As many of you may know I've been experimenting on using Myspace to promote my businesses. Response has ben pretty good thus far. There is a thirst for knowledge within this social network platform if you know where to look.
Here's a brief article I wrote to help new entrepreneurs get the word out about their business on Myspace. I'm sure many of you may already employ these marketing practices but new entrepreneurs may benefit.
Marketing Yourself On Myspace
by Stephen Ralph
Re-Published In the The Virtual Handshake By Scott Allen from About.com
Using This Networking Giant:
There is no question that utilizing this mega networking portal can significantly increase your exposure. Myspace has roughly 40 million users worldwide and is growing at an exponential rate. Although it’s not the perfect advertising and marketing medium it offers an exceptional platform for you to be heard and get noticed.
Myspace provides you all of the necessary tools to market yourself or your business in a nice clean package. With all of the tools provided by myspace it’s even possible to conduct an Online Business solely from your profile
(definitely not recommended though). Whether you are a model, plumber, online marketer, etc. your business and exposure can significantly increase by exploiting myspace for all of its potential.
Blogging:
The most important feature of your myspace account is your blog. Blogging has taken the web by storm these last few years and has become the “next big thing” in terms of Online Marketing. If you haven’t started utilizing your blog on myspace to market your business
START TODAY. Quite simply, blogging allows you to share your expertise and knowledge with a larger audience.
Syndicating Your Blog Content:
If you’ve already started to blog, you probably noticed a link at the top of your blog page labeled “RSS”. This is essentially your money button. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is written in Extensible Markup Language or XML. So what does it do? RSS feeds allow your blog subscribers to review your latest news without even being on your website or myspace page. Your subscribers can view your latest blog posts via web-based or desktop RSS aggregators such as
SharpReader,
Rocket RSS Reader or
FeedReader to name a few.
Once you’ve started your blog you need to get your blogs RSS feeds into the major Search Engines and RSS/Blog Directories. The very first thing you should do is get yourself a free
My Yahoo! and
MSN Passport account. Once these accounts are set up you can add your RSS feeds directly to your profile. Doing this enables Yahoo! and MSN to spider (or search) your site. This is a known way to rapidly get your website indexed by the search engines.
Now that you’ve loaded your RSS feeds into the search engines you need to spend some time adding your feeds to the top
RSS and Blog Directories on the web. A current listing of the top RSS and Blog directories can be found
HERE. If you’re like me…lazy…you may want to utilize the following RSS submission service provided by
Global Syndication, L.L.C.. I have used Josiah’s RSS submission services in the past and will likely use them again since it only costs a paltry $9.95 per RSS feed and the service is excellent.
Ringing the Dinner Bell:
It’s important to stand up on your soap box and let the world know every time you post a new article on your blog. How do you do this?….By pinging the RSS directories and repositories. Sending out a ping is like raising the red flag on the mailbox to tell the mailman you have new mail to be sent. In this case, you are telling the RSS directories and Blog tracking sites that your site has been updated. I primarily use two sites for pinging the RSS and Blog Directories:
Pngoat and
PingOMatic. (The latter has been pretty buggy lately though.) Make sure you ping only after you add fresh content to your blog.
Tips Before You Write a Post:
Good Information – Offer your viewers quality content information and they will come back again and again. People primarily get online for what…. information! So give it to them. If you provide a product or service give your blog subscribers some inside knowledge they can use and they’ll love you for it.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Before you get carried away writing your articles you need to do some research on what people are actually looking for within your niche or area of expertise. Before I write an article I check
http://inventory.overture.com to see what the general populace is looking for within my niche. This free service will show you how many people are looking for a particular keyword during the past month. There are other great services available but I’m using this one as an example for brevities sake.
Adding A Resource Block – This is where it gets good. No doubt some of you are exceptional writers and others will want to republish your masterpiece. LET THEM! This will only increase your backend traffic to your personal/business web site, your myspace page or your brick and mortar business. People are always looking for good quality information to display on their site. It’s a win-win situation because they get free content and your business and services get more exposure through syndication. You’ll also gain credibility within your respective field as a trusted professional or expert. Here’s an example of what a resource block looks like:
Quote:
About the Author:
Stephen Ralph is the owner and operator of the http://www.top-affiliate.com. Top Affiliate provides free internet advertising for affiliates and affiliate program managers promoting one and two-tier affiliate programs. (You can add your business address, phone # etc. as well here depending on what type of business you operate. If you don’t have your own website yet be sure to put your myspace profile URL and blog URL in here.)
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* Be sure to submit your award winning article(s) to article directories as well such as
EzineArticles .
I hope this information proves useful to you and your business. I wish you all much success in your business and personal endeavors. Laters!