You can build a valuable social marketing network on MySpace by doing the right things … and by not doing the wrong things.

For example … take a look at the MySpace comments on any profile with a lot friends. Almost certainly, over 50% of the comments are, “Thanks for the add.” So in the first interaction with their new MySpace friend, over half of humanity yells out the exact same words. The reader pays no attention, because they see these same words over and over and over.

Why not just write, “Hi. I have ZERO creativity!” or “You are no one special to me!” Why even bother?

People want recognition and validation. They want to be in the “in” group so they’ll know they are popular. But at the same time, they want to feel like they’re unique, one-of-a-kind.

When you add a MySpace comment to someone’s profile, you have an opportunity to create a big impression by delivering on one of these most basic human desires. Not only that … all over this comments section - before YOURS! - are people who can’t think of anything more intimate to say than, “Thanks for the add.” You have a chance to stand out from all of them, over and above all of them.

Remember the old line, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression?” Well, this is your shot. If you say, “Thanks for the add,” then you are just one more in a long series of mind-numbed robots. If you really want to build relationships, it will take a little work, attention, and creativity.

Start with the end in mind. When you are doing social marketing, you want them to click on YOUR picture and go to your profile and read about you, because that is what will really heat up the relationship. If your comment is the same as all the others, why would anyone click on your picture?

So make yourself stand out. When you look at their profile, focus on their list of books (”To Kill a Mockingbird was my favorite, too! Did Harper Lee ever write any other books?”), movies (”Great movie list. I loved Dr. Zhivago, especially the ice castle. What did you like best?”), where they live (”Wow! My best friend is from Germany! Do you ever get to Hamburg?”), who they’d like to meet (”When you and George Clooney get together, PLEASE call me! Which of his body parts is your favorite?”), location (”My husband grew up in Cleveland. Do you ever go down to The Jake to watch the games?”), occupation, schools, their “About me” section, etc. Or anything else (”I’ve seen a lot of MySpace sites. I LOVE your design! My site just doesn’t seem as hot.”)

Find something - anything - you can connect with. Make it a positive comment about them. Show them that unlike everyone else, YOU actually care enough to have read their MySpace profile. And THEN ask a question or add another line designed to get them to click on your photo and come to your site. You don’t have to be that clever, since nobody else is giving them ANY reason to click on their picture. Just notice something about them, and comment on it.

This is a great social networking opportunity. You can easily stand out from the MySpace competition, because they all (even some of the person’s close friends) say, “Thanks for the add.” But you, whom they have never met or talked to, actually read their profile and comment favorably on it. You deliver the recognition and validation they want. That could be the start of a beautiful relationship.

Advertising may not be the best way to get new business from social media sites like Facebook and MySpace. The reality is those sites were not designed to be advertising sites. They were designed to be networking sites.

Imagine this: You are invited to a attend a free trade show in your industry. You decide to go, thinking it could be a good way to meet new people, potential business partners, and customers. When you get to the trade show, before you can walk in the door, you are bombarded with purchasing offers and come ons for products totally unrelated to your industry. The people trying to sell you their products don’t know you, they’ve never met you, they haven’t even asked you if you’re interested in the type of product they’re offering. Yet they feel the need to interrupt your focus and try to sell you something you have no need for and have no interest in.

Finally, you make your way inside the meetin. Now you can be at peace. But not so fast. You approach a table to see who is there and find out that it is run by people who are not related to your business or even have a presence in your industry. They are trying to sell you a product. You move on to the next table. It’s a booth and you make some new friends. These people are in your industry and are there for the same reasons you are. You decide to kill some time and hang out. But the moment you walk away from the table you are bombarded with offers from people in unrelated industries for products you have no desire for. Would you go back to that trade show next year?

Social networking sites are for networking. Don’t be fooled into thinking it’s a great place to advertise. Your best bet for getting new business at Facebook and MySpace is to set up a profile page and become a networker.   This is best for social marketing. With any luck, you’ll be able to ignore the ads.

More than 2,000 users have signed up for the MySpace Developer Platform Forum. I suppose that’s good news, but there have only been 223 posts made so far. This is, after all, the first day of the great race.

The most active user on the forum has only made 15 posts. That leaves a lot of room for someone with a lot of time on his hands to sneak in there and ask a buttload of questions, or provide the answers.

