How can small businesses use social networking sites such as MySpace?

Question

MySpace, Facebook and other social networks have become extremely popular on the Web. How can small businesses develop a presence on these social networks? How can small businesses use these sites to get customers? Examples of successful small business entrepreneurs using these social networking sites will be appreciated.

Answer 1

I've actually contemplated creating a MySpace for the business but have hesitated mostly due to the very nature of MySpace. It's primarily, as you state, a social networking site that's really geared towards person-to-person socialization.

I also think that the nature of the small business will determine if a valid presence can be made or not. For example, businesses geared towards the entertainment industries may fare better than say insurance companies due to the inordinate amount of musicians, wanna be models & actors on MySpace.

There are a few avenues on MySpace that may be worth exploring:

1) Groups: Create a group centered around your small business. Recruit members, encourage discussion, publish posts, etc.

2) Events: Create an event centered around your business, be it in a physical location or out in the virtual world.

3) Classifieds: Pretty self-explanatory

Hmm, now that I took some time to devote some thought to it, I may look into MySpace again. Thanks for the inspiration imisidro!

The social network sites that seem to be more advantageous to small businesses are Squidoo, Ryze & LinkedIn. I'm a member of all three but admittedly have not had much time to devote to exploration.

I'm not familiar with any successful small business entrepreneurs using MySpace or Facebook. Sorry I can't help you there.

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

I usually see a lot of musicians using those sites for promotion. They promote their myspace page on external communications - i.e link on web site, flyers so that their fans know when their next gig is, how to purchase CDs, etc. But usually the promotion of the page is done out-side of myspace.