Does MySpace Still Matter?
The author asserts that MySpace "still matters" in spite of being surpassed by Facebook in 2008. He concedes that Facebook will erode its popularity, but given that MySpace still has a large body of users, it will continue to be relevant to marketers.
(EN: While the author makes a good argument, I'm inclined to disagree with his assessment. MySpace has experienced rapid decline and is generally dismissed as irrelevant and unfashionable, and their count of members/pages includes a lot of abandoned profiles. Before investing much effort into it, it would be wise to poll your target market to determine if they are among the groups who still use MySpace, and use it regularly.)
(EN: I think this is also an interesting example of "delayed mania" in marketing - the desire to jump onto the latest fad, only when it's in decline. My sense is there's some risk in jumping on the bandwagon this late - any company that proudly announces their new MySpace presence seems quaint and behind the times.)
MySpace 101
The author mentions the history of a number of sites that attempted to cater to the social networking phenomenon: Friendster, Xanga, Tribe.com, and so on. MySpace was the first one that built a significant number of users. The author also notes that Friendster remains very popular in Asia to this day; Bebo is popular in the UK, and Orkut in Brazil. He also mentioned that Facebook was around at the time, but originally limited participation to university students
(EN: another lesson in target market assessment - the most popular sites for the general public may not be the most popular for your target demographic, so surveying is essential.)
MySpace was started as a marketing tool for independent musicians, giving them a way to connect with fans, promote their albums and concerts, etc. and for fans to share information about their favorite musicians. This is evident in the kinds of features they offer to users, as well as to the demographics of their audience (which tend to be between age 14 and 24, and twice as popular with girls than boys), though the site was adapted to contain other kinds of content, and appeal to a broader demographic, it remained a place to talk about music.
The basics are fairly similar: each user creates a personal profile with limited personal information (age, gender, location) and interests (favorite bands and music genres), a photograph, and the ability to post text of various kinds. One of the unique features of MySpace was the ability to customize the design of a personal profile page, and while this resulted in a lot of profiles that were hideous and hodge-podge, it was very appealing to teens looking for a vehicle for self-expression.
Once a profile is created, a user can publish notes for others to see, leave notes on other users' profiles, send instant messages, create a blog, update your activity status, keep track of your friends, join groups, etc. The interaction among individual users is the value of the service, and the content belongs to the users.
As a result, MySpace became a sort of "mall, nightclub, and seven-eleven" where kids could hang out, meet, chat, etc. Pretty much like they do in meatspace anyway.
The author mentions two major drawbacks: since the site attracts a large audience of young people, it also attracts sexual predators and marketers that seek to prey upon the crowd. The former earned it a bit of bad press, the latter has resulted in users disabling interactive features.
Marketing with MySpace
MySpace reports about 125 million users, and even if that is an overstatement, it's still a large community that is an attractive target for online marketing.
(EN: I did some checking, and they are still claiming 125 million users. Facebook claims over 300 million at this time. It's also worth noting that the demographics of MySpace are skewed to teenage females, so it's not an appropriate venue for all products).
The appeal of MySpace is viral marketing: if a message is picked up by one of the "stars" of the site, it can spread quickly to hundreds of other people, who will spread it to their networks - though he does caution against the notion that anything posted will catch on and spread exponentially - crafting the right message is tricky.
MySpace Marketing Success Stories
The author indicates that some maker firms like Blockbuster and Seven-Eleven were early entrants into MySpace marketing, and had difficulty making enough "friends" to be successful, but there are a few other companies that did well:
- "Roller Warehouse" developed a widget that aggregated news about roller skating from various sources, including their own blog, and offered people a 5% discount on purchases if they included it in their profiles. It spread to over a thousand profiles and helped make the site one of the top five search results for "roller blades"
- "Weird Al" Yankovic, who had some brief notoriety in the 1980's, credited MySpace as a "huge promotional tool" for self-promotion, garnering 600,000 friends. He credits the site for enabling him to get his 2006 album into the top 40.
- Barack Obama leveraged MySpace in his 2008 presidential campaign, using "blog badges" to draw attention, and raised $640 million in campaign funds, from a mass of people who donated small amounts.
- Art of Eating, a catering company, launched an online campaign using MySpace to encourage people to become fans on Facebook (as Facebook's policies make it difficult to recruit fans, whereas MySpace is more open to promotions). No details on the success, except to note that there was one inquiry for catering for a large event.
- Gretsch, which makes drums and guitars, ran a promotion on MySpace for unknown bands to submit songs that MySpace friends would vote on, and the top ten would be sponsored for a concert. The site added 15,000 new friends, made contact with 900 new bands (their market), and created a buzz that was picked up by the traditional press.
(EN: Note the nature of these companies is in-line with MySpace's purpose as a "music sharing" site and the demographic it reaches)
Tips and Tricks
The author provides some bulleted tips.
- Seek to "friend" people whose profiles include activities and interests that are in line with your brand. If you serve a specific geographic area, seek out individuals in your area.
- An unsolicited "friend" request is more casual and acceptable than an unsolicited message
- Being a person, rather than a company, will get better responses. Both in terms of your profile information and the tone of the messages you send.
- Disabling comments is common practice on MySpace due to previous abuse.
- Post bulletins as often as possible - every day, if you can.
- Customize your profile page rather than going with default design, but be tasteful.
- Be sure to include a clear call-to-action in your profile
What's Next for MySpace?
The author concedes that the shimmer has come off of MySpace and users are moving to other social networking sites, but he expects MySpace will remain a popular site among the youth market, and notes that it will remain an important promotional vehicle for the recording industry, and suggest that it will remain a valuable asset "for years to come"