promote business on myspace?

[John Dirks Jr]

What do you think about the prospect of promoting your business on Myspace?

There's many articles on the subject.

promote on Myspace

[Brad Manor]

I've never tried Myspace, but I have received a bit of work thanks to Facebook.

-Brad

[John Dirks Jr]

Originally posted by Brad Manor

I've never tried Myspace, but I have received a bit of work thanks to Facebook.

-Brad

Yeah, Facebook. It's similar. The same question applies. I see the places to get a link out at least. What can it hurt? Ya just gotta keep it clean and not use it in a way that others think you're spammin.

I know there have got to be some mixed opinions about the idea among the members here. Come on people, out with it.

[SonOfSwamp]

Well, since you asked, and since I'm curmudgeonly:

No offense to anybody, but I wouldn't hire a home inspector off Facebook or Myspace. Why? Well, maybe it's just me, but I think of those as places for kids -- high school to college age. I've seen many a Facebook and Myspace page, and the content seems childlike. Mostly 18-21 year-olds drinking beer and flashing their whatevers. Lots of messages on "walls" written in text speak, it's not gr8 stuff if u no what I mean. In my own personal experience, I've heard teenagers mock unmercifully the teachers who have Myspace and Facebook pages.

But maybe I looked at the wrong pages...

Anyhow, there are sites for adult businessfolk. I'm no expert, but I think LinkedIn and Twitter are two such sites. I've seen traces of competent adults there.

Personally, I'd stick with local advertising (since pretty much all HI hires are local), targeted at the demographic I'd want to serve. If I wanted web surfers to find me, I'd have a pro create an excellent website for my company, which I'd fill up with useful content. I'd have a pro editor proof it before I put it up in front of the world.

WJ

[Bill Kibbel]

Myspace, Friendster and Facebook seem to be primarily social networks for kids and teens.

I mostly work for rich folks. If I were the type to "network", it would be where I'd find them.

[qhinspect]

Originally posted by Brad Manor

I've never tried Myspace, but I have received a bit of work thanks to Facebook.

-Brad

Don't know anything about facebook besides what was just written.

How did you get the work? Do you pay to advertise? If so, how much to you pay per click?

[gtblum]

Hi John,

What have you got to lose? It's free and sooner or later those 18 to 21 year olds will be looking for a home too. BTW As I'm sure you're aware, there are a lot than just teenagers using these sites. No matter how you do it, when someone asks home inspector? The answer should be, John Dirks right?

It kills me when people tell me "We didn't know you were doing this now. My niece / brother could have used you". My fault!

[Brad Manor]

The way Facebook worked for me was quite simple - I connected with as many long lost friends as I could and made sure my profile said what I did for a living. Of the few jobs I did as a direct result of Facebook, the clients were all folks I knew but had lost touch with, all were fairly affluent, none were in their teens or twenties. As Walter mentioned, LinkedIn is like Facebook for grown-ups. It has also produced some results for me. Any outlet that puts me in touch with my market is worthwhile.

-Brad

[Neal Lewis]

I haven't received any work from Facebook, but it seems to be a good way to keep your name out there in front of friends, realtors, attorneys, etc. Yeah, the comments and exchanges are generally silly, even among adults. I wouldn't think that you could get referrals from the general public searchng for Home Inspector on Facebook.

[SonOfSwamp]

Originally posted by inspecthistoric

Myspace, Friendster and Facebook seem to be primarily social networks for kids and teens.

I mostly work for rich folks. If I were the type to "network", it would be where I'd find them.

That's what I did. Rich folks, taken as a breed, tend to have nice dry finished basements, not crawl spaces.

And they hire experts...

WJid="blue">

[kurt]

I work for a share of the rich folks, but honestly, I like working for the non-rich. Rich folks are a pain in the ass; they tend to work out their entire lives unfilled artistic angst with their houses. Getting stuck between rich folks and their obsession (almost always their house) is a bad place to be.

Normal folks have reasonable expectations, and aren't likely to all of a sudden turn into doberman attack dogs because they find a spot of mold I didn't see.

My knee jerk reaction to finding a home inspector on MySpace would be that they're pedo-creepy types. I realize that's not accurate, but that's the reaction. It's not a business space, it's a social space.

If one can drag work out of it, cool.

[gtblum]

The bottom line is this. John is making an effort to find new ways to promote his business. Go for it. The more exposure you have, the more work you'll get. Sales 101.

I don't know about where you guys live but, if I were to try doing business with only the rich around here, I'd soon be generating reports from under an overpass.

The biggest piece of crap I inspected this year was a $350k house (big $$ for around here) for a rich guy. I'm not sure I agree with the high dollar better house theory.

[SonOfSwamp]

Originally posted by gtblum

The bottom line is this. John is making an effort to find new ways to promote his business. Go for it. The more exposure you have, the more work you'll get. Sales 101.

I don't know about where you guys live but, if I were to try doing business with only the rich around here, I'd soon be generating reports from under an overpass.

The biggest piece of crap I inspected this year was a $350k house (big $$ for around here) for a rich guy. I'm not sure I agree with the high dollar better house theory.

