MySpace marketing principles
Friday, October 6th, 2006I was interviewed yesterday by Dearl Miller of Trafficology.com about marketing on MySpace. While I was preparing for the interview I tried to distill the key issues for someone trying promote themselves (as a musician or artist) or a product or service using MySpace.
Here are the three principles I came up with:
You need to be authentic: I would explain this by saying that this is more of an attitude and approach than a marketing tactic. I think the kind of people using MySpace can spot a phony a mile away, and I think to succeed, you really need to be passionate about what you’re selling. I think this will come through in your profile and how you deal with people. While researching the book I interviewed a number of different artists to see if I could obtain some insights into how they used MySpace to promote themselves. The bands that really cared about what they were doing, and cared about their fans, had the profiles that were very engaging.
You need to interact: The Internet is a two-way communications channel; social networking sites even more so. If people show an interest in your profile, make a point of sending a thank you comment. Listen to what people have to say about what you’re doing. One of the big themes in marketing is getting closer to your customer. The idea is that the customer can help you shape the services or products you offer, so that create services or products that are more appealing to your target market. MySpace offers all sorts of opportunities to communicate with your customers, so take advantage of MySpace to interact.
You need to add value: Try to put something on your profile that will add value to the experience of people visiting your profile. It can be something as simple as information, or it can be more. A lot of the promotional sites offer backgrounds, or badges, or widgets that other MySpace members can add to their site.
I’d be very interested in your ideas. Do you agree or disagree with the principles I’ve come up with? Do you have some principles that you’d like to add?