How to Become Famous With Facebook or MySpace in 2009

For the 21st century artist, author, or musician a degree of self-promotion is absolutely necessary.

You need a large fanbase to download your music, read your writing, and passionately spread the word about you. While Facebook and MySpace both have their strengths, there are a few factors to keep in mind:

-- Facebook limits the number of friends an individual may have (currently this number is set to the atrociously low 5,000 friends). Even a middle of the road aspiring television actor or indie musician would find this limit to be stifling.

-- MySpace has no such limit, although MySpace has -- to some extent -- become overrun by lame bands and spammers. Therefore, a message you send to fans over MySpace carries less "importance" than a similar message sent over the Facebook platform. (This is my experience, at least).

-- Facebook has rigorous limits in place in terms of how quickly you can add friends, message fans, and build online communities. MySpace has limits as well, but in general the limits are less strict, and more self-promotion friendly.

Begin on either network with those you know. Friend all of your old co-workers, friends from high school and college, family members, and so forth. Then branch out, friending those who are within your target demo. For example, if you wrote a book about how to market yourself online, you may look for users who list my book as one of their favorites.

Micro-targeting is a crucial part of building your online fanbase. If you're an indie rock band looking to get noticed, 4,000 hardcore friends who love your music and know everything about indie rock are going to be far, far more useful than 100,000 friends who may not particularly care for that genre.

Again, numbers are not as important as who you are friends with. As an example: I used to run a newsletter with 10,000 subscribers. When I plugged a product to this newsletter, sure, I got some good response. But I ran a second newsletter with only around 95 subscribers that produced far greater results. How is this possible?

Well, the 95 subscribers were national television producers, prominent newspaper reporters and bloggers. So when I sent them a meaningful tip, it resulted in coverage in major media outlets.

Who you target is far more important than how many people you target! Also, target by location: a 18 year old in China who likes indie rock is not as useful to your Canadian band as a 25 year old in Toronto. (The Chinese kid is too far away to go to your concerts or buy your CD in Canadian stores; also, he doesn't yet have the discretionary income or friend network necessary to spread the word about you in any meaningful way).

Also, keep your MySpace or Facebook page somewhat personal: let people know about you. Become a personal entity, not just another faceless band or brand. Post party pics (use your discretion or your publicist will kill you!), post blog entries talking about great movies you've seen lately, and let your fans into your daily life.

The final component: great content. Whenever you bother your online friends, make sure you are showing them a song, story, or video they will love and spread the word about. Mediocre content doesn't go viral on the Internet.