MySpace, Marketing, and Libraries

For awhile now I have been noticing television trailers for movies, particularly for the recent film Step Up, direct viewers to their myspace page. It didn’t seem too odd to me, except that I wondered how exactly this worked as a marketing tool. I should admit up front that although I have an account I am not an avid myspace user. My goal in joining myspace has been to connect with and interact with people I went to school with. It seems to me that although their might be some extra content on these advertising myspace pages, the social interaction aspect would be lost.

It seems that this isn’t the case. The Wall Street Journal (article only available in print or for subscribers) had an article in yesterday’s paper “On MySpace, Millions of Users Make ‘Friends’ with Ads.” The article focuses on advertisers using myspace to connect to their audiences, particularly by posting profile pages of fictional characters from movies. For example, Ricky Bobby from Talladega Nights, and John Tucker and the girls from John Tucker Must Die all have myspace pages.

Thousands of fans are adding these profiles as friends. On the one hand this seems like a great marketing tool, connecting to a specific audience. What caught me eye in the article is that the stars themselves and the fictional characters are not interacting at all with the users. They are not adding friends, posting on linked profile pages, etc. Shouldn’t they have somebody responding to at least some of these connections, pushing the marketing tool from mere static myspace profile page to an active myspace user?

This got me thinking about libraries that are creating myspace profiles. Library TechBytes has a list of libraries with myspace pages. This seems like a natural step for libraries, a way to connect to their users. But it simply isn’t enough to post a profile page and let it lie. It’s something that libraries must make a commitment to. They should be checking their page, adding friends, interacting with myspace users. This is the difference between creating a simple advertisement that does nothing, and actively engaging with users.

I hope that libraries continue to learn the lessons of marketing, and stay active in this new social sphere. But I also hope that libraries that enter this arena keep in mind that it requires planning, dedication, and active participation. Libraries that create a myspace page have to be dedicated to keeping up with it, and making sure that it fulfills its purpose. This may mean budgeting time to developing a myspace profile. The benefits may be well worth the staff time required to maintain an active myspace profile.

Technorati Tags: myspace, community marketing, libraries