Youth marketing and MySpace
On BrandRepublic (sub. req.) John Wood, MD at Beechwood Marketing writes:
Anyone who works in marketing who hasn’t visited myspace.com is already out of touch with the youth sector. And once you have visited, you may start by wondering what on earth it is, and why it has been so successful (…). Like a teenager’s bedroom, the site is a mess from a design point of view (…). If you want to get inside the heads of the global youth market, this site should be every marketer’s reference.
Take note.
Yadda, yadda. It’ll be insteresting to see how the youth market reacts to the increasing number of restrictions MySpace will have to put in place.
Also, what will be the reaction of users when MySpace tries to start generating some much need revenues? The majority of UGC sites are using relying on dvertising, but there’s only so much to go around as we saw during the dotbomb years. UGC is still unproven in revenue generation outside of advertising.
It’ll be interesting to see how MySpace approaches alternative revenue streams.
Myspace started in ’03 when, at that time, everyone using that sort of social-networking tool was signed onto Friendster. Now there’s Friendster, Mypsace and Facebook. If Myspace puts up restrictions there are other places for these teens to go. And I’m sure if Myspace needs to generate revenue, they’ll find a good way to do it. Everyone knows the purchasing power of teens.
Blogging site, LiveJournal, raises money in a good way. They offer free memberships but give perks to people who pay a monthly or yearly rate for an account. And I haven’t come across many people who mind.
Must say that article really shows how difficult it is to reach this target group - the new “Idols” of “Content” generation. Actually we have a brand new white paper on the topic. Check out from http://voice.satama.com.
Myspace is great for people in their twenties. For teenagers, though, I would really be scared. Either way, I’m admittedly on it: People Paula.
Probably a new marketing target group - the number of new members is exploding!!
Watch and wait….
Myspace + Hi5 = cues and insights about this “content generation” and their need to share experiences\info. and get recognition\engagement with their own peers.