Is myspace.com worth the hassle?

I have been thinking about joining and promoting my site or whatever but is it worth the hassle? Does anyone get good traffic for this site?

Thanks for the input.

 

Good you asked because I have the same question. Lets see what others say.

 

It really depends on the subject matter of your site. If you have something that suites the typical MySpace user (teen, early 20's) then you can make a killing.

 

That's a good point. The matter will be really important. You won't get much traffic to a site selling gardening equipment. Well, not as much as if you were a hot chick with a site containing photo galleries anyway!

 

what's the best way to leverage myspace?
as far as I can tell you could:
- get lots of 'friends' manually or with a bot
- post some bulletins about the subject
- post a bulletin linking to your site, but be careful not to be spammy

am I wrong?

 

I get a good portion of traffic from there, but that's to my indie music webzine, blog, and directory, because I'm targeting the musicians there.

If your niche market is active there, you might be able to make it work.

Jenn

 

Hi Jenn,
Could you give us an estimate of the traffic you get through MySpace ... in terms of visitors per day?
dfsweb

 

Yes that would be great also if you can tell us the conversion rate of that traffic, also how much time you devote to myspace.com

Thanks so much.

 

I don't get huge numbers per day in general. But it's all about what you consider successful. In my case, I care more about getting repeat visitors than getting massive numbers. I can range from 5 uniques to 4000 uniques in a day depending on what artists I'm featuring and how they promote for me. I'd say usually MySpace accounts for about 40-50% of my traffic. I'm sure if I used the whore trains and spammed people with constant bulletins, I could probably raise that quite a bit, b/c of the band population over there alone. But I consider it unethical and won't do that. I do everything manually, and I only send bulletins when I have real news.

The most I've posted is while promoting my new indie music directory, offering free links to bands and free upgraded links periodically for bands that have worked with me in the past. The bulletins weren't even terribly effective, even though most of these bands have gotten to know me personally through working with me... and if they're not effective in that kind of situation, I can't imagine they'd be effective for just general bulletins. I actually switched just today to emailing the bands and personally inviting them to add their links. Does it take more time? yes. But I've also had the vast majority that I've emailed add their links so far.

I get at least 10 press kits being mailed to me every week for review on my webzine just from bands who find me on Myspace, in addition to 20-30 EPKs asking for reviews. I'm not there specifically for traffic. It's just a perk. I'm there to network and to get those submissions so my writers actually have something to write about.

I spend a lot of time on myspace (when the servers aren't crashing like today), but mostly on a personal account talking to some friends and a few bands I work with on a more personal level. I only sign onto my webzine's account once or twice a day to answer messages (which I get a ton of), and I'd say I only post bulletins and blog posts maybe once or twice a week unless I'm promoting something specific or running a contest. I really don't spend a huge amount of time with it, but bands still find me on their own. I don't add them anymore, but let them come to me instead.

I know I don't use Myspace in the way you traditionally hear about on here. Honestly, I'd never use it at a strict promotional tool, b/c I think it defeats the purpose of the entire site, and if it happens enough people simply won't care enough to use it. Heck, they already block out spammy bulletins... at least I do. If someone keeps posting bulletins, I just delete them no questions asked... I don't even care if they're legitimate. It annoys me to have to keep seeing the same names. I think you're going to get the best conversions and results in general if you just use the tool for what it is: a social networking tool; not a place to just ruthlessly promote your website. But I've argued with enough people on DP about that already.

Jenn

 

In my opinion MySpace isn't worth the hassle unless you have a site that will appeal to the audience on there (as MrGeeK has said already).

You want your site to be unique and entertaining so that the MySpace users you promote to will want to spread the word out of their own free will. If you can achieve this, MySpace is an invaluable resource...

What you don't want is to have a MySpace resource site that needs bulletins posted every so often as it's not sustainable traffic and people start to get angry with you (been there - done that and gave up )

 

If you had to constantly bulletin a MySpace Resource Site your doing something wrong.

 

I didn't - I've sent a total of 3 bulletins. Sorry I didn't make that bit very clear. But there are a LOT of people who are constantly bulletining you promoting their site using automated programs and that was what I was referring to.

I promote my site mainly by my profile page. The thing is so many people message me asking for help etc... that I can't keep up and therefore gave up.

My site gets around 200 visitors a day at the moment and I've taken all the advertising off it. I'm not looking to make cash from that site anymore.

 

Myspace can be very good if the site that you are promoting appeals to the users there. Now that being said, good luck making money off them... I think they are all broke.

 

I get about 23,000 uniques/day from MySpace. I don't have gardening sites though.

 

lol Well, I can't agree with that 100%, although it's along the right lines. I've actually scored some great clients (like a full book publicity campaign) because someone happened to come across my personal profile (not music-related). I don't market it at all, and keep it as personal as possible. But I do put links to all of my sites in my 'about' section talking about what exactly I do w/ my life, and I get a noticeable amount of clicks to some of my sites, like my marketing one especially. It's also good for networking professionally if you use it right.

Jenn