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The Marketing Potential that MySpace Can Bring | Web Savvy

Jun 12 2008

The Marketing Potential that MySpace Can Bring

Published by Author at 2:51 am under MySpace

Where can you have access over 100 million people and meet over 200,000 new people daily? If you are an advertiser, finding this prime location could be a dream. You may be surprised to find out that such a spot is indeed right at your fingertips. MySpace, a social networking website, became home to its 106 millionth member in September 2006 and welcomes roughly 230,000 new members every day. In addition, the social networking site has surpassed AOL, eBay, and Google in the number of page views it receives.

To add to its charm, MySpace is popular with a wide range of folks. The younger generations check in with their friends and meet new friends, making one facet of MySpace the equivalent of a social club. The business set uses the website for networking, job searching, and idea sharing, and families are able to share videos, pictures, and updates with those afar. It has also become a hot spot for musicians, filmmakers, and comedians, who share enjoy having a free and open venue for sharing their art. It seems that every American could fit into at least one of these categories, making the marketing potential that MySpace can bring quite substantial.

Here are some more facts to convince you of the marketing potential behind the MySpace service. The MySpace service was owned in part by Intermix Media, which was purchased by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation in July of 2005 for $580 million. Economic experts calculate that roughly $327 million of the $580 million total was attributed to the value of the MySpace service. In August of 2006, search engine giant Google signed on to a $900 million deal to provide a Google search engine on the MySpace website. In addition, Fox Broadcasting, a subsidiary of News Corporation, has recently launched MySpace International, a British version of the networking website. A Chinese version, as well as other versions, is apparently in the works.

As a free service, MySpace earns its revenue through advertising sponsors. The company’s privacy policy is quite open about its connections to its advertising partners. In fact, MySpace logs information, including IP address, profile information, aggregate user data, and browser type, from users and visitors to its website. All of this information may be shared with third-parties for advertising purposes. MySpace also allows third-party advertisers who are presenting advertisements on their pages to set and access cookies on users’ computers. Those cookies are then subject to the advertisers’ privacy policies. These cookies allow advertisers to recognize users’ computers, thereby compiling research about which ads were clicked on and where the ads were seen.

Another option for advertisers is the one taken by the self-proclaimed “MySpaceMan.” Claiming to be the “first MySpace Advertising Agency of its kind,” MySpaceMan uses its own MySpace personal profile to gain access to friends and then leaves promotional comments on their profile pages. It’s no surprise that MySpaceMan isn’t the only one investigating new ways garner marketing potential via MySpace. According to Forbes, “another subset of sites has cased in on MySpace’s popularity by creating and selling software designed to automate tasks within the network, such as inviting and confirming friends, posting messages, and sending bulletins.” Hamburger giant, Wendy’s, has created the “Square Burger’s” profile as part of their “It’s Good to be Square” marketing campaign. So far, the popular Square Burger has 90,868 networked friends.

MySpace’s openness to advertisers provides those looking for access to millions of Americans—and now worldwide consumers—with immense marketing potential. And, as expected, advertisers are living up to their end of the bargain and joining the MySpace community with endless creativity.

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