This post written from Starbucks in Manhattan - 31st and 6th ave.

There is a lot of buzz lately about social media and web 2.0 super communities Facebook and MySpace.Both are in a heated battle for the top social networking spot on the web. 

MySpace, an obvious player in this arena is the largest online social networking portal on the web with over 61 million registered users. It’s the second largest destination on the web by page views and it demographic splits 50.2% male, 49.8% female with an average age of 16-34. The site attracts 220,000 new registrants daily and there are 50,000 groups including fashion, marketing health, wellness & fitness, sports and recreation, music, film, TV, etc. 

Comparing the numbers side by side, Facebook is not even a close second – but this seems to changing rapidly. 

After opening the site up to more than just college students last September, Facebook took an amazing leap forward in popularity. Currently there are over 25 million users, growing 3% per week, which amounts to 100,000 new users per day! Projections indicate that Facebook will reach 50 million users by end of 2007. Facebook is the 6^th most trafficked site is the US with over 60 billion page views per month. Facebook users seem to be loyal as well (which is rare in the social networking space), 50% of the registered users come back to the site every day. 

While MySpace continues to skew to a younger demographic (just ask my 16 year old cousin who practically lives on MySpace), Facebook’s fastest growing segment of users are in the 25 and older crowd which makes it very attractive to advertisers and marketers.  Many of the social networking masses and business marketers alike are making a shift from MySpace to Facebook stating that MySpace has become too juvenile and spam ridden. The site is slow and the failures are becoming more frequent. The main reason for the failures is that MySpace profiles can be heavily customized if you know how to code in HTML. Rouge HTML code and scripting is causing browser crashes and incompatibilities. Facebook by comparison is much cleaner and does not allow the level of customization that is causing problems on MySpace. Instead Facebook allows the use of approved applications that work on top of their platform. 

To make matters worse for MySpace, in 2006 it was named one of the top 50 coolest websites by Time Magazine and this year it made the list of the 5 worst! Has MySpace fallen out of favor?  Could this be the beginning of the end for MySpace? Will armies of marketers and legions of social networkers just simply move to Facebook or is MySpace “2 legit to quit?”  I use MySpace and Facebook (as well as many other social networking sites) as a vehicle for marketing my book and as a marketer I’m not convinced that the fat lady is quite ready to sing over in the MySpace camp. 

Here are some of the stats I’ve gathered from the website for my book. 

I have roughly an equal amount of friends on both MySpace and Facebook and spend an equal amount of time cultivating each. 

On average over the last 3 months MySpace accounted for more than 25% of the visits to the website for my marketing book (MommyWhereDoCustomersComeFrom.com), that’s more than the visitors from Google and this Blog combined! LinkedIn (yet another social networking site with more of a business focus) sent 8% and Facebook a mere 3%. 

As a marketer, MySpace is still a viable marketing vehicle - period. As a user I totally agree with all of the MySpace rhetoric, it’s slow, way too many failures, too much spam and yes it skews to a lower age group. As a fellow Blogger (and a MySpace friend) commented in one of my earlier posts (Twitter De – Twitter Dumb?), “I am also too old for a MySpace page and I have one of those too”. The part of that comment that jumps off the page, “I have one of those too”. 

It’s my opinion that MySpace is in fact 2 legit 2 quit. As long as they keep adapting and making smart choices that address the concerns of their connected customers, this social media behemoth will not be going anywhere anytime soon. 

The one caveat to that statement is that when I spoke at Affiliate Summit in Miami this year I did attend a session where a MySpace exec stated “we don’t really see Facebook as a competitor”. The last high profile technology company to underestimate their competition was Netscape, they didn’t see Microsoft as a competitor and Microsoft crushed them like a hammer to a grape! 

Recently Microsoft did strike a pretty big deal with Facebook. I hope MySpace wises up before I have to write another MC Hammer inspired post titled, “Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em”. 

This post written from Starbucks in Newark Liberty International Airport, Terminal C.

