Springfield businesses ride MySpace wave

The social networking site is reportedly behind only Google and Yahoo! in global usage, and businesses in Springfield are catching on.

PFI Western Store launched its MySpace page in conjunction with the relaunch of its own Web site, www.pfiwestern.com, in early May. Cortney Little, PFI’s public relations and Internet manager, said the site was an effort to give customers a forum to discuss their interests – and the company’s products.

“People who enjoy country music, or enjoy the types of clothing we carry, have a place to go,” Little said. “We put information about events up there. We give them a heads-up there before anyone else about what’s going on at the store and on our Web site.”

Heather Mansfield says companies such as PFI are on the right track. Mansfield runs Diosa Communications, a Springfield home-based company she started that offers design services for MySpace and other Web sites. Mansfield has been encouraging local companies to realize the vast advertising potential of the networking site. MySpace is a component of “Web 2.0” – the second generation of Internet sites, featuring participation through blogs, social networks and Internet services such as Google and eBay.

“Companies who can’t afford to spend thousands of dollars on online marketing for their business, they can go to MySpace and market themselves for free,” Mansfield said. “They can get out there and get new people coming into the business. As a grassroots tool, it’s amazing.”

PFI is one of several Springfield-area businesses – including Battlefield Lanes, Springfield Little Theatre and Roadhouse Cycles – that have bucked the popular notion that MySpace and similar sites are just fluff.

Susan Smith, Missouri State University marketing professor, said companies can use social networking sites to gain valuable information about current and potential customers.

“Companies for years have been trying to find ways to get the information that people are voluntarily posting about themselves on these Web sites,” Smith said, referring to MySpace pages that usually include the user’s age, general geographic location and information about favorite musicians and movies, which reveals valuable psychographic data. “It’s a way to learn about new groups of consumers.”

Possibility for business

Big business is catching on to the popularity of social networking sites and their potential audience – MySpace currently has more than 182 million registered users.

News Corp., Rupert Murdoch’s global multimedia conglomerate, spent $580 million to purchase MySpace in 2005.

Even organizations with their own Web presence have recognized the value.

There is a Bass Pro Shops MySpace page, and though Manager of Corporate Public Relations Larry Whiteley said it’s not an official page for the company, Bass Pro officials are looking into creating one to expand name recognition among that audience.

The Springfield Cardinals, which has had its own Web page since the team was announced in late 2004, formed its own MySpace page before the start of this season. Team Public Relations Director Mike Lindskog said the site allows the team to reach a younger audience – an audience baseball is always seeking.

“We’re always trying to grow baseball fans from their younger days,” Lindskog said, noting that the MySpace page allows fans to interact and “cheer online” – something they can’t do at the team’s official site. “As kids use MySpace, it’s new, it’s hip, and we want people to think that if the Cardinals are involved, it must be cool.”

While musicians were the first to populate MySpace, among local businesses, downtown jumped on to the MySpace bandwagon quickest. Many downtown restaurants, clubs and arts groups have their own pages, including Nonna’s Italian-American Café, Har-Bell Athletic Goods and Moxie Cinema. Mansfield said that the downtown online presence has grown from three businesses to more than 50 in the last year.

Downtown Springfield has its own page as well, which Mansfield runs and helped to design.

Kathryn Vicat-Dlabach, community development coordinator and festival assistant for Urban Districts Alliance, said the downtown MySpace page has been extremely popular. She gets requests from a dozen new “friends” a day.

“A lot are coming in from Missouri State and Drury, and it’s not just students – it’s also faculty and staff,” she said. “It helps us to know if we’re hitting that target audience.”

Capturing the traffic

One difficulty for businesses in using social networking sites, MSU’s Smith said, is in corralling an audience that didn’t go to the site to talk business.

“Generally people are not going to these spaces looking for product information,” Smith said, “so giving people some incentive to interact with that is the challenge. People are going there to interact with their friends and associates.”

PFI’s Little said her company’s page offers incentives to visitors, including early access to information about upcoming shows and events, and the company plans to begin offering special discounts to MySpace visitors who then visit the company’s official site.

Another challenge, Mansfield said, is educating businesses and organizations about the changing demographics of MySpace – the site’s fastest-growing demographic, she said, is people in their 30s and 40s.

“It’s not just for teenagers, and it’s not full of dangerous men who want to do bad things to children,” she said. “It’s for all ages and backgrounds – it’s a powerful tool.”

Local Presence

Here is a small sampling of Springfield-based MySpace pages – just type www.myspace.com followed by:

/pfiwesternstore – PFI Western Store

/ktxrgentlegiant and /jockradio – Meyer Communications

/missouristatebears – Missouri State University

/druryuniversity – Drury University

/downtownspringfield – Downtown Springfield Association

/moxiecinema – Moxie Cinema

/nonnascafe – Nonna’s Italian-American Café

/battlefieldlanes – Battlefield Lanes

/springfieldlittletheatre – Springfield Little Theatre

/springfieldcardinals – Springfield Cardinals

/rhcmo – Roadhouse Cycles

/bpsoutdoorworld – Bass Pro Shops

Passionate about the Web

Heather Mansfield has a lot of faith in the power of the Internet.

She earned a degree in political science from University of California – Los Angeles, and before signing on with Drury University in 2004 as its Web editor, she created and ran an online activism site called eactivism.org, touring the country speaking about the possibilities of online activism.

She left Drury in early May to go full-time with her new business, Diosa Communications, which helps to design Web pages and MySpace pages for businesses and nonprofit organizations. She also serves as the online community manager for change.org, a social network for social activism, encompassing nonprofits and politicians worldwide.