MySpace is entering uncharted territory with its developer platform. Still the most visited social network online, the Murdoch team feels compelled to compete with Facebook on the silliness. All we need is a Super Duper MySpace Wall That Will Talk Your Ear Off. But seriously, if any meaningful apps do come out of the MySpace arena, you can bet there will be thousands of MySpace whores just clamoring over each other to get to the meaninglessness. But then, some of them might actually use a few of those apps to market their businesses. Will you be one of them?

On February 5, MySpace will be launching its developer platform. Following the lead of Facebook, it looks as if the social marketing site may have been taking some notes. They claim to have addressed some of the issues and found a way to avoid the pitfalls that other social networking sites have experienced.

One feature of the MySpace developer platform that looks really promising is its integration with OpenSocial, the joint venture project between MySpace and Google, which was announced late last year.

Adam Ostrow at Mashable actually talked to MySpace COO Amit Kapur and reports that MySpace is addressing privacy issues and spam with its developer platform. I for one am anxious to see how this develops.

There have been tons of marketers head over to MySpace to make a buck. Most of them have fallen on their faces and not made a dime. Then they leave in a huff and scream “MySpace doesn’t work” on their way out the door. The fact is, you can make money on MySpace.

MySpace was started as way for musicians to network and share their love of music. Many bands got their start by finding fans through MySpace. Then they went on to make recordings and sold them. They made money.

Once word got out about that, every Tom, Dick, and Harry in cyberspace decided to try MySpace for pimping their latest widget, gizmo, gadget, or whirligig. But most of them didn’t understand MySpace. They thought they could just show up at the door, throw spam in the kitchen, and get the housewife to yell, “Bring me the checkbook!” But it doesn’t work that way.

Internet marketing is the same anywhere you go. Whether you are trying to do business at Facebook, MySpace, or through Google and Yahoo!, the idea is to produce relevant content.

When you build a new website, do you just throw up a bunch of unrelated keywords and wait for the traffic to show up because you are marketing band-aids and tooth brushes? No. That’s not relevant content. It’s watered down content and it’s been proven that it doesn’t work. So why do you take that approach at MySpace? Why do you build a MySpace page and add every friend you can find even if they’re interests are totally different than yours then spam them with message blasts five times a day asking them to try your new triple wing-ding air-powered motorized scuzzbucket? It’s nuts, but MySpacers do it anyway.

The best approach to using MySpace for selling your products or growing your business is to first know your target market. Would they hang out at MySpace? If not then you shouldn’t either. That’s not the place to sell your thingamajig. On the other hand, if your target market lives on MySpace then you have some potential. Just pay attention to these tips:

• Don’t make friends with just anyone; have a plan. Only invite someone to be your friend, and only approve friend requests, if someone actually has the same interests that you have.
• Do you have diverse and unrelated interests? Set up a MySpace profile for each one.
• Start a MySpace blog and blog to it as often as you can. Publish helpful hints and tips related to your niche topic. Write it just like a normal blog.
• If you have another blog outside of MySpace, use it to drive traffic to your MySpace profile.
• Put a MySpace icon on your website to let your visitors know that you have a MySpace page; link to it.
• You don’t all those fancy schmancy bells and whistles with colorful page designs and hippy-looking polka dotted backgrounds; if you want to customer your space on MySpace, that’s fine; just don’t go overboard.
• Take the music off; nobody wants to listen to Nine Inch Nails just because you like them.
• Don’t spam. Spam is still spam even on MySpace. Only send out messages to all of your friends if you have something important to say. Otherwise, keep the spam in the can.
• Tell people who you are. The most successful MySpace profiles actually include something about the person who rents the space. Tell people what you are interested in and what you are promoting, but don’t hard sell. You’re networking, not carny barking.

That should do it. Make MySpace fun. It’s a networking place. Treat it like any other networking place.

(Source) Social media marketing is more about conversations and influence than it is about offers and conversions. Create accounts, make friends, comment and vote on content.

These two sentences represent the biggest misconception about social media.

Last year I tried to do some marketing through MySpace. I found out that there were so many people going online and setting up a profile then sending out messages to all their friends, like, five times a day. Most of them were just “come on” offers. Not very effective.

Even the blogs were spam oriented. MySpace bloggers would write up a four paragraph article about how great they were at X. There was no relationship building. Just self-congratulatory praises that seemed empty and hollow. I was supposed to just take these anonymous strangers at face value and believe they had the answer to all my dreams only because they said so.

