a1-fan-fun

If you think that the only way to take advantage of MySpace for promotional purposes is by spamming its members with endless repetitive comments and bulletins, think again. Trust me, there are smarter and more honest ways. They can be summarised in this simple tip: view and use MySpace as an actual social networking site, not as a sort of spammers paradise.

What you want to do is look for real people who may be really interested in whatever you do. Instead of using the site’s general search, I suggest you use the Groups search. Although the former lets you search people by interest, the latter will lead you directly to the places where people interested in a given subject gather to chat. This will also show you that such people are real and not fake accounts made by spammers. After all, why would a spammer post a reasonable message at a forum?

Before adding a person, of course you must take a look at their profile. On some social networking sites you are expected to at least leave a message to a member before adding him/her to your friends list (Orkut is the first example that comes to my mind). It isn’t the case on MySpace, though. People over there are more liberal in this sense. So, only leave a comment or send a private message if you feel it’s important — or if the person you’re about to add clearly states on their profile that they require it before adding back. On the other hand, if someone takes the initiative to add you, it would be a nice idea to leave them a “thank you for adding me” message after adding them back; this is a common practice at MySpace.

If the first people you’ve added have very specific interests, chances are their existing friends share such interests. So don’t forget to explore their friends lists. Better yet: explore the comments left by their friends. By reading their messages you’ll see who’s been active lately and what they are into.

Speaking of comments, they are your best choice when you want to promote something. After all, they are public, that is, they may be viewed by people who aren’t your friends. Besides, they tend to stand out when compared to bulletins. there is a very simple reason for this: bulletins are too easy to send and reach all friends at once, whereas comments must be posted on an individual basis; as a result, there uses to be much more bulletins than comments on MySpace. Guess which ones have more chances of being read?

Absolutely do not exaggerate when promoting your stuff. Treat your friends as friends. Be nice to the others if you want them to be nice to you. If someone sent you spammy bulletins every single day, how would you feel? Think very carefully about it before sending any messages.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 22nd, 2008 at 2:56 am and is filed under A Visitor's Perspective. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.