With Facebook having roughly 25 million more users than MySpace and with Twitter consistently experiencing astronomical growth, it is understandable that some people no longer see MySpace as a viable asset for their marketing campaigns. The truth is that while MySpace may not be as popular or growing as fast as its rivals, estimates place MySpace’s average monthly traffic at around 64 million visitors in the United States alone. This is not the sign of a dying community, but rather, the sign of a healthy community that is still very much alive.
As with any social networking site, there are those who sing MySpace’s praises and others who slap labels on it, claiming, in MySpace’s case, that it is nothing but a gathering place for up-and-coming musicians and teenage girls. If you are unsure of what you think of MySpace at the moment, go join MySpace and see for yourself. Those who dismiss large social networking sites as useful tools in their marketing arsenals do so because they are usually unaware of the proper methods of taking advantage of them.
The first step towards taking advantage of MySpace for driving traffic is to create an attractive profile page. The graphics should be decent, but what is even more important than that is the information you put on your profile. If you don’t use a photo of yourself, many potential contacts will be put off. Your profile should brand you. Personal branding, along with relationship building, are the two most important keys to success with driving traffic from social media sites. Your profile page should be devoid of any type of marketing; your profile should tell your visitor who you are, what your interests are, and perhaps why befriending you would be a beneficial thing to do. Remember, whether you’re making friends on MySpace or in real life, friendships are based on mutual respect and benefit. In order to drive more traffic from MySpace, you’ll need friends who respect you and to build such friendships, you’ll need to provide reasons for people to be your friend.
Another big step towards success with MySpace is to create and join groups. Groups are places where MySpace users congregate with like-minded individuals or individuals with similar interests. When you join a group, you should introduce yourself or at least, get to know a few of your fellow members. Spamming your links is a sure-fire way to get promptly kicked out of the group. Keep this in mind when creating your own group. You’ll want to create a group around a niche or topic and then do your best to grow your group by engaging its members in discussions and by using creative methods to encourage more sign-ups. The second you send a blatant promotional message to your group members, you’ll find that the relationship that you built with your group members will either take a heavy blow or collapse all together.
The most important things you need to do to successfully drive traffic with MySpace is to contribute to the community by being part of conversations, helping others, and building strong relationships with others. If you do all this successfully, you’ll easily be able to leverage the power of MySpace to your advantage.