If this is the way you are approaching social media marketing, it’s no wonder you’re not being effective. Whether you use MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, or another medium, the principle is the same. You are there to build relationships. Start a conversation. Or join one. Treat people the same way you’d treat them at a social gathering in your neighborhood. Would you walk up to the punch bowl and just start talking about how wonderful you are without first introducing yourself or trying to get to know the people in the room? If so, you probably have a lot of people who shun you at parties.

It’s time for social marketers to put the social back in marketing - and that means being sociable. Just because you can’t see the person face to face doesn’t mean you should treat them like a piece of meat. They are human. Talk to them like you’d want them to talk to you, and refrain from “pushing.” Just have fun and make contacts. That’s the way to do social media marketing.

The first Open Web Awards hosted by Mashable was a success. The awards night was a bit late since the winners were already announced last December 21, 2007. But still, it was a success and I’m hoping this won’t just be a first.

The conference was held yesterday January 10 at sunny San Francisco, California at the Palace Hotel. The whole Social Media and Web 2.0 community has finally got to recognizing the best of the best. A total of 250,000 votes were cast. Next year, I am certain it’ll be bigger— more nominations, more finalists, and hopefully more sponsors so the prizes will be bigger.

Here are the winners of Mashable’s first ever Open Web Awards.

1. PEOPLE’S CHOICE
Mainstream and Large Social Networks
Netlog

Applications and Widgets
WidgetBucks

Social News and Social Bookmarking
digg

Social Search
facebook

Sports and Fitness
SPORTME

Photo Sharing
VOIS

Video Sharing
Kaltura

Start Pages
iGoogle

Places and Events
myspace.com

Music
PANDORA

Social Shopping
ZliO

Mobile
Google Mobile

Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks
cafemom

3. JUDGE’S CHOICE
Mainstream and Large Social Networks
facebook

Applications and Widgets
Flock

Social News and Social Bookmarking
digg

Social Search
Mahalo

Sports and Fitness
ESPN

Photo Sharing
flickr

Video Sharing
YouTube

Start Pages
netvibe

Places and Events
Meetup

Music
last.fm

Social Shopping
woot!

Mobile
twitter

Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks
FilmCrave

Websites like facebook and digg are lucky to have been awarded twice. I agree more with the Judge’s Choice than with the People’s Choice though.

Congratulations to the winners! Here’s to a more successful and social Web 2.0 and Social Media in 2008!

MySpace is still one of the most visited sites in the whole wide world. But to hear Rebecca at SEOmoz tell it, it’s the worst website in the universe.

In all actuality, I’ve heard a lot of negative stuff about MySpace lately. It was bad before Rupert Murdoch took it over, but it’s been a lot worse since then. Is MySpace still a good place to network and market your products?

I think it is, but not for everyone. Keep in mind that most MySpace users are teenagers. How much spending power do teenagers have? Do they even have credit cards?

OK, some do. The rich ones. But are those the ones hanging out on MySpace? Probably not.

I think MySpace is best used as a branding tool if your market is the high school middle- and lower-middle income bracket SES. Otherwise, Facebook might be the better option for you. One word of warning: Don’t sign up for a MySpace account to market your product thinking that you can just start sending out spam messages and get people to buy what you offer. Spam doesn’t work - even on MySpace.

MySpace has integrated PhotoBucket into its platform finally after owning the photo sharing site for quite some time now:

* Login to your MySpace profile and go post a comment on a friends profile.
* In the comments editor, click on “Add Image from Photobucket”, and you can log directly into your Photobucket album — all without leaving MySpace.
* Browse your Photobucket album to find the image you want to post; click on the one you like and click the “Add image to comment” button.
* All without leaving MySpace!

These look like cool features, but I wonder why they weren’t incorporated earlier. MySpace has allowed users the ability to upload photos, but they have not used a photo sharing site until now. If there is a downside to this it is the fact that Flickr is a much more popular photo sharing site than Photobucket, but Photobucket is gaining. Perhaps this move will get all those MySpace users to start using Photobucket and it will become, by fiat, the most popular photo sharing site. Stranger things have happened.

(Source) In 2006, 61 percent of all U.S. teens visited social a networking site on a monthly basis that number will increase to 70 percent this year. By 2011, one-half of all online adults and 84% of online teens in the US will use social networking each month,” says Ms. Williamson. “There is little to suggest that this activity will go away.”

