Marketing Your Marketing
How to Get the Most Out of Your MySpace Page

You have a MySpace site. Well, it’s just never enough, is it? With so many voices at once, you even have to market your marketing tool now to be successful. It can make one feel as though they were living in an M. C. Escher drawing at times, but MySpace.com does not market your venue and your promotions without action. The good news is there are now specialists devoted to helping you achieve success through MySpace and measuring that success once achieved. There are thousands of Websites geared toward layouts, profiles, techniques and tactics. These have opened up an entire subcategory of professionals proficient in MySpace marketing. Nightclub & Bar enlisted the help of Peter Geisheker, CEO of The Geisheker Group (www.geisheker.com) in Green Bay, Wis., to explain the process of marketing your MySpace page.

NCB: When did your company form, and what are your services?
Geisheker: I would like to start by saying that MySpace.com is an outstanding marketing tool for bars and clubs. I have successfully doubled the customers going to bars and clubs just by using free MySpace marketing. I formed The Geisheker Group as a corporation in 2003, but I have been working as a marketing consultant since 1997.

NCB: What are your top three tips for marketing a MySpace site?
Geisheker: 1. Make your Myspace page fun by including many pictures of people at your bar/club so people can see what they will experience by going to your establishment. You want a lot of group photos with people smiling and having a great time. Show that your place is the hot place to party. Remember, people want an experience, so show them they will get an experience by coming to your bar/club.
2. Make your MySpace page look cool (known as “pimping” your page) by either using a MySpace page layout template (you can find thousands of free MySpace page layout. templates online) or hire a Webmaster to design your MySpace page for you. What you do NOT want is to have a boring page, because it shows you are either old or uncool or both.
3. Add popular songs and change them regularly. 

NCB: What are the top methods of promoting your site once it is built?
Geisheker: 1. Buy a software program known as a “bot” to automate the process of inviting MySpace users to become your friends. A program I highly recommend is Friend Blaster Pro, which you can buy for about $30. It can be downloaded at www.addnewfriends.com.When inviting new MySpace friends, use the software’s search tools to narrow down your search to find MySpace users in your local area. For example, if you have a bar or club in Baltimore, it makes little sense to invite users to become your friends when they live in L.A. You want to focus on inviting people to become friends who are within a radius of about 50 miles or less. I recommend using your MySpace software to invite at least 500 new local MySpace friends to your MySpace page every week. Like all marketing, if you want to be successful, you need to be consistent. This means working at your MySpace marketing a couple of times a week –– forever.
2. Log in to your MySpace account at least every other day to see if any of your friends have a birthday that day (MySpace has a link titled “View Upcoming Birthdays” that you can click to see which of your friends has a birthday). Then, go to that person’s page and wish that person a happy birthday and extend an invitation to come to your establishment to celebrate. This does two great things. First, it shows your customers that you care about them and therefore helps to build a relationship, which is the most important part of customer retention. Second, your kind, happy birthday comment is seen by that person’s MySpace friends –– some of which will go to your MySpace page to become friends with you. 3. Use the “post bulletin” tool on MySpace to post friendly, personalized bulletins letting people know when your establishment is holding special events. When you post a bulletin, a link to your MySpace page will be posted on each of your friend’s pages. If you have 5,000 MySpace friends, then you can literally have a message sent to all 5,000 of these people for free. However, remember that you must be personal with your messages. Talk like you are talking to your best friend. Do NOT talk to people using cold, boring business language. MySpace is a place for friends, and you must respect that.
4. Make sure that you include your contact information and driving directions on your page so it is easy for people to contact you and drive to your physical location.
5. Market your MySpace page Web site address on your print materials including business cards, your Web site, flyers, etc. Let your customers know you have a MySpace page and invite them to become your friends. 

NCB: Should bars build different sites than restaurants have, and what specifically should be different? 
Geisheker: That all depends on thedemographic you wish to attract. I find that MySpace works best for bars and clubs that want to promote a fun party atmosphere for people in their 20s. The demographics of MySpace are a lot of people in their early 20s, so you need to create a page that excites people in that age group. If you are trying to market an upscale somewhat “stuffy” restaurant on MySpace, you are probably not going to have much luck.

NCB: Should there be a person on staff who updates the page to keep it fresh?
Geisheker: Yes! You always want your page to be fresh so people have a reason to come back to it. That means adding new pictures, new music, new event information, etc. To be successful with MySpace marketing, you need to update it at least once every two weeks. The most important aspect is to always be inviting new local friends. Your goal should be to obtain at least 3,000 local friends on your page. By showing you have thousands of friends, it creates a psychological view that your establishment must be very popular, and people want to hang out at the hot place that everybody thinks is cool.  

NCB: Do you have examples of specific bars or restaurants that have had huge success from MySpace marketing?
Geisheker: In the past I worked with both a local bar and a local club to get their MySpace marketing program off the ground. Both had tremendous success. You can visit their MySpace pages at www.myspace.com/doublesbar and www.myspace.com/confettisclubgreenbay.