Marketing has changed dramatically in the past few years. Social networking and social media continues to stir traditional marketers into frenzy.  Conventional marketers such as ad agencies have barely come to grips with the proper usage of the Internet as a sales and marketing vehicle. They continue to disregard cornerstones of successful website design such as usability, load times, strategic content development and search engine friendliness. Instead these traditional marketers tout the benefits of creativity and unique design elements that go against the grain. Creativity ends up blocking communication and no one but the agency benefits.  The proper usage of the web continues to elude a lot of marketers but they seem to be slowly coming around as businesses become better educated on what works and what does not. 

Now throw social media into the mix. BLOGs, viral video, Podcasting and social networking sites such as MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook etc. Most agencies I come in contact with have no idea how to deal with this ever changing medium. Businesses for the most part have no idea what to do in this space and more often than not dismiss the notion altogether citing reasons such as. “Only kids are doing this stuff” or, “We don’t have the time for that”. 

The fact of the matter is your average business owner is a wimp, afraid of spending money and failing or afraid to admit that they just don’t understand it enough to make a go of it. They don’t know where to turn since their traditional marketing channels are as bewildered as they are so they do nothing and hope for the best. 

Hope is not a strategy - Get over it! In the fledgling days of the commercial Internet there were many businesses that simply dismissed the internet as kids stuff or a fad. The ones that looked beyond conventional wisdom and took a chance online are reaping the rewards and the naysayers are licking their wounds and try to play catch up. 

As the title of this article states, “it’s hard out here for a wimp”, business is not for the faint-hearted, it’s tough and marketing is risky, but how is this different from any other time in history? Business has always been complex and marketing has always been a gamble. You cannot dismiss new ways to connect with customers as fads or simply ignore them and pray your business will flourish as it has in the past. The greatest business leaders of our time did not achieve greatness because they were timid. Good businesses do not become great businesses with a play it safe strategy. 

You think social media is going to go away? For the sake of argument, let’s say you’re right. Sites like Second Life or MySpace will eventually fade away. The fact still remains, they exist now and so does the opportunity. One of the foundations of marketing is identifying opportunity and exploiting that opportunity until it no longer has value. When it stops working – move on. So who cares where these sites will be in six months or a year? They are here now and represent an opportunity. 

You simply cannot keep doing the same things over and over again and expect to thrive. In order to grow you must keep moving forward. Don’t have time to BLOG, find the time. Don’t have the time to create a social media strategy, hire someone to do it for you. Contrary to popular belief it does not take that much time to get out there and make connections with your customers. A few hours a week is all you need to get started. 

Yes some people do get carried away and spend far too much time seeking out online friends and get completely wrapped up in the social aspects of this type of Internet marketing. I won’t deny that you can go overboard to the point where you are wasting so much time with social networking that it becomes counter productive. That’s why you never venture into any type of marketing without planning. It’s critical that you create a strategy for this type of marketing. Outline a detailed blueprint of where you want to be, how to properly use the tools and how much time can be allocated to these efforts. 

Your customers are out there connecting with new and exciting medium and you need to be there too because, you can be sure your competition is. 

You don’t have the time – make the time – before all you have it time (think about it). 

This post written from seat 7A on JetBlue flight 525 from New Jersey to Florida on my way to speak on the “website conversion clinic” panel at Affiliate Summit Miami..

In 1988, “The Diabolical” Biz Markie sang (I use the term, “sang” loosely) “you say he’s just a friend” and went on to tell his “baby” she got what he neeeeeeds. I wonder how those lyrics would have differed if the song were written today?
“You say their just MySpace, Facebook, Blog Catalog, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, twitter friends. You say their ALL just friends. Oh BAbY YOooouuu, got the friends that I NEEeed – thank you for the add I said thank you for the add” (I took that a little farther than I thought I could )

Anyway, you get the picture. In today’s connected culture, with all of our advances success still hinges on who you know, perhaps even more important, how you know who you know? You can be very successful but if your MySpace page has no friends, you’re just a big fat loser (making the “L” sign with my fingers on my forehead – which is awkward because I’m on a plane and now people are staring at me. I think someone just alerted the air marshal).

