MySpace Marketing Profile: Husband 4 Rent

Lately I have had the opportunity to speak with several people about promoting their offline business on the internet, so when I ran across the Husband 4 Rent on MySpace I paid attention to how he was using the community to promote his offline business.

As you might have guessed from the name of his business, Gene Simpkins provides general handyman services in his local area. He doesnt have a website set up, but instead simply uses MySpace to gain exposure online. A quick search on Google shows that he is also using Craigslist and the Nashville.com classifieds to get the word out.

What interests me about Gene’s marketing plan, and why I chose to profile this “online marketer”, is the way that he uses MySpace to promote his business.

Gene is not blatantly advertising across MySpace, annoying other members and risking removal of his profile and account. Instead, he obviously appreciates the power of this highly-popular social network, and is using it to gain exposure and build relationships.

If you study the Husband 4 Rent profile and connections, you will see that he sets a perfect example of proper MySpace marketing. Some of the tips you might pick up from Gene are:

• Choose a short, catchy username. Using a long name, or odd characters, loses its effect on MySpace very quickly. Only so many characters will display in comments and inboxes, so you want to use something that will catch peoples attention at a glance. You would be better served to use your real name or your business name than you would a spammy slogan like “Get Rich Quick!!! I’ll Show You How!!!” which will just get ignored. Keep in mind that this is a social network, and your primary goal is to network and build relationships.

• Include a photo of yourself. Dont use your business logo or a product image as your main profile picture. You can upload these to your Pictures page, and even place them on your main profile page in the content area, but you want your main image to be ‘approachable’. As you can see, Gene has used photos of himself that include his contact information as part of the image. This is a great example of Photo Marketing. It is subtle (ie not spammy) yet effective.

• Be Personable, Not Promotional. Most marketers will take the first opportunity to post blatant spam in the comments area of your MySpace profile. They might use flashy images, logos or links – but it is obvious that they are more interested in promoting their business or website than they are in greeting you. These are the comments I always delete from my profile right away. Instead, follow Gene’s example and let the network work in the way it was intended: if people are interested (based on your photo, username and general impression of your character), they will click through to your profile. Period.

• Use a Clean, Easy to Read Template. Snazzy MySpace templates are cool, sure – but they make your text very hard to read. Distractions like music blaring or glittery animations are for the teens – not for the marketers. On Gene’s profile, you will notice that he uses a slideshow to display his images and then describes the services that he offers along with his contact information. It’s very personable, and very professional.

• Be Deliberate in Building a Reputation. In Gene’s business, he obviously needs to build a repuation online as a trustworthy, dependable professional. This is important if he expects people to hire him for work to be done at or in their home. In addition to the trust factor, its well-known that people hire people they like. If you annoy or offend people, you wont gain their business OR their referrals.

• Network With Other Professionals. In addition to reaching your target market, social networks are a great place to connect with other professionals in your industry. These connections are invaluable to the small business owner, as a positive relationships will encourage professional recommendations. Great examples on Gene’s profile include Mother’s Touch House Cleaning and 21st Century Termite Control. I wish the housekeeper was in my local area, as the testimonial in her comments section made me want to hire her!

If you set up a MySpace profile specifically to promote your business or gain exposure in your local area, it’s important that you keep everything related to your profile on target. If you add blog posts or photos to your profile, make sure they are related and professional. If you want to use MySpace for personal socializing, then set up a separate profile for that and keep your business profile professional.

I was impressed with Gene, and with his business, and specifically with how well he presents himself through MySpace. It is free online marketing, and I assume very effective for him. By the way, his MySpace profile ranks in the top 3 on Google for “Husband 4 Rent”. While this may not be an ideal keyword phrase, you can see how helpful this might be for someone who doesnt want to invest the time and money to develop a full-blown website and marketing plan…

Technorati Tags: myspace marketing, husband 4 rent, gene simpkins, free advertising, social networking

Category: Internet Marketing

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