Marketing on MySpace

[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]

[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]

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.

[BusinessAdviser]

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]

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.

[john82]

IMO, Myspace is good for specific genre business like movie/entertainment etc, I find facebook has more avenues and diversity to promote your products.

[Avant5]

The point of this is "Myspace will not work for all businesses"?

Ok. What DOES work for ALL businesses?

And if you are talking about using Myspace profiles, as opposed to purchasing advertising on Myspace, how does it HURT? I have a hard time seeing where additional public viewing of your brand is a negative, unless you are sponsoring the Manson family or something.

I doubt that if I put my business logo up on a scoreboard at the Superbowl for 20 seconds, it would make me a millionare overnight. In fact, the prohibitive cost would most certainly outweight the revenue stream generated by such an ad. But it certainly seems worth the money to McDonald's, and Pepsi to do so, since they shell out great sums of money to press their branding onto the public. So even the BEST, most expensive advertising doesn't work for ALL businesses. Doesn't mean it (or Myspace) can't work for mine.

When Michael Richards blew his top in the infamous (eventual) Youtube video of his on-stage lynching, The Seinfeld show spent big bucks to have a new profile for the show (no longer in production for years) to help offset the repercussions, and bring their image back up. A Myspace profile, and an advertisement on the front page of "The best Myspace profile EVER!". Myspace is used by politicians to improve public awareness and visibility of candidates. And as one poster in this thread stated, he generates sales from Myspace for his printing products. Of those, how many satisfied customers will by word of mouth send along others that won't even see his Myspace advertising? If it's just one, it's a profitable advertising stream, especially since the cost is zero (other than profile design and maintenance cost/time).

I think that any avenue that improves the visibility of your business, including THIS forum, should be utilized to the fullest and the best. ESPECIALLY for smaller businesses looking to create a strong brand among their customers and potential customers, who lack the billion dollar advertising budgets, but are looking for ways to reach large volumes of customers at the lowest possible cost.

But that's just my opinion.

[Dale King]

I think that any avenue that improves the visibility of your business, including THIS forum, should be utilized to the fullest and the best. ESPECIALLY for smaller businesses looking to create a strong brand among their customers and potential customers, who lack the billion dollar advertising budgets, but are looking for ways to reach large volumes of customers at the lowest possible cost.

But that's just my opinion.

In Marketing 101, they teach you that the shotgun approach to marketing is never a good idea. It shows a lack of direction and/or focus. It's much better to spend your time, energy and resources on real, targeted prospects who have a genuine interest in what you're selling - as opposed to putting your advertising message in front millions of untargeted prospects who don't.

Dale King

[Avant5]

Yes, but when I took Marketing 101, there was no internet. There was certainly no Web 2.0. And the idea was to get the biggest bang out of your advertising dollar, without wasting it on the eyes of those that will not buy your product. Radio, TV and print (magazine and/or newspaper) advertising, direct mail advertising...these venues costs great sums of money. Shotgun marketing didn't just waste time, it wasted potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars. There's no hundred thousand dollar ad campaign needed for setting up a MySpace profile. If you use and modify a pre-made template, your invested time could amount to less than 10 minutes.

Further, the time to promote and grow your advertising stream is minimal. Friend requests will come to YOU if you spend 10 minutes a day participating in forums that are related to your field. Send and answer a few emails, and do so sincerely. The t-shirt company Affliction has done a brilliant job in getting users to spread the word, and grow their business via MySpace.

We're talking about an evolution in the marketing world. Advertising styles on the internet were even a fixed thing at one time. Banners 468x60 in side, "above the fold" center page. Google changed that. And they aren't exactly failing at the New Marketing.

Just writing off Myspace because "it doesn't work for ALL businesses" is putting your company into a box and refusing to learn and grow. I think better advice is "learn the best way to promote your business on Myspace", rather than "Marketing 101 teaches us not to explore potential ways to reach customers".

I don't shotgun market. But I do network. And Myspace has proven to be a successful way of reaching partners, rather than customers. I don't advertise to my target market, but to other people that help me reach them, and that has worked.

And really, is the cost of time on Myspace that expensive to growing your business? If so, how can you have the time to post in this forum? The time and cost difference between the two are negligible.