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Myspace – Friend or Foe in Social Media Marketing?

Business owners are constantly being told to embrace the web and look to it for their next advertising and promotional efforts.  When people foretold that social media was the "next big thing" for companies to utilize, others automatically thought of Myspace. 

It's not surprising, considering it's the number one social networking site on the web and currently boasts about 60 million visitors per month.   Despite these staggering numbers, is Myspace really worth a businesses' time and effort?

I'd have to say for the most part,  it's not worth more than 5 minutes a day.  Having signed up in 2003, I used it for genuine networking and marketing purposes.  This was when there were enough users to get the word out about a product or website, and people were eager and willing to listen to what you had to say.  It was a new way of communicating on the web, and its innovative appeal spread quickly.   As I previously stated in this post, Myspace has become a haven for spammers and annoyingly persistent bands alike.  Although Myspace has taken action against these folks, and the aggravation has decreased since I wrote that article, I truly do not see the incentive for businesses to set up a Myspace page anymore. 

If you write to someone about your product, you will get flagged for spam and soon deleted.  Your best hope is to create a page and add people who may be within your targeted demographic and hope that when they see your (hopefully intriguing) main image, that they will click on your page and be interested in what you have to offer.  Since people are blasted with these types of profiles on a daily basis, they are reluctant to care about what you're trying to sell on the network.  Personally, I use it to keep in touch with my friends from around the world and not to learn about new brands.  Here and there I will come across an interesting new venture and will check it out, but that is a rare occurrence, and I cannot imagine it's different with any other user.

In turn, the amount of time it takes to create a compelling profile and add all these friends, is not worth it for the visits you may receive to your website.  The average user on Myspace is between about 15-30 years old, so a company must also keep that in mind.  Recently I heard that Cartier set up a Myspace page.  This is certainly a bit unusual for a luxury brand to use a site such as this, but I'm definitely interested to see the reports on the impact of this particular campaign.  I just can't see the average Myspace user being interested in the Cartier brand.  Perhaps the interest is there, but is the money?  While some would say it could be good for branding purposes, does it actually help or hurt the brand?  Myspace has some negative connotations associated with it these days, so it's up for debate. 

I'm not saying there isn't a brand/company/product that can't benefit from such a site, but most are wasting their time.  Myspace is not what it used to be and we'll stick by that statement. 

New reports actually show that conversions of Myspace targeted ads are more impressive than you'd think.  Perhaps that could be an option for advertising, though it's more about pay per click and less about social media marketing.  Either way, think first before setting yourself up on "SpamSpace".