22 Jul Nielsen Data Reveals MySpace Music Movement
We’ve all heard the predictions and discussions from those in the blogosphere around MySpace. However, whether or not you believe that Facebook is going to overthrow MySpace, and Twitter is going to rule over all isn’t really important. What is crucial for a marketer to understand is the internal movements of these networks and the slight changes they undergo in their lifetime. Successful communities will tailor to an audience need – and while MySpace may end up losing the masses to Facebook, it is clearly making movements within niche areas within the music and entertainment space from its introduction of “MySpace Music” in September 2008.
Just so you’ll believe me, I wanted to share the following June Nielson data (from the Nielson Blog) that shows how the MySpace Music subdomain compares to other online music destinations. As you can see, it ranks third among online music destinations by unique audience, followed by MTV and Pandora.
Additionally, it is important to know the breakdown of target audiences who are participating. The following chart shows both the composition of this audience (how they compare to others), as well as sheer volume. Even though MySpace is frequently viewed as a network targeting tweens, this chart confirms that 18-34 year olds are still above average likelihood to be involved in MySpace Music.
What about Facebook? The following chart shows that while Facebook may not be competing with MySpace on music, its community members are more frequently viewing video streaming content. As the Neilson Blog states, “Facebook was the fastest growing social media site by both total video streams and unique viewers of video. Total streams increased 434 percent year-over-year, from 10.1 million streams to 54 million streams. Unique viewers of video increased 397 percent, from 2.4 million in June 2008 to 12 million in June 2009.”
The moral of this story? Don’t blindly follow marketer predictions.
