Seems to be the week for social media catching undesirables out. US drug dealer Emmanuel Ganpot was identified by bounty hunter Bill Burgess from his Myspace and Facebook profiles.
Ganpot had been facing 15 years in prison but jumped bail from Florida and fled to Britain, where he changed his name by deed poll to “Neo Masuro” and settled in Surrey. Unfortunately for Ganpot, he set up profiles on Myspace and Facebook using his new name but his own photograph. Bounty hunter Bill Burgess tracked him down after he had noticed Ganpot’s friends linking to his new profile.
He has now been returned to the US where he faces a maximum term of 105 years for his original offence and his subsequent law evasion.
As well as your customisable profile page, MySpace gives you lots of other powerful options.
Interaction
When you find a profile page or blog that you like, get involved! Post your comments on the profile or blog, and give the owner an invitation to join your network or add you as a friend.
Remember you should not jump straight in with a sales pitch. This is cheesy and unprofessional, and will alienate you from other users. Just be yourself and add friendly comments and greetings in an effort to attract like-minded people to you.
Friends
The purpose of MySpace is largely to make contacts. And you do this by inviting other users to be on your friends list and accepting invitations from other people.
Here’s an example of how this can be used to further your business cause.
Let’s say you make wedding cakes and have a nice looking profile on Myspace that links to your business site and blog. Myspace has lots of young women who are about to get married, so you could invite literally hundreds of these users to be on your Friends list. Of course once they join your network they will have the chance to sign up for your newsletter, view some photos of your portfolio, read your blog, and visit your website.
In the above example it is highly likely some of the people in your network will like what you have to offer (as long as you’re not too pushy about it) and may become customers!
You can also use the Bulletin feature at MySpace to broadcast a message to your entire friends list. This can be a very powerful feature if used intelligently. You can offer freebies to get people in your network on your regular mailing list, inform them of special promotions, invite them to conference calls, and just about anything else you want to do with the Bulletin feature.
Your Blog
MySpace will also provide you with a blog. This is great because you can post valuable content about your field on a regular basis and give other members some good reading material. It’s vital that you provide good content because this is what will keep people on your blog actually reading, and if they like what you write they are quite likely to invite you to a group or add you to their friends list.
As with article marketing and blogging in general, when using your MySpace blog you need to really show people that you know what you are talking about, or at least that your opinion is backed by good logic. Any time you post your content on the web, especially on a high traffic site like this your credibility is on the line so be sure to do a great job in providing readers with material that will compel them to regard you as someone who is knows about their business.
Forums and Groups
MySpace also has forums and groups on lots of different topics. This is a great opportunity for meeting new people in your niche and using something as simple as a signature link at the bottom of an intelligent post to drive quality traffic to your profile and ultimately your own website.
Bear in mind though, that if you really want to take advantage of these forums and groups then you want to get involved honestly. Add worthwhile contributions to the discussions and start your own conversations.
You want to become a group member that other people like.
Of course you will see loads of ads being posted in these forums. And how do you react when you see all those ads?
Exactly. And that’s how people will react if you go in and start posting ads right away too. They will consider you a spammer and keep right away!
So start by joining the group and the discussions, and integrate your promotions when an appropriate opportunity appears. If the group you have joined is targeted to your niche and you have something of value to them the chance to tell them about it will arise.
If your product or service has an affiliate program you can even contact the group leader and ask them if they would like to promote it to the group in exchange for a nice commission. This way you don’t come across as a pushy salesperson; in fact people expect group leaders to promote products to them.
On that note, you might even want to start your own group. Once you have a good-sized network why not just form your own group and start drawing people into this? An active MySapce group could easily become the top of your sales funnel.
MySpace is a very popular social networking site and has currently over one hundred million members! MySpace, like many other social networking websites allows you to create your own profile, which acts as your own personal web page.
Once you’ve created your profile, you can ask other members to become a member of your network and visa versa. In addition to creating a usual profile with your personal information, you can also include photos, videos, and music clips. Also MySpace is completely free to use.
MySpace has taken the lead in cyberspace. This is because, in what seemed like no time at all, MySpace has grown to become one of the most popular social media websites in all of cyberspace. Particularly admired by music enthusiasts. many bands have developed a following and released music through Myspace.
And while once it was just thought to be a place for teenagers to share photos and talk about bands, recent research has indicated over 50% of MySpace members are over 30!
Businesses are now using MySpace to build their network of customers and drive traffic to their online stores. A Myspace profile should be a kep part of your social media marketing strategy.
The first step to join this online social network is to register for an account. This can be done in just minutes and is easy to do. Although you can view MySpace pages without being registered, you can’t fully interact without your own profile.
Your Profile Page
Once you join MySpace, you can create your own profile page. Don’t settle for the generic profile page they start you out with!
You’ll need to alter this profile immediately so it looks different and matches your business brand. Use the editor facility to change the colors, add background images and photos, and fill in your personal information. Then add loads of interesting content, including pictures and links to your other websites.
To make the process easier, MySpace has a fairly large collection of templates for profiles. These templates change the background of your profile page and the text fonts as well. In addition to using the pre-designed templates, you can also create your own, especially if you have basic knowledge of HTML. You can even purchase custom profile layouts or hire a pro designer to build you something really slick if you wanted. Have a go at googling for “myspace templates” to get some creative ideas.
Please remember your MySpace profile is an extension of you in this cyber community so you want it to be a good representation of who you are and why someone should get to know you. Get across your personality and don’t just post loads of spam or business discussions; remember surfers visit MySpace to meet other people so if you appear to be a fake on your page then you won’t get on with this site.
You are able to (and should!) also place an autoresponder box right on your profile page and offer visitors a freebie for joining your newsletter!
After after creating your own MySpace profile it’s easy to search for others. You can look for others with a wide range of different keywords and phrases. If you are looking for a local person, you can search for your town. If you are searching for a person who shares your interest in soccer, you can look for sports fans. If you find the MySpace page of someone who you’d like to make friends with, you can invite them to be added to your network. In addition to inviting others to join your network, there is a good chance that you will be invited to join others… this is the main benefit of being on MySpace.
Seems to be the week for social media catching undesirables out. US drug dealer Emmanuel Ganpot was identified by bounty hunter Bill Burgess from his Myspace and Facebook profiles.
photo credit: Flyinace2000
