And Then There Was MySpace...
Posted by Sandy Fitzgerald on Thu, Aug 27, 2009
Once upon a time, there was this website called MySpace.
Oh, it was great. You could go on there, build a profile page, put all your pictures up on there, chat with all your MySpace friends, listen to music, look for a job and much more. It was fun.
Of course, MySpace is still there and there are still people who use it, especially teen boys who are looking for the girls posing in weirdly innocent but risque positions. Unfortunately for MySpace, the planners didn't keep up with the way the rest of the world operates.
The word right now is immediacy. Folks just don't have time to go find someone's page to see what they're up to. They want to see what comments are being made, what plans are being tossed out there and how others are responding to them. In the time it takes for a typical MySpace page to load, a web surfer can go on Twitter, get a whole page of updates from a variety of people, and tell the whole world what they're doing. And while many companies jumped on the MySpace bandwagon, they soon learned what the young people learned much more quickly: it's better to see what everyone is doing, rather than just one person at a time.
If your company is still working to maintain its MySpace page, it's quite frankly behind the way the rest of the world is getting its information. The key to successful marketing is to follow the trends, and the trend for effective communication in today's business place is speed.
If you don't have a marketing person who can get your basic message out there, and draw customers in with 140 characters or fewer, then you need to find someone who knows your business better.
And the marketing person who can't take a site like Facebook and get people involved in your business is one who hasn't yet learned the value of building a buzz.
Of course, in upcoming years Facebook and Twitter will also become obsolete, and something new will take their place. If it's new and cool, the kids will discover it first and the rest of us will follow along and make it our own.
Meanwhile, what social marketing methods are your company using? Are they current and with the way the rest of the world is searching, or are they like MySpace - kind of cute, kind of fun but not really all that effective?
Unless, of course, you are in the business of showing girls posing in kind of naughty positions.