A Wider Net

I’m not sure if the reports of myspace’s demise are greatly exaggerated or not, but the possible collapse of the top-five web juggernaut is mighty interesting. The conversations around this have raised some very interesting questions and reminded us of some valuable lessons about putting all your marketing eggs in one basket.

Myspace feels vulnerable for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that it’s ugly and clunky. It just screams “give us something better so we can jump ship and quickly end the pain”. The banner ads are obnoxious and the ability to cosmetically tailor the page is limited to those willing to suffer through hours of inconceivably non-intuitive trial and error. It also feels uncomfortably “out-growable”. As Rupert Murdoch tries to leverage the 130 million users he recently purchased, his attempts to restrict music and other file sharing that made the site so appealing may cause a mass correction in the user base.

Puddlegum published a thought-provoking piece about myspace, claiming that myspace is about to collapse as its teenage user base moves on to the next big thing. With 3 million bands using myspace to promote their music, the article points out that many or most of these bands have put too much emphasis on promotion via myspace, and too little effort on their own websites and blogs. There’s also a great comment about the Puddlegum article on Blog Business Summit.
The Puddlegum piece implies that myspace should be prescribed as part of a marketing regimen, but not the whole thing, and not at the expense of ones own website and blog. I agree on all counts - myspace has valuable reach and viral potential. It’s also only one “community” among many. Guerilla and viral marketing in online communities should cover a wide variety of these communities.

Bands may want to check out purevolume, and companies should have a look at secondlife, gather, facebook, and squidoo (at least). All of these allow you to add a free to inexpensive presence that, ideally, directs traffic back to your own site. You will, of course, have to take the time to learn what people are looking for on these sites. Once created and in use, the benefits to search engine optimization are also significant - the links and traffic back to your site make you more appealing to search engines. If you’re interested in the heavy details, consider this paper from eMarketer.com, that indicates that ad spending on social networking, currently at $280 million, will balloon to $1.8 billion by 2010.
Spreading your marketing efforts among multiple communities while focusing on your own information hub should sound a lot like a sound financial investing principle. Keep a balanced portfolio, stay alert to trends, and build a solid foundation.

One thing is for sure - there are a lot of people hoping myspace fails and gets replaced with something better. I, for one, will be watching - popcorn in hand.