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How To Contact Celebrities
On MySpace
According to a recent
Nielsen/NetRatings survey, 46 million people visited
MySpace in
July 2006, each spending an average of two hours and 15 minutes
on the site. So what makes MySpace so popular? First it lets
users create their own free profile, including photos, videos,
and music. Users can also completely customize the layout,
colors, and text of their profiles including blogs, event
announcements, bulletin posts, and more.
Celebrities know that one of the benefits of being on MySpace is
that when they make a post to their MySpace blog talking about
something they're working on or announce an event such as a live
appearance or autograph signing, their messages will be viewed
directly by their fans without having to rely on email lists,
spend a lot of money on advertising, etc. that may or may not
get their message out in time.
Extremely popular with teens and young adults, MySpace is part
of a growing new trend on the Internet of social networking
sites. Although there are multiple social networking sites
online including Friendster, Facebook, and Xanga. MySpace is the
most popular. It also has the most celebrities as real members.
MySpace is so popular, in fact, that News Corp. bought it for
$580 million.
To use MySpace, first you set up your profile. Then you invite
your friends to link their profiles to yours and that's when the
fun begins! Most of the people linking to you and to your
friends will have the same interests, live in the same town,
etc. So it's a great way to keep in touch with old friends and
also make new ones, which is why MySpace is called a "social
networking" site. Think of it like six degrees of separation
(but in actuality it's more like three degrees online!).
Although MySpace is currently used mostly by teens, more young
adults and adults are signing up every day (including
celebrities). So despite what you may have heard about old men
setting up profiles on MySpace to lure young children, most
people use it to keep in touch with other people like themselves
and to make new friends. You can search for people by zip code,
city, high school, college, networking category (marketing,
publishing, etc.), and more. This lets you find other people you
already know or would like to meet, because they share either
the same background or the same interests, career, or hobbies
you do.
MySpace allows its users to share intimate details about their
life (sometimes a little too intimate!) that you would perhaps
never learn without it since most people put on airs in person.
As society becomes more and more socially cut off with
technological advances like caller id, email, and text messages,
people are now looking for more and more ways to connect on a
personal level while still utilizing "cool" technology. MySpace
lets them do just that, and celebrities are no exception. They
can now communicate with their fans without having to give out
their personal information. Now when they meet their fans they
can say "look me up on MySpace and send me a message!"
Larger-than-life celebrities use MySpace to promote themselves.
Madonna, for instance, posts news about her latest album
releases, song downloads, screen savers, and more on her
profile (http://www.myspace.com/madonna). Recently it linked to MTV.com
so fans could vote for her in the five MTV Video Music Awards
categories she was nominated for. Celebrities like Madonna make
no qualms about using MySpace as a savvy marketing and
promotional tool.
However, many celebrities actually set up their profiles
themselves, read their messages, and respond to fans directly.
Janice Dickinson, the former "love her or hate her" judge on
America's Next Top Model has her own profile (http://www.myspace.com/janicedickinsonmodels). She used it to
announce casting calls for her reality show The Janice
Dickinson Modeling Agency on Oxygen, and lists Jose Canseco as
one of her top friends. Adult star Jenna Jameson uses her
profile (http://www.myspace.com/jennajameson) to blog about her life and show off photos of herself
with stars like Paris Hilton. (Of course, Paris has her own profile
(http://www.myspace.com/parishilton) with sister Nikki Hilton as one of her friends
as well). Kathy Griffin's latest assistant got hired because she
sent a message to Kathy's MySpace profile (http://www.myspace.com/kathy_griffin).
She explained she was looking to get into the entertainment
industry as an assistant, and it just so happened Kathy was
looking to hire one.
So how do you know if the
celebrity's profile is real or not? (Unfortunately, there are
many celebrity imposters--also known as "fakers"--on MySpace.)
There are three main ways to tell: number of friends, personal
photos, and the profile's design. Usually, the celebrity's
profile with the most friends is the official one. For example,
if there are two profiles for Madonna, and one has 200,000
friends and the other has 48 friends, you can bet the one with
200,000 friends is hers. (As of this writing, her official
profile has 195,820 friends.) The second way to tell is if the
celebrity's profile includes any personal and/or candid photos.
You usually have to have your own profile in order to view
photos, so you'll need to create one on MySpace first (see
below). Imposters usually don't have personal photos of the
celebrity. The third main way to tell if a celebrity's profile
is real is how professionally the profile is designed. MySpace
knows that celebrity profiles bring in a lot of users, so they
work to make sure the celebrity's profile is customized and
professional. Imposter profiles will not look as slick.
To set up your own MySpace profile, visit
http://www.myspace.com and
click on Sign Up in the top right-hand corner. From there, fill
out the information it asks for and follow the rest of the
instructions. After you've set up your profile, you can download
profile templates from sites like MyGen. Do a search on Google
for "myspace profile templates" to find other similar sites.
After you've set up your own MySpace profile, you can send
private messages to celebrities you find after you add them as
friends. Since most celebrities understand that when you add
them as friends to your profile they may gain additional fans
among your friends, they'll usually approve your friend request
even though they don't know you. You can also post comments on
their page that includes your picture. A great way to request a
free autographed photo from the star is to send a message to the
one you want one from, making sure to include your name and
address in the message.
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Jordan McAuley is the Founder of
www.ContactAnyCelebrity.com located in West Hollywood,
California. His online database contains the best mailing
address, agent, manager, publicist, production company, and
charitable cause for over 54,000 celebrities and public figures
worldwide. You can reprint this article as long as you link it
back to
www.contactanycelebrity.com or earn 50% monthly recurring
commissions when you join our affiliate program at
www.contactanycelebrity.com/affiliates and link back to it
as an affiliate.
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