How Myspace Can Keep Up

Nydia Davis - April 16, 2009

Twitter’s on the rise, Facebook has reached 200 million users, and Myspace continues to try and keep up. The quick user interaction via Twitter and Facebook rapidly leaves Myspace trailing. But when it comes down to social media marketing, Myspace is still at the top. After partnering with Google and recent upgrades of Myspace Mobile, Myspace aims to accommodate today’s swift social network users, but they’re still playing catch-up.

Everyone’s Tweeting. Companies are promoting themselves, while big corporations use Twitter as a huge instant survey on what their consumers think. The volume is there in terms of traffic for advertising but are Twitter users planning to click on ads while tweeting? The majority of Twitter updates are from done directly from cell phones. Consequently, the vast amounts of tweeters aren’t viewing a web page. Phone updates takes users away from websites and clicking onto other webpages. Continuous Twitter updates and one on one relationships can be overwhelming for users; especially those who are used to the web page experience adopted from the Myspace world of social networking. Single webpages may be the saving grace for Myspace.

Facebook has been the biggest influence for Myspace advancements. If it wasn’t for Facebook and its application updates, some Myspace users may not have lasted as long as they have. It doesn’t seem to matter what applications Myspace migrates from Facebook, because Facebook still takes the lead with reaching 200 million users who are escalating in age, aside from their college users; but these 200 million users are hesitant to click on ads. Facebook’s user increase hasn’t converted into major advertising revenues. Facebook experienced a fifty percent decrease in the amount of users that clicked on ads from 2007 to 2008. Advertisers are just beginning to grasp the user behavior of Facebook and are shifting their focus on branding as a result.

Myspace does stand alone on one thing that has been taken lightly; the Self Service advertising platform that they offer users. SelfServe by MySpace is for display ads on profile pages. Google has a partnership agreement with Myspace which allows advertisers in Google to create ads for Myspace. This agreement had no influence on Myspace’s ad service platform which is similar to Google Adwords. However MySpace platform is geared toward building display ads, not text ads. This similar ad arrangement conveys the same user experience with ads as they do within the Google Adwords search engine. Myspace might be on to something, particularly given that they exclusively use this ad platform layout.

In order for Myspace to stay relevant in social media, it has to be less time consuming. Viewing photo albums and having to comment individually on your friend’s page will begin to push away users who have become accustomed to the quick phone updates and interactions available through Twitter and Facebook. Myspace is dominant in social media advertising, but in order to remain prevalent, the trend of user interaction has to be considered. Users want quick and that’s what Twitter gives them.