I must admit. I used to be a MySpace junkie. For years (yes, I mean years) I would sit on that website and promote. At one time, my band had over 25,000 MySpace friends. I even had over 3000 on my personal account.
I wasn’t really blogging back in those days. I was using it to promote the band I was in at the time. When MySpace first started offering music players for artists, it was like the holy grail of remote promotion was being given to the select people who had the time (and patience) to use it as such. Before sites like MySpace (and sites that predated it, such as the old MP3.Com) the only ways to hit markets outside of your home market was radio or touring. Each of those had it’s own difficult set of challenges (payola anyone?). The web, and MySpace in particular, changed all that. There are many success stories from bands who put up a few songs on MySpace and promoted their way in to a music career.
I would spend hours friending people, writing them nice letters asking them to check out our music, and would watch the music plays ratchet up. When we were coming through on tour, I would make sure to send a note reminding the people in those towns to come out to the show, meet us, and check out the music in full living color.
Then bands, musicians and labels started abusing it. Programmers created applications to automatically add friends and the ‘friends’ got fed up with it. Now it is virtually impossible to use MySpace as a promotional tool unless you are already established as a musician. But what about for blogging? I felt there had to still be worth in a network of over a hundred million people.
I decided to once again use a MySpace promotional approach for some of my new websites and I have been happy with the results so far. You just have to do it all with a personal touch. As a blogger, you have one important thing going for you that bands do not. Many, if not most, of the users on MySpace now have it set where they will not accept friend offers from ‘bands’. By creating a personal and not ‘band’ account, you have a lot more luck finding people without that first line of spam defense. Here are some of the techniques I have been using.
- Make sure you have a legitimate profile. MySpace users can smell a phony profile a mile away. It will be virtually impossible to do anything unless you appear as a living, breathing human. I send out messages from my personal profile. This shows any potential friends that I am sharing a bit of myself, so they don’t have to be scared of my message or what I am trying to plug. If you creat a secondary profile, make it feel as human as possible. Do not make the default photo a logo or a graphic. People will be less likely to add you. Make sure you push your website on your profile, but don’t over do it. A couple links or a banner will do just fine. Avoid making hideous layout creations. Try to keep it clean, simple and professional.
- Make sure you use the filters to properly target your market when searching for friends. When I started doing promotion using MySpace, the tools were not quite as robust as they are now. You can actively filter your search to the exact market you are looking to target. Once you isolate your target, make sure you filter it by last login. There are millions of dead profiles and you want to avoid sending messages that will never get read.
- Make sure you message a friend as well as add their profile. By messaging them, you show them that you are real and not just an add-bot trying to generate huge numbers on an account. It will take twice as long as just hitting the add button, but you will see twice the results.
- Personalize each message you send. I never use a form letter. They don’t work as well as they used to because people just think they are spam. In addition, make sure you put a good subject header. Users of MySpace (especially female users) have become very tired of messages with the subject “hey” just to open it up and it be a spam letter or someone trying to pick them up. Be descriptive but short in the subject. I have been using “Greetings from Scott at _______”. In the message itself, stay professional and explain to them how you found them, and why you think they should check out your website. People are still receptive to things they feel will benefit the. Make sure to not overload the message with graphics.
- Once you add a friend be sure to stay in touch. This is the the most important part of social networking, right? Make sure you keep in touch with those who added you. They obviously like something about what you had to say. If you have a secondary profile, make sure you link to your ‘real’ profile so they can see that you are a human and not a fake profile. Comment people but don’t over do it. Make a category for the users you feel will be the most likely to assist you in your promotional efforts, and give them a little more attention.
- Use bulletins to promote your site but do it sparingly. Users of MySpace have become so used to spam bulletins, they will just look past them if you do it too much. Don’t post bulletins daily. Just post when you have something important to say. This will keep your credibility in check for those who have added you. This way, they will be more inclined to read you bulletin since you don’t send them out all the time.
- Convince friends to link to your website. This may be difficult, but as you get to know some of your friends, see if you can convince them to promote your website on their profile. Their friends will see it, and may add you as a friend. Try to convince friends to send out occasional bulletins talking about your website or product. It may only result in a trickle of extra traffic, but it can grow fast if people cling to your site.
- Keep Active. The more you work at it, the larger your network will grow. And if you do it correctly, it will be a very fruitful endeavor.
I know most people who have blogs will use some of the hipper social media sites such as Digg, but MySpace is still massive. There is a ton of opportunity waiting to be had, and you just have to reach out for it.
Tomorrow, I will post the ways I use Facebook to promote my blogs.
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