Social Networking Etiquette for Marketing

With the advent of the “2.0″ era, social marketing was thrust to the center of the business world. Anywhere you look today you will see products being endorsed not by their own websites, but by a social network profile such as Myspace or Facebook etc. Myspace is by far the grandest of them all, and has grown so much that movies now utilize the Myspace profile as the last image in promotion commercials.

If you are not tapping into this frenzy you are completely missing out.

A cautionary note however should be applied. Every social network has its own rules and regulations, as well as its own individuality. The etiquette for Myspace is similar but not completely the same as it is for Facebook. Take note of this. The quickest way to failure on any social network is to break with etiquette.

If you are going to market and advertise a product or service on Myspace for example, take heed of the list below:

1) Do not randomly add a thousand people to your friends list. Take time to cultivate some friends that are actually interested in what you have to offer. Word of mouth from trusted sources is priceless. A little time spent in the beginning on this will pay off well in the end.

2) Under any circumstance do not have more then one audio file playing on your profile at one time. Personally I surf away from most profiles that have audio on them anyway. If a user wants to listen to music they will most likely already be playing some of their own. Keep your profile simple and attractive with less audio. (If you are marketing a musical group, let the user click on play, do not auto play songs!)

3) If you want to tag someones profile, do it tastefully. You will get a much better acceptance rate if you have a tag that is appropriate and fairly small. People do not want skyscaper banners tagged on their profiles. Keep it small and to the point with some text about the person you are tagging.

4) Post some banners and tag buttons on your profile that people can grab for themselves. If someone wants to promote you or your product, make it as easy as you can for them to get at promotional materials.

5) People love fun, interactive items, but they do not like a hundred of them on one page. If you are going to have something quirky and fun, keep it to just one of two things.