Facebook is the new Social Media home for Celebrities.
While Twitter remains a vehicle of growing importance to celebrities, they are quickly moving their focus to Facebook to further engage with and develop their fan base.
The Celebs on Facebook fan page promotes celebrities and corroborates the company’s important entertainment industry positioning. That page now reads like a “who’s who” in the industry, with a long list that’s led by Vin Diesel (7 million fans).
Facebook has completely overtaken MySpace as the defacto community with which to reach fans.
MySpace traffic and innovation continue in a rapid downward spiral. Last month the site lost over 5 million visitors, while advertiser spending is down 15 percent from last year. Social network market share at MySpace has dropped to 30 percent compared with Facebook’s whopping 59 percent, according to the latest statistics from Hitwise.
MySpace exclusive focus on music and gaming.
News Corp owned MySpace is in talks with Facebook and MSN to share its music content and retain relevancy. Jonathan Miller, News Corp’s Internet division head, acknowledges MySpace is not in the social media business any longer. They are instead focused on shoring up two core strength areas; music content and games.
Miller added, “If you don’t keep innovating…you get in trouble. You can’t stop. And MySpace stopped.”
He is also determining how to work better with developers in the gaming side of MySpace, and is contemplating a paid premium service as well.
Should entertainers remain on MySpace or jump?
Here are my thoughts:
- Focus energy on MySpace’s key areas, music and gaming.
- Entertainers who already have a presence on My Space, should maintain it until they see what shakes out.
- Ramp up a Facebook presence as quickly and thoroughly as possible. That includes a customized fan page, photo and video albums, events and more.
- Content is king, if you want Facebook to be effective, be sure to work it. Successful fan pages give fans substantial reason to participate and represent a star’s unique, authentic voice.
- Post frequently and with relevance to your fans. See what others are doing too, and emulate the winners in addition to using Facebook to innovate.
