A year ago, MySpace was the darling of social networks, the ‘cool’ brand that everyone wanted to be associated with…these days, everyone is talking about Facebook. It is growing in page views by 50% each month, according to some figures, with up to 1.5 billion page views each day. Amazing figures.
The way that brands can operate on networks like Myspace is through posting up a ‘profile’ about themselves. For example, Wendy’s square burger and ‘Towel Boy’, who is a brand ambassador for Lynx both have thousands of ‘friends’ who like the brand enough to ‘link’ themselves with them. It’s a win-win for the brand, who has an audience of people already predisposed to liking the product to which they can then market. And since each Myspace member will have posted up their likes, dislikes and information about themselves, the brand can target down to a very detailed level if necessary. You got a new lipstick to sell – why not only target girls who wear makeup in their profile pictures? This may sound ridiculous but the potential is there.
Facebook is a different proposition. Here you have people linking with friends, rather than just cool bands or brands that they happen to like. At first glance, that might seem limited in terms of how companies can exploit the system. But there are also ‘groups’ where people can join up to show their interest. For example, do you love Coca-Cola? Why not join the We Love Cola group? Again, people helpfully segment themselves into little categories where you can target them….
What do you think? Why has Facebook suddenly got so popular? Is the Myspace phase over or will there just be an increasing amount of specialist social networks from now on? Is this the ‘long tail’ in action? People start off with the big blockbuster social networks and then fragment onto more specialised ones as they get more used to them? Let us know your views.
