Automatic or Manual

There are many programs which can be used to gather friends, and build up your contact list, so you have a wider audience to advertise too, this is a 100% automatic method of gaining friends apart from maintaining your profile that is.

Many people find the personal approach works better however - this works very well for niche sites or businesses. This basically means browsing through MySpace, and individually Friend Requesting those who seem to fit your target audience. It may take a lot longer, but for certain niches it has worked out very well for some people.

MySpace Trains

A MySpace Train is a script that allows users to post their profile on a page, for other users to add them. After the train is full, it is reset for a new Round and you can join again. It may sound fair basic, and a waste of time, but joining trains is probably the best way to get friends on MySpace. Why? There is a limit to how many friend requests you can send, but with trains you are getting requested, and there is no limit on that.

This method is not recommended for those looking to advertise a Niche, as the friends are completely untargeted.

To collect friends effectively with trains you will need to use a program to automatically do it for you. There are many programs like this and they are outlined at the bottom of this article they will allow you to be the first on many of the most popular MySpace trains, and maximize your friend requests. You can receive 500+ friend requests a day if you leave it running 24 hours a day.

Real or Fake?

There is no law against making a fake MySpace account to gain extra friends (some find a Bikini-clad female to receive more attention, than a 45 year old business man), in fact no one will ever know it is more of a moral, or even business plan issue.

Moral Issue? Some people simply disagree with being untruthful, and having a fake profile will not be acceptable, for the profile creator, or its viewers. Even if you have no problem with it, if one of your friends finds out, you can say goodbye to your marketing days.

Business Plan Issue? Basically, this means that you may or may not need a real or fake account. You simply have to decide what will work better for you and your company. If you are advertising a Golf company for example, having a surf chick in your profile is neither convincing, or useful.

Maintaining your Profile

You cant just fill out some basic details, and leave your profile sitting there while friend collecting people will see something is not right (and not appreciate it). You do not need to do much to maintain your profile, and these few steps can help:

Update your blog at least once every 3 days.

Fill out as much of your profile as you can before you start friend requesting.

Change your Profiles design to give it a more personal feel many free templates are available around the internet that are perfectly fine.

Include photos of yourself, or at least have a few pictures in your gallery.

Comment on your friends profiles occasionally, so they know you are still there.

Reply to as many messages as possible.

Maintaining your Profile Automatically?

If you use automatic methods to gain large lists of friends you will probably not have the time or patience to comment on all their pages, or respond to their messages.

Firstly, attempt to at least comment on a few profiles yourself, to show that you care (or are at least trying to care). There are no automatic ways to respond to messages, randomly click about 20 messages a day, and give a simple response this just makes sure that they wont remove you off their friends list.

The good thing is, there are many auto-commenting programs, which cant be tracked by MySpace. In your comment just say something like Hey, how you doin? Just thought Id say Hi!, this will lead the friend to come back to your profile at least once, and you in turn will get more exposure.

The Beauty of Bulletins

Bulletins are similar to forum posts, but you cannot reply, and they can only be seen by the people on your friends list they are great marketing tools if you have a highly target list of friends.

People frown upon you if you spam advertising bulletins, so try to do them as little as possible we recommend no more than 1 each week. You can use HTML, CSS, Flash, and Graphics in your bulletins, so try to make them stand out.

Mass Messaging

Recommend usage? This works better for those with a niche market you wont have to send out as many messages, and the messages will be more relevant to your friends.

Using an automatic messaging program, write a personal yet informative message, with a link to your site at the bottom of it. Not only should the user find it useful, they may appreciate it enough to tell their friends about it, and so the chain of viral marketing begins.

Warning! Sending mass messages is known as spam, and as stated in the MySpace Terms of Service you will be charged $50 per message if caught spamming I havent heard of anyone being caught, but this is just a warning.