Morristown Nightlife Advertised on Myspace?

This particular post may be of less interest to anyone outside of Morris County, New Jersey, which, as far as I am concerned, IS the best place anyone could dream to live in the United States of America.

MorristownNightlife.com is a new website that has not yet been launched. Their plan is to unite all people who are interested in the club, bar, and dining out scene in Morristown.

Clearly, this site has the potential to be a big success, and I will watch it, as time passes, to determine whether or not they have successfully used the power they have chosen by selecting Morristown.

Three men from the area have began a development process for a site that will give surfers an easy way to figure out where the party is, what the specials are, and when it is all happening. These individuals have chosen to get the buzz on their site started before its initial release to the public.

They have added me on myspace, because I am from the Morris County area, and I fit their target demographic. I have accepted their friend request, because I am interested in what is happening in the area, and I feel that their site could be a success.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Is it a good idea for these people to advertise their site that is not even available to the public yet?

By adding locals on myspace, will it help get the word out for their idea, or will people be upset that their instant gratification needs are not being met?

Services that make Myspace Marketing Easier?!

As I have pointed out, social software has become an extremely important way to market in today's society. Introducing…

Paragon Myspace. Paragon Myspace is a company that is capitalizing on the capitalization of Social Software. Myspace's tagline is "a place for friends," clever Paragon Myspace tags themselves, "A Place for Marketing."

The software they offer has many features for those who wish to market using Myspace. For only $25, users can take advantage of the following features:

• Target your marketing based on age, gender, geographic location, interests, and more.
• Gather friend id's from browsing, groups, forums, friend lists, or any other area of MySpace™.
• Optionally add a message to friend requests to increase the number of accepted requests.
• Option to disable browser images for increased performance.
• Doesn't send friend requests to the same MySpace™ member twice or to your existing friends.
• Unsent friend ids that have been gathered are saved and carried over to the next time you run MySpace™ Friend Adder.
• Tracks and displays number of friend requests sent per day and for all time.

(as seen on http://www.blogger.com/www.paragonmyspace.com)

This program features useful tools for those who do not have the best knowledge of social software. By providing these easy to use features, marketers working within time constraints, can rely on the software to cut down on friend search and add time.

WHAT DO YOU THINK???

Most people feel that friend requests are personal. Is this use of software to gather social software acquaintances ethical?

IS marketing through social software becoming less useful?

Do you find yourself ignoring product, or service based friend requests?

BANDS AND MUSIC

Aside from simple advertising on social sites, many people make accounts to promote their bands and radio stations.

Here is a list of the bands that I have personally friended on myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/thebronx
http://www.myspace.com/savestheday
http://www.myspace.com/kervin
http://www.myspace.com/deccatree
http://www.myspace.com/halfbaked
http://www.myspace.com/insecthobby
http://www.myspace.com/anotherdaylate
http://www.myspace.com/crashingdownnj
http://www.myspace.com/skylinenj
http://www.myspace.com/silentwitnessnj

Each of these bands has music that plays as soon as their page loads. There is a picture of the album cover, and an option to play different songs by the band. Music has become so popular on Myspace, that Tom, the creator of Myspace has created a record lable, known as Myspace records. On this profile, there are advertisements for bands that are signed to the label, or can be found on the compellation cd.

THIS IS DEFINATELY ADVERTISING!

They also sell t-shirts, and, of course, the Myspace compellation album!

As for the bands…

People can add any band as a friend (as I have done). This helps to promote music. By adding bands to the friend list, the artists receive free promotion. Opinion leaders in the music world (friends of Myspace users that know the best music), help facilitate this promotion when their friends view their profiles.

QUESTION:

Clearly it is a good idea for bands to advertise using social software. Would you add a band to your friend list?

IF you heard a band that you enjoy on myspace, would you purchase their album?

HOW do you feel about playing music on myspace profiles?
Would you/do you have a song that plays when your myspace profile loads?

Does it bother you when people have too many effects on their user profiles? (page takes too long to load)

Transworld Business: Myspace Marketing

It seems others besides Forbidden are using Myspace for their marketing! The article which I have linked below is from Transworld, a skating magazine. The article is about Bones, a skate company who does a great deal of marketing through Myspace.

