This is the first of a series I promised a week ago. I’m taking a look at popular social sites and having a little fun imagining new ways to improve functionality.
MySpace
MySpace consists of an audience for marketers that reaches people on a very personal level. It’s almost like being invited into someone’s living room bedroom and sitting down for a chat. These pages are highly personal, rarely professional, and almost always an HTML mess.
Were I to suggest a new MySpace feature, it’d be to really develop a place for their business members. Here’s what I’d propose:
http://business.myspace.com
For starters, I’d give it a subdomain that you could take to go directly to the area. I’d like to see a way where you can tie your personal page to your business page (ie a link to your personal page if you want).
The business page wouldn’t have to have a great deal of functionality, mainly just a customizable page, similar to the one already offered. Just add these features:
A landing page full of helpful business content
I can actually see a portal here that allows people to write business articles (similar to associated content) but specifically written to address business needs. Of course the authors would gain a link to their business’ MySpace page.
The landing page would give them more room to put tasteful (read tasteful) advertising.
Forums
There should be a link from the landing page to the forums. They’ve got the forum traffic already. Have you checked out MySpace’s groups? There are plenty already subdivided by various niche business topics. And, then there’s more room for advertising as well here.
*Remember, forum users are early adopters, usually. And, they are your ‘leaders’. Someone that is an active forum commenter is someone who has passion and will spread the word about your product, good or bad.
Further, to sweeten the MySpace business page, they should include:
- a handful of ‘business’ looking skins
- chat
- b2b tools
- eBooks
- an area for RSS marketing
Of course, if MySpace needed my help, they’d ask. And, I do tend to spin a ‘business’ need where there may not be one.
But I know I’d love to have a place like that, and by the looks of the number of people that add me as their friend that are business folks, I’d say I’m not the only one networking for business through their MySpace.
shout out to that girl from marketing
Thanks for the shout… but onto business – pun intended.
Wow, that’s a great idea. And the first Business oriented MySpace blog post I’ve seen. So many times when I read articles on MySpace it’s written by people who barely use it or have never used it… so they go by what they read the demographics are: young people. So they would never consider this an option.
I have yet to encounter young people and have met many business people on there. Including the first ever other SEO I’ve ever come across that went to my college.
The issue I have is with the sub-domain… is not because I don’t think it’s a great idea, but because I think it would work against their plans to have people view ads. Have you noticed that you always have to see two pages of ads before you log in? I have my cookies set to allow MySpace so that can’t be it. Maybe it’s just the cynic in me that thinks the reason for multiple page views is to inflate what they tell people are their pageviews as well as get you to see more ads. What do you think?
I think you’re onto something there on the pageviews. Very smart…
Gr.. Don’t you think that with their millions of users and their avg 2 hour stays on the site, they’d give up the page view inflation? Geesh…