Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Turning MySpace into Ad Space:
" Published: December 06, 2005
(After January 05, 2006, this article will only be available to eStat Database subscribers.)
Not many significantly-sized sites have experienced growth of 609% in audience size over the last year. That's just one reason MySpace, with nearly 25 million members, is attracting so much attention.
Social networking Web sites like MySpace, Facebook, Friendster and Xanga allow users to set up personal Web pages listing biographical information about them, from what they look like (including the option, taken by most, of posting a picture) to their favorite TV shows, foods, places and much more. Users can then link up with their friends, and potential friends, through the Web site, creating a huge personalized online community and network.
The popularity of MySpace has exploded in the past year. Numbering under 3.5 million members in October 2004, it had over 24 million one year later, according to comScore Media Metrix. A crucial aspect of MySpace's success has been its tie-in with music and, increasingly, other forms of entertainment. By allowing bands to easily set up pages, including templates for uploading pictures, displaying upcoming shows and streaming songs, MySpace gives users another reason to surf through pages besides just looking at profiles. It has also created online fan clubs for various groups, bolstering membership and creating a feeling of being at the ground floor of building a group's fanbase.
The people using these sites are primarily young ? in October 2005, visitors to MySpace were 139% more likely to be under the age of 17 than among the general Internet population, while Facebook, which caters to a college-age crowd, had an audience with a 283% greater incidence of 18 to 24 year-olds than among the overall online populace.
While these Web sites offer an attractive opportunity for marketers, comScore notes that peers often have greater influences on these site's members than corporate entities. Employing alternate marketing techniques that spread praise for a product through users rather than traditional visual advertising could be more effective on social networking sites. Since many bands have used these sites to connect with listeners, and now companies are partnering with music groups, movies and television attractive to a young audience to get directly connected to social networking users, sometimes setting up their own profile that can become a "friend" of network members.
That being said, there is also plenty of opportunity for youth-oriented text, image and rich media advertising on MySpace, Facebook and other sites. Most band and personal sites on MySpace, for example, include a banner ad at the top, often including rich text, and the MySpace front page where users log-in has additional image and text ads. With the acquisition of MySpace by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. earlier this year, it remains to be seen how much the advertising environment on the site will change. As it stands now, the it seems to have found the recipe for success, and advertisers are very interested.
To learn about other new methods marketers are using to advertise on the Net, read eMarketer's Online Video Advertising report."
" Published: December 06, 2005
(After January 05, 2006, this article will only be available to eStat Database subscribers.)
Not many significantly-sized sites have experienced growth of 609% in audience size over the last year. That's just one reason MySpace, with nearly 25 million members, is attracting so much attention.
Social networking Web sites like MySpace, Facebook, Friendster and Xanga allow users to set up personal Web pages listing biographical information about them, from what they look like (including the option, taken by most, of posting a picture) to their favorite TV shows, foods, places and much more. Users can then link up with their friends, and potential friends, through the Web site, creating a huge personalized online community and network.
The popularity of MySpace has exploded in the past year. Numbering under 3.5 million members in October 2004, it had over 24 million one year later, according to comScore Media Metrix. A crucial aspect of MySpace's success has been its tie-in with music and, increasingly, other forms of entertainment. By allowing bands to easily set up pages, including templates for uploading pictures, displaying upcoming shows and streaming songs, MySpace gives users another reason to surf through pages besides just looking at profiles. It has also created online fan clubs for various groups, bolstering membership and creating a feeling of being at the ground floor of building a group's fanbase.
The people using these sites are primarily young ? in October 2005, visitors to MySpace were 139% more likely to be under the age of 17 than among the general Internet population, while Facebook, which caters to a college-age crowd, had an audience with a 283% greater incidence of 18 to 24 year-olds than among the overall online populace.
While these Web sites offer an attractive opportunity for marketers, comScore notes that peers often have greater influences on these site's members than corporate entities. Employing alternate marketing techniques that spread praise for a product through users rather than traditional visual advertising could be more effective on social networking sites. Since many bands have used these sites to connect with listeners, and now companies are partnering with music groups, movies and television attractive to a young audience to get directly connected to social networking users, sometimes setting up their own profile that can become a "friend" of network members.
That being said, there is also plenty of opportunity for youth-oriented text, image and rich media advertising on MySpace, Facebook and other sites. Most band and personal sites on MySpace, for example, include a banner ad at the top, often including rich text, and the MySpace front page where users log-in has additional image and text ads. With the acquisition of MySpace by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. earlier this year, it remains to be seen how much the advertising environment on the site will change. As it stands now, the it seems to have found the recipe for success, and advertisers are very interested.
To learn about other new methods marketers are using to advertise on the Net, read eMarketer's Online Video Advertising report."
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