Having online friends is critical. Social networking is fast becoming the status quo. If you’re not out there you’re nowhere. I have more friends then I know what to do with and I want more! Acquiring friends is addictive! The more friends you have the more visible you are. If you don’t think social networking is vital to spreading your marketing message, just take a look at any of our 2008 presidential hopefuls. Hillary, Rudy, Obama they all have MySpace pages! They are all vying for votes by creating online supporters (combined they have over 100,000 friends on MySpace alone) and MySpace isn’t the only place they are trolling for friends. YouTube, Friendster, FaceBook, LinkedIn…they are everywhere!

In business, networking is nothing new. Networking is how good businesses become great ones. Social networking just takes it to extreme levels. Your network becomes viral and connections extend through armies of online friends in the blink of an eye. You make a friend and instantly all of their friends are exposed to you and you to them. You connect with a friend of a friend and it happens again, more people are exposed to you.

There is a downside to being madly connected online; you’re now exposed to thousands of people. Every move you make can now be seen, scrutinized, commented on and can spread quicker than the sizable woman sitting in the seat next to me went through her kosher meal.

An online community of friends is nothing new. Chat rooms and forums were among the first Internet community applications. Forums are still pretty popular. In an online forum, like minded people gather initially discuss a common topic or theme but eventually they end up discussing everything as friendship connections build.

A good friend of mine belongs to a specific Harley Davidson forum. Recently when we were out to dinner he told stories about how his forum members often rally to help their online brethren through rough times. Raising money for members with illnesses or those who have fallen on hard times is a common occurrence. They also act as a global support group or sounding board for those going through divorce, tragedy, loss of a pet or just about anything affecting their lives.

Social networking is going to be a critical marketing component for businesses in the very near future. Email marketing, Podcasting and Blogging have already made significant inroads into the marketing world and social networking sites are closing in fast. If you think MySpace and other social networking sites are kids’ stuff you may just want to rethink your stance - in the words of Biz Markie, “they got what yooou neeEEeed” – friends.

This post written from Starbucks in Oakhurst, NJ

I keep an open mind and try to look at everything from an optimistic point of view. There is not much happening on the web that I don’t get or can’t spin into a marketing strategy but I have to admit that when it comes to twitter – I don’t get it?

For those that don’t know, twitter is a social networking application that appeals primarily to the 18 – 24 year old group. If Blogging were reborn as an extreme sport it would be twitter.  Twitter allows anyone to create a profile and post (twitter) snippets of their lives as they happen (in 140 character increments). Users twitter what is happening in their lives at that very moment. No matter how boring or mundane the activity, people twitter away. They twitter from their web browser, IM and from their cell phones. Twitter describes it as, “A global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing?”

As you can imagine, twitter messages are mind-numbingly trivial. Here is a sample of average twittering:

• Breathing deeply
• Relaxing on the couch
• Trying to wake up and go for a run before it heats up out there.
• Less than 5 hours till I see Transformers movie.
• On my way to work
• Going to bed

My first reaction to twitter was not positive. Do people really have nothing better to do? Have our lives become so boring that we need to read blow by blow updates on the rest of the populous? Are people that self absorbed that they think others want to live vicariously through them? Do we really need to catalog every minute of our lives? – Apparently.

There is no denying twitter’s popularity. I’m wildly impressed with the amount of people twitter has connected with. Not sure what the motivation is to twitter the day away or mindlessly scroll through random twitterings but you can’t argue with success. Twitter found an audience of loyal customers. They twitter in the morning, they twitter in the evening, they twitter all over this land.

As useless as I think twittering is I’ve come to the realization that just because I don’t use something does not make it worthless (it was a hard corner for me to turn). If you really put your mind to it you can extract value from almost anything. Try this on for size. If you have a product or service that targets the 18 – 24 year olds, before you finalize your marketing strategy you may want to spend some time on twitter. You can gather some truly amazing insight into where, how, when and why that age group does, well, everything. From a marketing and customer intelligence perspective does it really get any better then that?

Maybe twitters future is in customer intelligence? Possibly a global marketing focus group or part of another application? Perhaps it will just fade away when the twitter throng move on to the next hot thing?

Right now twitter is hot and the twittering masses are giving the world a glimpse into the happenings of their lives and people seem to like it so I say go for it. Twitter your brains out. Twitter until your fingers bleed but, if you crash into my car while you’re twittering on your cell phone I promise that your next twitter will be “getting my ass kicked”.