It’s conventional wisdom that MySpace has no use for marketing any longer. Facebook is the “in thing” these days. Like most marketers, our MySpace account has sat dormant for nearly 10 years. But some marketers with “contrarian” views are finding that MySpace can still pack a bit of marketing value, and as other marketers have abandoned it, the hold-outs have the stage all to themselves.

It’s true that MySpace is less popular than in its heyday in 2008 when it was the largest social networking site in the world, but is still has a lot of power. Alexa, for example, ranks it at 1932 in the United States, and the lower an Alexa rank is, the more powerful a site is. If you are looking for backlinks to your site a MySpace link will carry some weight.

You can easily take advantage of MySpace in your business because setting up an account is free. Then you can set about building a page for your business.

That’s easy too bySpace members can generate their website quickly using templates. With templates, you can create a website in very little time.

As you might guess, you don’t have to stop there. If you want a more elaborate website you can. It takes a little extra work, or you can hire someone on one of the gig sites, such as Fiverr, to do the work for you.

For example, here are some of the things you can do to make you a MySpace stand-out:

Adding Background Music

This is one you can easily do yourself:
• Log into your MySpace account
• While logged in visit this web address: http://music.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=music
• Listen to the music available and select a suitable song for your profile
• Click on the link that says “Add” below the song title
• The music is then automatically added to your profile

You can only include one song at a time to your profile, so make it one that reflects your marketing persona.

Adding Videos

Adding videos to MySpace is also not as hard as it seems. You don’t need HTML skills to add videos to your MySpace profile. This is probably worth your time. These videos could be affiliate promotions, for example.

Here’s how:
• Log into your MySpace Account
• From your MySpace homepage, click on the “Add/Change Videos” link
• You are then taken to another page where you can either search through a database of previously uploaded videos or upload your own video
• To search the database, click on the search videos button and browse through the available videos
• After watching a video you can add the video to your profile in a couple of ways. First, you can click on the “Add to my profile” button or you can copy the source code provided and paste this code into the desired location on your profile.

That may be the easiest process, but there’s another way you can add your own videos to your MySpace profile. You can upload them first and then select the ones you want and insert them into your profile later. Either way, don’t violate someone’s copyright or violate any other MySpace terms.

Creating Interactive Features on MySpace

This one takes a bit of work, but it can be powerful. That’s because visitor interaction increases engagement.The interface is a littly wonky, though. You will need some HTML knowledge.

Or if you find a feature on another MySpace website that you like, you can contact the member and ask them how to do it.

Precautions while using MySpace

If you decide to experiment with marketing on MySpace, you should use common sense prudence about your account. You don’t want to share personal information that might give scammers an inroad into your personal life.

You can avoid financial risk (as well as personal danger) by exercising caution while working on MySpace, including emails and instant messages.

This is common sense, but some of our readers are teenagers who may not have been exposed to the dangers, so we want to at least mention the problem.

So avoid posting sensitive personal information on MySpace, such as:

• Full name
• Social security number
• Credit card numbers
• Bank account numbers
• Physical address
• Phone number
• Place of birth
• High school attended and year of graduation
• Names of children and location and date of their births

Understand the Terms of Service

Be sure to familiarize yourself with the terms of service for MySpace. They have changed recently, so take another look even if you read them in the past.

This information is important for a couple of reasons. First it will help you to understand your rights and, second, you will discover the security features and restrictions that you will need to abide by.

MySpace is no longer the 800-pound gorilla in the room, but it can still improve your marketing results. Give it a shot.

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