with the inmates running the asylum, so any business either having a page or advertising there is simply taking a shot in the dark."

Dale King

[jandmsolution]

"For a community to really succeed, it must have four elements"

Are you saying that MYSpace is not successful or not successful as a marketing medium.

"There are no user-driven revenue sources"

MYSpace is driven my ad sales that are directly driven by users. If there are 1 million less users show up than last month, their revenue will show that.

I sorry to come out and attack this because I usually enjoy reading your posting but the marketing industry is in an evolution at the moment. Because of MYspace, digital signage, and many other medium that are coming and beginning to change marketing usual mediums. MYspace has been successful for certian business for marketing. Chicago restraunts market themselves and try to drive traffic to their page. Saying they are taking shots in the dark is it bit far off. Using MYspace to build a page is a bit like designing a website. You try to drive traffic to it to help build your brand and in the case in Chicago traffic to their restraunts.

[Dale King]

Originally Posted by jandmsolution

[i] Are you saying that MYSpace is not successful or not successful as a marketing medium.

No. I never said MySpace wasn't successful. What I said was, MySpace will not work as a marketing medium for most businesses. It will work for certain music and entertainment type businesses, but it will not work for most businesses outside of that genre. There are much better ways to grow your business other than social media sites.

Dale King

[wannabeMogul]

Yeah, you really have to establish a clear purpose for joining the MySpace community and decide what you will bring that will make users interested in friending you.

It doesn't work for all businesses, but if you can come up with a good reason to do it, social media is worth using to engage customers/clients.

I actually like the Facebook offerings for businesses better. They work for more than just a few industries and provide a lot of options for not requiring a commitment from the user like MySpace profile friending does. With pages, they make it easy for businesses to be a part of the network.

[manzanar101]

You CAN succeed in MySpace if you have the proper product to target them. It does work believe me.

Here I will give you proof:

MySpace Business Card Printing - MySpace Design Business Cards - Custom Business Cards - MySpace Business Cards | Illbuzz

We receive several dozen orders a day on this product alone. All marketing for these are done through MySpace and word of mouth. So yes it can be done if you have something they'd want.

With that said, I agree with you that it won't work for the majority of businesses

[Welshrarebit]

Also there is too much c..p on there, which I thnk puts people off

[jasaunders]

Originally Posted by manzanar101

You CAN succeed in MySpace if you have the proper product to target them. It does work believe me.

Here I will give you proof:

MySpace Business Card Printing - MySpace Design Business Cards - Custom Business Cards - MySpace Business Cards | Illbuzz

We receive several dozen orders a day on this product alone. All marketing for these are done through MySpace and word of mouth. So yes it can be done if you have something they'd want.

With that said, I agree with you that it won't work for the majority of businesses

I fail to see the proof.

[ADVERTISE HERE!]

I believe that Dale is correct in his observation that marketing to the Myspace audience will not be effective for all businesses.

Think of it this way:

Will a supplier of walkers and a supplier of video games find the same level of success marketing at a nursing home?

[browneydgrl147]

I really appreciated this post! I work for an entrepreneurial company and we've been discussing ways to get some visibility for the book my bosses are writing called "The $5,000 Millionaire". MySpace was one of the areas we were planning to pursue, and now you have saved us a lot of time. Thanks for your forthright advice!

[Dale King]

Originally Posted by browneydgrl147

I really appreciated this post! I work for an entrepreneurial company and we've been discussing ways to get some visibility for the book my bosses are writing called "The $5,000 Millionaire". MySpace was one of the areas we were planning to pursue, and now you have saved us a lot of time. Thanks for your forthright advice!

You're quite welcome, browneydgrl. Thank you!

Dale King

[Check-m]

I got 100 people to visit my website from myspace alone, and now 20 of them are valuable customers who have made me hundreds of dollars. Myspace.com is a great marketing tool.