Myspace - Is it worth the effort ?

[maliciousstudios]

You spent the hours - days learning HTML, you have uploaded hundreds of photos, now you have a cool looking page that people ( mainly kids ) can look at from all around the world. Is it worth it ?? Do you really think it works as a form of exposure ?? Im just curious what others think so heres a Myspace Poll


Vendors and Haunters....

What Do You Think ???

[maliciousstudios]

I post pictures of my work, they take them down.... I post more of my work they take them down....lmfao...yay this is fun ( I LOVE MYSPACE ) I was just curious to hear what others thought or how they felt. I am growing so old of the Myspace site. Its the onlu=y way to comunicate with friends and peers from around the world but, is it really worth it? hmmmm..... Sit and ponder with me wont you ?

[shawnc]

Definitely. It's free and it gets a lot of exposure, which you don't see a lot of these days. You don't even have to learn code or post photos; hire a 16-year-old to do it for you.

No, it's not perfect. But then what is? And it isn't the only way to communicate with friends.

[maliciousstudios]

no its not the only way, but works well with those I have met on Myspace. I know its free, but does it generate revenue ? I guess it probably does....traffic equals revenue. I've answered my own poll.... Damn it lol....

[dr0zombie]

Yea, its worth it. It used to be better for haunts and bands when there were more tools to grab everyone within a radius and send them adds. You can still post events and what not, but as a haunt hitting up everyone in your area with a tool like FriendAdder used to be a great way to get haunt site traffic that first week in October.

[shawnc]

This is generally being alluded to in some other recent threads.

Will you be successful with only a MySpace page? No. With only radio ads? No. With only word-of-mouth advertising? No. With only flyers, newspaper ads, with only posts on verious websites? No.

It's a matter of using everything available to you. You always hear about a business that made a million dollars with one particular ad or promo, but that is really rare and far between. Use anything and everything at your disposal.

[Haunting Copy]

Did y'all read the article Larry wrote in Haunt World about MySpace?

I didn't understand what he meant when he said that the traffic
people were getting from MySpace was from MySpace's
*search engine*, rather than from an individual's profile page.

Can someone explain that to me? Does he mean the traffic that
is going to, say, a specific haunt, is not necessarily traffic from that
haunt's area?

Thanks to anyone who takes the time to answer this question.

Sarah

[Greg Chrise]

Myspace is one of about 100 ways to invite people to your web site. Even the action of asking people in the area to be your friend (timed just right) can come along with a comment to announce the haunt dates and times. Thus you have informed as many as the system will allow per day. Wether they elect to add you to their friends list or not.

Of course if they add you as friends the next season bullitens keep everyone informed. Unless all your friends are only other haunted houses or people all over the country that could care less. You must seek a geographic area and not rely only on MySpace.

Same way, a video, a photo page, a free or featured listing on a haunted house page, each on a number of services available (with slightly different content) becomes a way of generating traffic to a web site. The customer requested the search information as opposed to being spammed with something of no intrest to them.

Oh, yeah and other than time, it is all freely hosted. No paying advertising people. A $20 robot program invites everyone with a Myspace page within 30 miles to your event. Everyone.

Another organic way is to spread the task among all the actors with myspace pages and their friends networks and so on. This increases the daily limit as well as how intimate the invite may become.

So many Myspace pages get zapped or completely deleted at around 25,000 robot found friends so it all has to be built over time in moderation or it may not be there when you need it most.

The myspace page can contain all the information, many may not go to the website and have gotten all the info they need to attend. Traffic is only relative, actually buying tickets at the haunted house or online is the goal.

[maliciousstudios]

Yeah, I do agree.... with a nice page ( which is free + your time ) along with a nice link to your website, Myspace adds traffic which will increase revenue. I guess I just get frustrated with myspace, the robot adds, ( I just bought you for 50.00 - crap ) "you know what I mean.... the adds, the changes... etc. I myself jumped on the wagon as soon as the Myspace site was up and running. Ive always hated chat rooms and whatnot so it was hard for me to deal with. I dont have ICQ or yahoo or whatever allot of the "chatters" have hell the only reason I have Hauntworld is ..... ( hmmmm.... dont know why... maybe its because I have an interest in you guys and Horror ? ) I love Horror, I have been making stuff my whole life, And I love scaring people or grossing them out. I LOVE THE MACABRE.....