Rob Washburn is the Team Manager for Bones Skateboard Wheels, who claims that at least half of the hits received by the main site, http://www.bones.com/, come from the Myspace page. They have over 1,000 friends, who Washburn claims to personally post comments for all of the friends. His goal for the Myspace account is the goal of any marketer: brand interaction.

According to “Myspace Marketing,” written by Cullen Poythress of Transworld, Washburn tries to promote the brand through weekly contests, and giveaways, but he tries to do so without making it obvious that he is trying to push the company.

Washburn’s favorite aspect of the Bones Myspace account; its cost. It is free, it gets the name out there, and of course, whenever people add the account to their friends list, Bones can be seen by another group of Myspace friends.

Poythress also tells the story of other Myspace skate companies and even skaters who use the service to sell their products. “Listen Skateboarders” claims “that [it] has looked to myspace.com as an avenue for mass promotion and it’s currently playing a key role in the company’s growth.

Skaters Salman Agah and Dave Metty have created a Myspace of their own, geared specifically towards the skating world. Their site, called Icelounge.com, targets skateboarders specifically. This would be a great place for skating companies to interact with skaters, and even get some brand interaction that marketers are so desperately seeking.

A question to all readers:

Do you feel that interacting with a brand on a site like myspace would make you more likely to try a product?

Personally, I feel that a myspace profile gives the brand or product a face it can be associated with. Bands advertise on myspace, not only through their songs playing on users profiles, but by having profiles of their own. (music may be the topic of my next post!!!)

I like to check out pictures of people and read their blogs, or posts, and see what is going on in their lives. Why not do the same for a product or service?

It is cool to see what is happening next, what the newest product is, who is using it, or when it is going to be on sale to the public!

WHAT DO YOU THINK? IS MYSPACE A GOOD PLACE TO SELL PRODUCTS, or DOES ITS USE FOR PRODUCT PROMOTION SIMPLY ANGER PEOPLE?

WOULD YOU ADD A PRODUCT, OR BRAND (IE:BONES) TO YOUR FIRENDS LIST?

PS: I dont care if it is against the rules, DAN! lol.

Marketing through social software?! CAN IT BE?

Recently I have been quite a fan of My Space, a wonderful friend linking site that allows users to meet new people, as well as add their own friends to their personal list.

While visiting my college roommate's My Space friends list, I came across an attractive female whose display name is "ForBiddeN." I asked my roommate who she was, and he told me to check out her profile.

Forbidden is a girl in California who makes destroyed denim jeans. For $100 she will destroy a pair of jeans for anyone and ship it to them. If you supply your own pants, she will do it for $75. She also has her own line of t-shirts and other trendy clothing items and accessories. Forbidden has 740,186 friends as of now. Hypothetically speaking, if each friend from her list bought one pair of destroyed denim jeans, Forbidden would be very busy! And quite rich, too! Her total revenue would be $74,018,600. Quite a bit of money for a girl who does her advertising for FREE on My Space via account!

Forbidden, however, does not rely solely on My Space. Her My Space account has a link to her web page, http://www.destroyeddenim.com/. Here you can purchase any of her merchandise.

Clearly, this is not the type of marketing I am here to blog about! I want to know what you think.

MOST IMPORTANTLY: Would you purchase a pair of jeans that some girl destroyed in her basement for $100, just because you saw them on My Space?
I WOULD! Just because I like to be trendy, I am actually considering buying a pair. I personally do not find the girl that attractive, too much makeup, etc. It is my personal feeling that she deserves my money, simply because of the sheer brilliance of her marketing scheme!

Users of the Face Book; you've all seen the ads on the left side of the screen that are designed specifically for your school. What do you think of these? Have you ever followed a link or gone to an event at your school from The Face Book?

My Space users; do you feel that there is too much advertising? There are banner ads everywhere. Does this stop you from using the service? Do you just ignore the ads? Do you visit any of the links?

Users of other services, ie: Friendster, etc.; what do you think about marketing through this particular medium?

C'est moi!

Aren't I hot?! Interesting enough, I will wash your dishes if you make me dinner! Post on this blog so I can get a good grade!