Social Networking Showdown: MySpace

MySpace may not have been the original social networking site, since those who’ve been around long enough can remember Friendster and other such places to meet people online. However, for a long while, MySpace was the reigning social networking site, and today, although it has lost some of its market share to Facebook, it is still highly used, especially by teens and young adults.

But does it have any value to freelancers?

You should use MySpace if…

MySpace is best for people who want to target that younger age group. If your website is about entertainment, you’ll likely find a following on MySpace. On the other hand, if your website is about retirement investing, most of your audience probably doesn’t have MySpace profiles.

MySpace is a great option if you don’t have tons of time for social networking. Once your create your profile and find friends, you don’t need to do a lot of extra work in terms of maintenance. It’s one of the reasons I maintain a MySpace profile, even though I’m not a huge fan of the site in general.

How to Best use MySpace

I recommend having a separate MySpace profile for each website you have, as well as one for yourself as a freelancer. Otherwise, it is just too hard to keep a good list of friends, since interest will vary. For example, I have one MySpace site for myself, focusing on writing and another separate MySpace for the video game blog I help run. My audiences are completely different, so it just makes sense to have two separate sites.

If you’re a blogger, simply repost your best stuff to the MySpace blog – or better, post excerpts with links back to the original. I’ve also found the messaging system to be very helpful, though a word of caution – if you send out too many messages, you’ll find yourself being deleted by your friends, who will see you as a spammer.

How do you find friends in the first place? Start with people you actually know, then add readers and others my posting the link on your blog. I want to discourage you from friend adder services, because these really won’t be high-quality friends. Instead, search for profiles promoting topics like yours and reach out to those people. Chances are that if someone is a professional gamer, they’ll be interested in being my friend on my video game website’s MySpace.

Disadvantages of MySpace

The biggest disadvantage of MySpace is that it can be a waste of time. While you might have quality friends, few people use only MySpace. In fact, almost everyone who uses MySpace also uses Facebook, and I personally prefer Facebook because there are more features. So, you may be repeating work if you already have profiles elsewhere.

Summary

Use MySpace if…

• Your target audience is young, in the 13-25 year old age range
• You can make some time to compile friends at the start, but want an easy way to promote the site without much maintenance
• The topic you’re trying to promote relates to the entertainment field

Do Not Use MySpace if…

• Your topic is more mature
• You want wide-scale promotion of your website

Picture by jimwhimpey.

This post is part of the Social Neworking Showdown here at Bizzia. Check back throughout September for more posts about social networking sites.