Guide to Using MySpace to Increase Your Company’s Web Presence

KoMarketing Associates’ MySpace strategy is specifically designed to help companies with search-engine optimization, or SEO.

While MySpace has been outpaced by newer social-networking sites like Facebook, it still claims more than 100 million users.

Our guide also shows companies how to:

• The advantages—and disadvantages—of creating a MySpace profile
• Create a profile, step by step
• The right way—and the wrong way—to add “friends” to your profile
• And, important tips to making your profile more popular

MySpace is not advantageous for every person or business but it can be for many. With a strong web presence and such a large community, MySpace is a cost-effective way for businesses to reach their target audience.

Advantages of MySpace

• It’s Free: Unless you are advertising through the site there are no associated costs but your own time.
• Big Network/Large Distribution: MySpace already has millions of users in one place. There are no distribution or email lists involved. MySpace essentially provides companies with one big database.
• Brand Awareness/Reinforcement: Whether you are a well known brand or a smaller business looking to reach a new audience, a MySpace page gives businesses the ability to get their names out there in a way separate from traditional advertising.
• Broaden Your Reach: The age of users on MySpace ranges from 12 -54 with the majority of users between the ages of 20-30. There are very few places or sites where you can reach such a wide age range.
• Simplicity: MySpace profiles are easy to set up and even easier to manage even if you do not have HTML or other coding skills.

Disadvantages of MySpace

• Link Attribution : Any links pointing to the MySpace page are not attributed to the main company site. Therefore, the company site does not benefit (search engine wise) from people linking to the MySpace page.
• Reporting & Analytics: There are currently no reporting capabilities on MySpace to show how many people are coming to the page, what they doing, etc. Each profile does provide a tally of how many times each profile has been viewed, but this is not necessarily an accurate measurement.
• Conversions: Because there is no reporting capability it is hard to tell how many people are ‘converting’. For those linking to the company site, analytics on the main site will show how many people were referred from MySpace.
• Ability to Measure Success: Like most methods of advertising, and especially social media marketing, measuring success is difficult. An increase in traffic without many conversions may be success to some but seen as a failure to others.
• Lack of Control: With no domain or hosting capabilities the user has no control over web host or downtime. The site can be down for maintenance, freeze up or simply shut down for that matter.
• Spam: Like email, MySpace is a victim of spammers. Spam can be found in comments, friend requests, emails, forums and every other aspect of MySpace. Because of this, legit companies have to be careful not to come across as deceptive.
• MySpace as a ‘Fad’: With the large number of social media sites out there and the addition of more every day, MySpace may not be around forever. Sites like Facebook are gaining market share and MySpace will have to work hard to maintain its status.

Download the full report (Adobe PDF format): Guide to Using MySpace to Increase Your Company’s Web Presence