Internet Marketing

Now, I like many Internet Marketers have ignored MySpace in the past until I came across some software this week that I thought I should try out.

Why have I always had so little respect for MySpace? Well, it always seemed like Facebook for kids to me. Everyone on there seems to be quite ego driven focusing on quantity of friends over quality....

This last point made everything clear. People are less guarded on MySpace, more willing to let a complete stranger into their circle of friends.

Here is some data from Alexa.com that shows users spend more time on MySpace than on Twitter. Especially on Saturday and Sunday. These seem like perfect days to market a product or service on MySpace.

To be honest, I don’t really use MySpace. I set up an account years ago and didn't spend much time with it before moving across to Facebook. I recently re-vamped my profile as I wanted to test the new MySpace web 2.0 layouts.

Clearly MySpace was evolving. The new layout offered much more in terms of personalising your profile. Before I knew it, my new profile had attracted 22 friends. Then was left to gather dust for a while....

Introducing MySpace Friend Blaster.

I had heard of their automated software to attract thousands or even millions of MySpace friends and I was keen to try it out.

I downloaded the trial version, which unfortunately limits you to 50 friend invitations. But this was enough to test the power of the software and whether I should pursue marketing with MySpace.

Now, when I read about the software online, I had a vision of setting it up, and then watch a movie while it works its magic. This was true to some degree; however, every so often you have to fill in a captcha code generated by MySpace (probably to prevent people like me from exploiting MySpace!). You can imagine my disappointment when I got back to the computer after watching my movie to see the captcha screen only 10 friends in!

Still, it does everything it promises to do and you can target your friends based on keywords.
I chose to add people interested in "internet marketing". How it works is it searches Google for the search term from the MySpace site, e.g. Google Search: "internet marketing" site:www.myspace.com. It then extracts the MySpace id of each of these results and the software stores these results for the next step. Once the MySpace id's are extracted you can then type up a brief intro and send it out to these people.

Sure, I could do all of this manually, but I like it madly clicking away while I focus my efforts on other stuff. I was impressed with the price for this software. You can purchase the software for $29.95 US for one MySpace account, or if you’re like me you may go for the unlimited version at $59.95 US and charge clients a fee to build their MySpace presence.

From my trial experiment I now have 83 friends, 61 extra! I was surprised that adding lots of new friends can have a viral effect, with their friends also adding you. I still don't spend much time on MySpace as with today's integration tools, I can post my Facebook and Twitter updates directly to MySpace. This means I have the ability to promote offers to my MySpace friends without even going to the site!

I am still yet to upgrade to the pro version, but will dedicate a future post to the subject down the track. But for now, check out the trial version and let me know what you think of it.