MySpace as a marketing tool?

First my nephew, a professional rapper (he is playalytical for those of you into rapping), was telling us over dinner how well his business is going and that he has over 30,000 "friends" on MySpace. Which meant absolutely nothing to me. To put things in comparison for us his girlfriend told us she has 20 friends. All of us "old folks" told him we had never been to MySpace.

MySpace came up again the next day. One of the blogs I subscribe to announced a teleclass on using MySpace as a marketing tool and was going to talk about how to promote your book there. I took note of that because I had never heard of using MySpace for marketing before and thought about how MySpace (which I had still never visited) wouldn't apply to my business.

A day later I was having a conversation with one of my business partners about a new business we just launched and she was telling me some things she learned in a class she was taking. You guessed it; get on MySpace was at the top of the list.

You don't have to smack me in the face three days in a row to get my attention - something was telling me to get on MySpace. (I think it's amazing how these things happen)Right after I got off the phone I hopped on MySpace and opened my own account (which is free.) I filled out a lot of personal information, like my hobbies and where I went to school and what kind of music I like. Peeking around at others people's pages I saw you could really customized this and have music and a decorated background. Fun stuff if you have time to play around.

Some interesting facts about MySpace... it's not just for the twenty something's anymore. MySpace has over 4.1 million users and, as of October of 2006, over 40 percent of their visitor base is between the ages of 35-54 (I heard it is 76 percent now but can't back that up). MySpace also has an Alexa ranking of 5 -- which means it is the fifth most searched site on the web.

Using MySpace as a marketing tool is just another different way to reach and share your experiences with prospects.

Here are some MySpace tips I've picked up along the way.

1. Be yourself on MySpace. This is not a place to be formal and business like. Be yourself.

2. Don't make it one more marketing thing you HAVE to do. Go there once a week or so and play around. Invite people to be your friend, look at your friend's pages to get ideas for things to talk about and to find other friends.

3. Make things easy. Your MySpace page will have a built in blog. Take a posting from your regular blog and paste it into your MySpace blog.

4. Have fun with it. Be playful and don't worry about doing or saying the right things. People that like you will be attracted to you.

5. Spend a little bit of time inviting people to be your "friend". You can send your friends bulletins once in a while and keep them updated with what's going on with you.

If you can't figure out how to do the music or background don't stress. Let your thirteen year old that has never been to MySpace hop on there. They'll figure it out in five minutes tops and hook you up. :)