I've wondered what all the buzz was about on Facebook and MySpace and decided to check each one out in-depth and report back to you what I've found. First the similarities:
Both are social networking sites
Both allow you to find and interact with others based on user profiles
Both allow you to enter only the information that you desire in your profile
That is about where the similarities end. Both are unique and different and have different uses. Take a moment and read more to see what I like best about each service.
Facebook: For the Professional Working Crowd
I found that just about all you can customize is your information and your photo. You can enter as much or as little information as you want. Personally, I found Facebook to be rather difficult to use. It is not intuitive. I was able to add myself to one group and was able to add my region preference to see what was going on in the Washington DC area. But I found the nagging search boxes to upload your address book or to search for new contacts irritating. I simply did not like being brow beaten into sharing names and addresses. Don't worry, I didn't upload my address book. I know that my clients value their privacy.
What I did find useful was the feature to link up with co-workers in your office by entering your work address and seeing who else in your company was listed on Facebook. That could be really great if you just started working in a new position or had recently moved to a new branch office.
How would I recommend using Facebook?
If you're a college graduate looking for your first job, I would recommend signing up for Facebook. Use a professional photo, only put corporate information on the page, and post your resume. Working professionals use Facebook, so cater to that crowd in your information. Use Facebook as your online resume. You can point others to it and hopefully even the search engines will pick up your page.
It appears that the Facebook crowd is older and more professional in nature and so the more serious professional who is looking for real business networking opportunities will most likely prefer Facebook; dry as the interface is.
MySpace: Social Networking For Everyone That's Just Plain Fun
You know I just have to say it, MySpace is fun. Clearly this is just one of the reasons why it is so popular with high schoolers, new bands, established musicians, Seniors, and I hope in the future more people just like me.
Here's a link to my MySpace page. My son who is an avid MySpace user helped me to set up my page initially. He had it done in under one hour. I love the ability to add different backgrounds and add music. There are tons of free widgets that you can add to your page, all without knowing any HTML or programming - just cut and paste. You can share videos, pictures, create slide shows, add interactive features, and much more.
As I use MySpace, and ask others what they like about the service, it is clear to me that it is fun, interactive, easy to use, and allows you to meet people all around the world who have similar interests. Kind of like "Pen Pals on steroids!" I do have to say that you can spend hours in setting it up and managing your site, if you wanted to, but you'll have fun doing it.
I found it incredible interesting to see the diversity of music, people, and groups using MySpace. Believe me, it's not just kids using it, there are professionals using MySpace too. If you're in a band and you're not on MySpace yet, you're clearly missing the boat. The music industry and budding musicians have embraced MySpace as a way to get their music top exposure for free.
Teens, college students, professionals, and yes, even grandparents, and Seniors can have fun on MySpace.
Faceoff: Facebook vs. MySpace Which is Best?
If you've read the article above, you probably already know which direction I'm leaning in, but I'll tell you straight out, I clearly prefer MySpace over Facebook. Why?
It's more fun
I love the background and widget customization of MySpace
I like that you can add music and set it to play on page load or as click to play
I didn't find that the interface nags me to upload my address book
The search box is easy to use to find others who share your interests
I like the friends interface that allows you to easily block someone
I find the control panel fairly intuitive and not terribly difficult to use
I know that college age kids and teens in high school already use MySpace, but why not professionals and why not even Senior citizens?
Personally, I can think of many Seniors that I know who feel isolated and if they would just login and get going with MySpace, I think that they would really have fun. What a super way to connect with older grandkids. Tell them logon to your MySpace site and leave a message on your blog or make sure to add themselves to your friends list. Take time to interact with them online even long distance via the Web in an interface that they are comfortable with and understand already.
For professionals, I think that you should at least have a MySpace site to to your personal name. Let your hair down and say and show who you are while still keeping it professional. But unless you have a lot of free time on your hands, most likely the busy professional will simply be too worn out to enjoy the social networking aspect that MySpace affords.