Just to continue with curmudgeonliness, let me gently point out: Where someone gets exposure matters. There may be some rare exceptions, but from everything I know, middle-aged men aren't really part of the Facebook/Myspace demographic. If a middle-aged man gets pub from Facebook/Myspace, it's likely to be via the evening news, and it won't be good pub. Seriously, I think farming for customers on young-adult sites could do more harm than good.

Every HI has a demographic to shoot for. Here in assbackwards-but-ever-so-friendly Nashville, the rich folks are generally not azzpains. In my experience, they're polite and generous to a fault, and their referrals -- especially for expert work -- are excellent.

That said, the typical big fancy $1 - 3M+ house here is often built by the same semi- or unskilled laborers who built all the "starter homes." I had a recurring joke: "The only differences between the big house and the starter house are in cubic feet of air, running feet of molding and stoniness of the countertops."

[Chad Fabry]

The bottom line is this. John is making an effort to find new ways to promote his business. Go for it. The more exposure you have, the more work you'll get. Sales 101

Think of an "association" that gets nothing but bad press and lots of it...

[Jeremy]

Originally posted by SonOfSwamp

That said, the typical big fancy $1 - 3M+ house here is often built by the same semi- or unskilled laborers who built all the "starter homes." I had a recurring joke: "The only differences between the big house and the starter house are in cubic feet of air, running feet of molding and stoniness of the countertops.

Isn't that the truth. Quite often the wormanship is better on the smaller homes. Seems especially true with masonry work.

[gtblum]

Originally posted by SonOfSwamp

There may be some rare exceptions, but from everything I know, middle-aged men aren't really part of the Facebook/Myspace demographic. If a middle-aged man gets pub from Facebook/Myspace, it's likely to be via the evening news, and it won't be good pub. Seriously, I think farming for customers on young-adult sites could do more harm than good.

I don't know about middle aged men but, my middle aged girfriend and her middle aged buddys are on Myspace all of the time. It ain't just for kids anymore.

[Brad Manor]

According to Facebook, their fastest growing demographic segment is people 25 years old and up. My own friend list contains a couple doctors, some lawyers, politicians, and various other professional types. While I don't put too much effort into promoting myself there, the couple thousand dollars in work that came from Facebook are certainly welcome.

-Brad

[kurt]

There is the dynamic my daughter described........

And that is, kids are fleeing MySpace and Facebook because there's "so many old people" in there.

That doesn't mean it's dead, but it does mean the kids are doing what kids do, and that's going to where the old people aren't.

I'd still wouldn't advertise my biz there, anyway. At least, not yet.

[John Dirks Jr]

I wonder if these guys get bad publicity from Myspace.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu ... ID=1647294

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu ... ID=1091307

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu ... =133855177

I think the important thing is how you use it.

[Inspectorjoe]

Originally posted by John Dirks Jr

I wonder if these guys get bad publicity from Myspace.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu ... ID=1647294

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu ... ID=1091307

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu ... =133855177

I think the important thing is how you use it.

John:

The use of Myspace by the Obama campaign was a great success of course. Myspace users were the exact demographic needed to start the campaign momentum and bring in the initial funding.

The Myspace pages of 'George Bush' and 'Warren" don't belong to George Bush and Warren Buffet.

[sepefrio]

There is another BIG factor to consider when thinking about this. Yes, you may only have one client out of 1000 that finds you via that page. But if you had 1000 people view that page, it results in a lot more than 1 client. How? Glad you asked. Remember SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Facebook, Myspace and other popular blogging sites are high end pushers for web page ranking. Thus, with your home page linked to this page, that drives validity to your home page which drives up it's ranking which means you are seen sooner rather than later. So even if the client never knew you had a Facebook or other site, the fact that the Facebook site helped push your Home Inspection site to a higher ranking means the client found you instead of your competition.

Just like you link to here or any organization, the more popular your Facebook or other site, the higher rank you main home page gets. To further this, word I have been getting is that blogging and embedded video are two key factors in the new Google spyder algorithm due out around March.

[John Dirks Jr]

Originally posted by sepefrio

There is another BIG factor to consider when thinking about this. Yes, you may only have one client out of 1000 that finds you via that page. But if you had 1000 people view that page, it results in a lot more than 1 client. How? Glad you asked. Remember SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Facebook, Myspace and other popular blogging sites are high end pushers for web page ranking. Thus, with your home page linked to this page, that drives validity to your home page which drives up it's ranking which means you are seen sooner rather than later. So even if the client never knew you had a Facebook or other site, the fact that the Facebook site helped push your Home Inspection site to a higher ranking means the client found you instead of your competition.

Just like you link to here or any organization, the more popular your Facebook or other site, the higher rank you main home page gets. To further this, word I have been getting is that blogging and embedded video are two key factors in the new Google spyder algorithm due out around March.

I don't know why I didn't make this clear when I first posted but SEO is one of the main reasons I was considering Myspace.

Of course, I wasn't sure to what extent it would improve SEO, although that was my main goal. I was thinking about the social structure and the possibility of negative affect as well.