MySpace is #1 website in traffic in the USA. It is not a secret that the website gets millions and millions of hits. This fact draws thousands and thousands of webmasters hungry for traffic. Search engines progress fast and now it is very difficult to manipulate the top player of the market – Google.

So, webmasters look around for alternatives and attack MySpace. It is hard to say now if the website has more authentic users or webmasters who have created numerous fake profiles to promote their websites and affiliate programs they are signed with. The techniques will be described below.

MySpace is not the place to promote any kind of the website – it is crowded with the younger generation (aged 14-24), they are not likely to be interested in retirement programs and similar stuff. But despite this fact, MySpace is great for marketing other websites.

What most ‘authentic’ MySpace users do with their favorite social network website? They simply hang out, browse forums, send messages, and communicate.

What most online marketers do with MySpace? They try to spread their adv message among a large portion of authentic users asking them either visit their or affiliate websites.

Below comes the list of the most popular techniques used at this time. I am sure that some will become inefficient shortly and some will be invented within the same period of time:

- add friends automatically (auto adder/ trains and similar software)
- add friends manually (yes, it is possible with MySpace)
- send out bulletins to your entire list of automatically generated friends
- send out bulletins to your entire list of manually generated friends

And these are just a few obvious ways to use MySpace for marketing. Now webmasters as really creative people invent new techniques. Examples:

1. If you go to any of pages on videojunkyard.com and look below the video, there is a button that allows the user to post a MySpace bulletin with just 1 click. It was a little challenging to program the button to be fully functional within the php template, but it was definitely worth the work. Smart.
2. Send bulletins or messages with embedded affiliate links. It is a good idea to be an affiliate of some performance incentive programs: subscribe to the newsletter, answer some questions and have a chance to get something for free. It works much better than affiliate links with the offer to by something.
3. Use a script that will automatically repost your message to all friends of the member who clicked on the link. I wonder what results one can achieve using this method. It is said the guy has made “$X,XXX.XX” within 24 hours

If you do not have a MySpace account with a large database of friends you can easily find those who have and will (for a moderate fee) send out your bulletin. I think it is a wise way to test the water before you will spend time on friends’ generation. Other services of those who do business on MySpace:

- they will create profiles with thousands of friends for you;
- they run MySpace layout websites that offer free codes for MySpace accounts

Once you have read about all these marketing techniques, the question is: are there any opportunities for promoting websites more or less legally without spamming users? Yes, thousands of respectful websites have closely integrated their MySpace profiles with websites and at the moment they are one whole thing. The website news and updates are displayed on MySpace profile and it helps them as an extra traffic source of targeted visitors.

Summary: My personal experience with MySpace is not a great success. Probably, the website topic is not appropriate; probably I need to apply more efforts and time. I did not generate a large database of friends and the bulletins I issued did not bring much traffic to the website.

But it works for thousands of other people, so I recommend just trying and probably you will find ‘a magic formula’ that will help you to promote your website via MySpace.

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Occasionally I have an idea to start a forum on www.dropshiparea, but the website at this moment in time does not get many visitors and from my experience of running forums on other websites I am not sure the community will be a success in a situation like this.

But many websites run forums – they add value to the website plus generate some income to their owner. Yes, it is known that forums are harder to monetize than a website, blog or other types of online property. As a rule, community members visit the forums to talk and share their experience. They are completely blind to all types of ads. But it does not mean one should not try and experiment.

- YPN/ AdSense (both – for content and search). Some webmasters disable search for the unregistered users and prompt new visitors to use AdSense Search if they want to find something on the forum.

Google has a heat map for forum owners to run AdSense on their message boards:

- Sell sticky – posts that are placed in a fixed position on the top of forums

- Sell text links – to find those who will pay for links on your forum – advertise directly, use special services (www.text-link-ads.com and similar) or both

- CPM – use adv networks that pay for banner impressions (ValueClick does not allow to place its adv in the forums as well as in blogs; other top CPM networks – Tribalfusion, Burstmedia, Casale – do not restrict it in their terms of service)

- CPA - cost per action networks (Azoogle, CJ, LinkShare): this kind of adv used to be the most efficient a few years back, but no more. But they are a nice addition to your other types of adv. Also join some in-house programs.

There are more methods to monetize forums. I do not doubt that. Would be thankful if you share them with me and the readers.

Important thing to implement on forums: install a rotating script that will serve different creatives from the pool of ads. I think phpAdsNew is the most popular on the market. It is a free and powerful script available here

Summary: Forums are a good way to make your online business less dependent on the search engine behavior and updates. It is the most valuable thing about forums – they are a never ending source of traffic. In addition to this, you have a nice opportunity to earn extra cash using the above methods. Do not expect much, but a nice addition is guaranteed. Just remember to experiment and use what works.

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