I see MySpace as a fun tool with really great appeal, but an application for the young, unattached, unencumbered, or active Senior. I personally will be spending my free time working on my business blog or my business newsletter not reviewing my MySpace friends list.
So is there a business application side to MySpace? Yes, to a degree. In less than three days, my own MySpace site appeared in position #8 on Google when I did a search under my own name. It is interesting to me that my Facebook page has not appeared yet in the search engine results, just another reason MySpace wins over Facebook.
Should you have a MySpace site? Possibly, if you are an author, business owner on whose name potential clients may search, or industry celebrity you should at least have a page tied to your name. However, the time investment to maintain the site, unless you are in a band, may simply be too steep. I think that you can get more "bang for your buck" right now with a blog. But, if you are looking for a social networking opportunity, wow, MySpace is where it's at and great fun on top of that!
If you want to try out MySpace, our team can set up a "simple" MySpace site and even provide online training to get you started for around $80. We'll install a background, show you how to change it, and show you how to find and add music to your page. Consider it a quick start guide to get your feet wet with MySpace. Contact us today to find out more about setting up your own MySpace site.
Facebook Link:http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=543697406
MySpace Link:http://www.myspace.com/mccordweb
Labels: MySpace
¶ 4/30/2007 07:27:00 AM 1 Comments
You can click the post title to see our My Space site in process. In the next day or so, I will have the McCord Web My Space guru, that it my 18 year old son, get me fixed up so that the site will look like something.
My Space site's can be great networking tools and an opportunity to meet others in your field. Working as a small business entrepreneur, sometimes you feel like you are working in a vacuum, but reaching out on the Web to others creates a vibrant community that not only can be a social release, but may bring you new business as well.
So, I'll keep you posted on my My Space project.
Labels: My Space
¶ 4/19/2007 11:07:00 AM 0 Comments
I can understand possibly this situation in some cases in the ad text, but having the word Hot or Home Equity being trademarked terms??? Come on! I ran into both just recently setting up an account. In the home equity situation we were promoting reverse mortgages for a client and so that ad text mentioned use your home equity for cash. No matter what I did, Google would not release those words and so they could not be used in ad text. Here is another situation, a store which stocks and sells Under Armour clothing could not use Under Armour in their ads or any possible misspellings of the words.
So far Google's rule is restrained to the use of keywords in the ad text in the US but in other countries, you can not even have those words considered infringing in your keyword list. But really consider the word hot. How can this be trademarked?
If you've run into something ridiculous in the trademark infringement arena, click comments and let me know, maybe we can all get a chuckle for the day over what Google considers a trademarked term.
Labels: Google AdWords
¶ 4/19/2007 07:14:00 AM 0 Comments
First Google has announced a new bidding strategy that you can now use instead of max CPC, it is called Preferred Cost per Click. With this new bidding strategy instead of telling Google AdWords what is the maximum you would be willing to pay, now you tell them the average price that you would like to pay or your preferred cost per click. Over the next week or so, this option will be turned on in Google AdWords accounts. I am not sure as to how this will impact performance, but I will certainly be testing it out.
Preferred cost per click bidding will be set at the campaign level so just be aware of that.
Second, Microsoft adCenter has just announced that it is spidering landing pages and assigning a quality score to programs much in the same manner that Google AdWords and Yahoo Sponsored Search Marketing already do. This will help to increase profits for them and improve the ad quality for readers.
So two big changes in the pay for performance arena have happened today!
Labels: Google AdWords
¶ 4/17/2007 04:33:00 PM 0 Comments
Labels: MSN adCenter
¶ 4/13/2007 10:00:00 AM 0 Comments
- Make sure to log in right after your migration. I have found with two different clients that some of the geotargeting for specific city regions was dropped. This was not across the board, but in several ad groups. So be careful to check them all.
- Now you can finally see and easily delete your problem keywords that MSN has been pestering you about every time you have made a change in your ad. Review your keywords by page and delete (finally!) the rejected keywords.