( doesnt it suck when you decide to post a poll then answer your own poll within the first couple posts ??.....oh well its only for like 14 days ) Its still interesting to hear how people feel about it.

[Jim Warfield]

The Wrong "Lump".

In a previous post (since I can't read ones not yet typed) someone grouped all the kinds of propaghandi that skinny guys wrapped in old bedsheets can say about your place (and you listen because they look like they are about to starve to death right before your eyes.)
Lumped in with signs, bump-my-stickies, newslesspaper ads and the rest was "Word-Of-Mouth" and it was said you can't operate a haunt with just word of the mouthers.
I think this unfairly lumps this very important method of seeing repeat customers appearing happy, handing you their money, no questions asked (except for that rest room question) at your door.
Compared to the weak, haphazard effect other methods of sometimes tricking and convincing people to show up and give your place a "Look", W.O.M.* is the be-all-end-all place that EVERY business would like to be, and W.O.M." is something that cannot be bought, it has to be earned . Buying other ads and propaghandi get meager results more often than Nazi and they seem to be on the chitti end of anyone's W.O.M." schtik!
Is it tough the "earn" a good, enthusiastic customer?
I dunno, I just put alot of time and energy into what I do here for people and the positive feedback just seems to be there, but then I'm not fibbing and covering the world with posters proclaiming how GREAT I am, I'm too busy with the customers and working on my house to bother fanning such phartz away from my rearend.
Polite people will lie and tell you they can tolerate your odor, butt they really don't like it at all.

*W.O.M.= Word Of Mouth (what else were you expectorating?)

[JamBam]

MySpace

We jumped onto the MySpace bandwagon last year. Had a robot program take us from 100 to 800 friends in one week. We were only inviting closely located friends to keep it local. The myspace zombies/police deleted us and we had to start over.

We opened several sites. One for the robot invites to work, but have held off that tack for now. The other two were for characters and the haunt.

Our friends are only 200 but we also ask our radio station partners to but bulletins out to their lists (1000-20,000 friends) for special items. The casting call gets immediate response. The web trafffic does pretty good.

Bottom line.
Another tool of the many we use.

[Greg Chrise]

One recent success story about Myspace is this lame sounding band of 3 musicians (they have clips on their Myspace page) travel the country with a Dodge van with a trailer wth the band kit in it.

So, they have a tour schedual posted and when in one town, they turn on the myspace page and invite everyone in the next town to their event with little regard for who might want to come. So, on short notice, with sucky music, they are still quarenteed to bring in 50 to 150 customers into a little club somewhere.

To a haunted event, 150 people is nothing to high five about. This might be just the right match for a home haunt or a haunt just starting out. Yet, only some percentage of the population is going to have a Myspace page, then only some percentage is going to think they will go anyhow even if your music sucks as others might be there to meet.

So, it isn't magic. But, it could be considered to be like a magazine havig subscribers built up over a great period of time. It also loses expected efficiency over time a the generally young ones are moving all around the country for school, work, and may still list their home town. So even though you have 6,000 Myspace friends, can you call any of them when you have car trouble?

Just go outside and sit by the side of the road for about 3 months and ask yourself, "how do I work this"

I never thought of this before, Maybe I should take my fat advertsing guy out there to sit with me and wait him out. After he goes though the diva phase, becomes dilerious and loses 30 pounds what will be his solution? Really, just people knowing who I am is going to cost $6,000? Do you know who I am now? Will you ever forget me? What are you going to tell the police?

[Haunting Copy]

I never thought of this before, Maybe I should take my fat advertsing guy out there to sit with me and wait him out. After he goes though the diva phase, becomes dilerious and loses 30 pounds what will be his solution? Really, just people knowing who I am is going to cost $6,000? Do you know who I am now? Will you ever forget me? What are you going to tell the police?

Greg: therapy.

[maliciousstudios]

H E L L Y E A H.....lol