Do you think this opportunity will pass? I don’t. In fact, I think it will only grow. And with a projected 84% of online teens using social networking sites in 2011, that means by 2015 almost every adult in the country will be using social networking. I can’t think of any better reason not to be advertising.

According to the Search Engine Optimization Journal:

MySpace and Facebook are obviously the big players in the social advertising market, but don’t discount the other options. What is to say that the next MySpace or Facebook cannot come out of any of the new social networking sites that are on their way up at this point in time. The benefits of Facebook and MySpace is that they provide a large “captive” audience and targeted advertising. If you are looking for a social market, these are perhaps the best markets at this time. With social networking options coming from both Yahoo and Google, there should be a range of similarly attractive options on the way. With social marketing it never hurts to play the field.

This is a unique opportunity for advertisers. Facebook and MySpace are very popular social networking sites. The UK has Bebo. There is no reason not to start advertising on these websites right now. And if you consider the niche social networking sites then you have every reason to advertise on these sites due to the targeted nature of the traffic. Social networking may not be business as usual, it if you advertise and advertise to the right audience then you’ll get the usual increase in business that effective advertising affords.

Never mind that Facebook keeps taking heat over their Beacon announcements in the newsfeeds, it seems that MySpace still thinks it’s a good idea to follow their closest competitor’s lead. According to numerous sites, such as Marketing Pilgrim, MySpace will soon be launching “Friends Updates” which will clutter up your home page even more.

I’m not sure why MySpace feels the need to play follow-the-leader with their second place competition, but they are for whatever reason. Add on top of this that MySpace has zero design sense, this will probably turn in to an even uglier mess than the site already is. Not much you can do though as it is still the number one social site out there.

MySpace profile addresses are not the prettiest thing to type out on a business card or promotional flyer. Why not get a domain name?

No, I am not insane.

Go to some place like Go Daddy and register a domain name like “MyCompaniesMySpace.com” and then set up what’s called a “domain redirect”. You will paste your normal MySpace URL into the redirect box, and then any time anyone uses the domain you registered, it takes them directly to your social profile. This works with every type of web page and is easy to set up.

Think of all the places you can put such a simple domain name, increasing your social marketing by leaps and bounds.

With all the talk about Facebook, you would think they have already run off with the crown as the kind of social networks, but they haven’t. Marketing Pilgrim had a break down of the latest numbers from Nielsen, and it shows MySpace is still the king of traffic.

For the month of October, MySpace had a mind boggling 58.8 million unique visitors to Facebook’s 19.5 million. With the way the media lavishes love on Facebook, you’d think the numbers would be much closer together, but at nearly three times the visitors, you can see it’s not even close.

The percent of growth is even misleading as it shows Facebook grew by 125% and MySpace only grew by 19%. While some folks seem to be focusing on this number, I feel it’s misleading. Sure, 125% is impressive, but if you have far less members than your competition, isn’t it easier to achieve that number?

I am certainly not slamming on Facebook, I just don’t get the insane amount of attention it’s getting. So long as they are both big though, you might as well be using them in your marketing!

While MySpace was the first of the social networks to go big, but it has suffered from a problem of users overloading their profiles with garbage. Glittery text, music, videos, and more have made it more and more difficult to navigate profiles without getting annoyed.

Well, like Facebook going insane with their development platform, and flooding the profiles with too many applications, MySpace has announced they are going down a similar path. This will make the profiles even more crowded, and more than likely more annoying, but it is sadly still an important part of your social marketing.

I am so glad LinkedIn has promised not to let their platform get out of control.

I talked yesterday on my Email Marketing Journal about how you should use both a blog and a newsletter, and how they can work together to promote one another. Two things you should think of in regards to social marketing is how these tools can also apply.

First off, in reference to the entry title, MySpace gives you the ability to make “bulletins”. These are announcements that all of your friends can see on their main page and they can then opt to reply to you. It is certainly no guarantee that they will read them, but since it costs you nothing, you certainly won’t lose anything by pasting your newsletter in to a bulletin.

Secondly, just as important to making sure you include your blog address in every newsletter, make sure to show your most important social network links, such as Facebook and LinkedIn. You don’t want to go nuts and have a list of links a mile long at the bottom of the email, but two to three certainly won’t hurt.

The whole key is to making sure as much of your marketing plan works together harmoniously. There’s no reason one part shouldn’t feed, and help, the other.