- Make sure to ad separate bids for content. This is done on the keyword bid page and you must click advanced options. Update your search clicks by clicking the button to bring all of them into line and solve the problem of some defaulting back to ridiculously low figures that will garner no traffic, and then change the figure to about one half of your search cost and click the content bid button. I am recommending at this time to pay more than I would typically recommend in the content network as Microsoft does not have a developed content network yet with independent publishers and so the content ads will be showing on high value Microsoft property sites.
Overall the beta interface is a huge improvement over the previous one. Make sure to check out the easy drop down navigation on the bread crumb trail at the top to go to different ad groups and campaigns very easily Yahoo and Google should do this too.
Labels: MSN adCenter Tips
¶ 4/13/2007 09:47:00 AM 0 Comments
- You may only target at the country level. So if you are going to advertising, it is US or full country or multiple country only.
- You should select lead only unless you are selling a product on e-commerce. You can not pay for an action such as a mortgage completed as there is no way to track this. You can however track a sale with a price that doesn't change and one that is variable, but it must be trackable through your store with a special conversion tracking script added.
- You can only have pay per action ads appear in the content network. Your ads will never show on Google when it comes to pay per action.
Hope this helps as you consider if you want to try Google AdWords pay per action. Google is taking sign ups but only inviting a limited number of advertisers at this point, but if you want, here is an invitation to sign up and get on the queue.
Labels: Google AdWords
¶ 4/12/2007 07:59:00 PM 0 Comments
You simply need to add this little snippet to your robots.txt file with your correct information inserted:
Sitemap: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml
It's simple and the big three are all accepting it! You can click my blog post title to read the full article on the Yahoo Search blog that is acting as the press release.
Labels: Google Sitemaps
¶ 4/12/2007 09:51:00 AM 0 Comments
No you won't see the magic yellow carat that Google uses to carry changes to the bottom of the page, but you will see new bulk editing options. That alone is one of the biggest improvements. adCenter is also touting new bulk ad upload features, though I have not tested this one yet, that will allow you to migrate programs easily from Yahoo. Migrating from AdWords takes a bit of work as AdWords ads are done with two line descriptions and Microsoft adCenter has one, like Yahoo. But truthfully any improvement there will be welcome.
I am testing out the Microsoft content network tomorrow and will let you know what happens with that in the next few days. I feel like I will ride that train until they add a publisher network and quality goes into the trash basket. Right now content will be on top dollar, high value Microsoft property sites, so it won't be cheap, but the quality for the time being may be as good as the MSN and Live Search vehicles. ¶ 4/11/2007 02:02:00 PM 0 Comments
First you can now add your entire store database to Google Base and show your products not only in Froogle with one feed, but in Google AdWords. And now Google Base is targeting real estate agents, brokers, IDX suppliers, and MLS search engines.
If you are an agent or broker, you can create or have created for you a Google Base feed that contains a database of sorts of your listings. You can do this manually one by one or create a text file or XML file and upload with one click all your listings.
The only problem that I see right now is that listings only last 14 days at this point, so it means that you really need to update your feed once a week and reload it at least every week and one half to be sure that your listings don't fall out. Hopefully Google will fix that aspect soon.
In the meantime, it may be an opportunity for you to get more exposure for your listings in a very cost effective manner. Personally due to the time to create a feed and to maintain it, if I were an agent or broker I would be pushing my IDX supplier to embrace this technology and do the heavy lifting for me and let them absorb the costs. But for tech savvy agents and brokers, this may be a neat way to stay on top of the game before the IDX and MLS suppliers get with the program.
If you do decide to invest the time and resources to do a feed for Google Base, it would be incredibly smart to market this as a perk to your clients that not only do you now give them MLS exposure, but all listings appear on Google Maps, Google AdWords and in the Google search index when you use Google Base. Using the power of Google you can leverage more real estate exposure for yourself and your clients with Google Base.
Labels: Google Base
¶ 4/06/2007 10:21:00 AM 0 Comments
It's short and sweet, you'll learn something new guaranteed! ¶ 4/02/2007 12:00:00 PM 0 Comments
