MySpace is a great social media site that marketers can leverage in a number of different ways. One of these is building up a large audience for your profile, which can then be used to drive traffic to your site, interact with consumers, create mind share, and even empower people to brand your company for you.

The problem is that most people don’t know how to build a large audience. And unless you’re a well-known, popular brand, chances are that if you build it they won’t come. Here are some things that you can do to build a large relevant audience on MySpace:
Gather in groups. MySpace has groups for pretty much every topic under the sun. Find the groups that are relevant to your business and start befriending the people who are members of these groups. It is also a good idea to establish a group of your own based on your brand or topic of interest.

Participate in forums. Many people are not even aware that MySpace has forums on their site. Well they do, and many of the sections are very popular. A good way to find people that have similar interests is to drill down into discussions based around relevant topics.

Find like-minded users. You can search for people on MySpace based on interests that people have listed in their profiles. What better way to find people that would be interested in your brand then finding them based on interests?

Seek out friends of friends. Usually people are friends because they have interests in common. Searching through friends of friends is a great place to find people who have a good chance of being interested in you, too. Not all friends of friends will be into what you’re doing, but there’s a good chance lots of them will be.

Don’t overlook friends of competitors. Just because a user has friended one your competitors does not necessarily mean they are loyal to that brand. Often times they have just friended them based on interests and not because they are evangelists for that brand. Besides, people can like more than one company in each space.

Promote your MySpace profile elsewhere. Link to your MySpace profile from your website. There’s a good chance that many of the people visiting your regular site also use social networking sites like MySpace. They may not even know that you have a profile. Let them know and they just might add you as a friend.

Optimize your profile for search. Having your MySpace profile rank well for your brand name is not only a good reputation management strategy but also a good way to increase your audience. Avid users of social networking sites like MySpace would often rather visit your MySpace profile then your regular site. So when they search out your brand make sure they have that option.

There are many ways to find potential friends for your company’s MySpace page. These tactics aren’t limited to MySpace—many other social networks work in a very similar way. Cameron Olthuis is director of marketing and design for ACS and writes regularly on social media issues through the company’s blog, Pronet Advertising. The Let’s Get Social column appears Tuesdays at Search Engine Land.

by Cameron Olthuis