How Did Facebook Overcome MySpace?

And the undisputed champion is……Facebook. But how did Facebook seemingly easily annihilate the previous social network giant, MySpace? There are many different theories such as the one explained to us by Sean Parker, one of Facebook’s founders. Without any research, I was always under the impression that MySpace turned out to be a really immature website. On MySpace, users were constantly competing to have the most artistic page, to have the most friends, and even to be in each other’s top 8 friends list. I mean seriously, you had to rank your top 8 friends! That screams high school thought mentality.

Turns out, after researching more about the collapse of MySpace, I was pretty much right. MySpace catered to the very young demographic from 13-17 years old typically. When their market segment started to outgrow the website, MySpace was either unwilling or unable to adapt. The site started to become the thing that kids used. All the growing teens flocked to Facebook, the college age (at the time) social network. And if you know any young teenager’s thought process, you would know they love the thought of being seen as older or “college age.” Facebook, in deep contrast to MySpace, was a simple platform. You could upload photos, comment on friends’ walls, and cutely “poke” them, etc. No more battles for popularity. Once Facebook grew steam, MySpace didn’t stand a chance. MySpace tried to simplify itself and add features that Facebook already mastered but it was too late. The marketing management at MySpace did not adapt in time and they ended up paying the consequences dearly. They went from being sold to NewsCorp in 2005 for $580 million to being sold to Specific Media and Justin Timberlake in June 2011 for around $35 million.

Facebook is better equipped than MySpace. Facebook hasn’t marketed towards only one market segment except for the people that own a computer or smartphone. Importantly and most notably, Facebook has been able to integrate adults and older people into the site without losing that “youthful” brand appearance. I think this truly gives some security to the Facebook marketing department. Adults are typically more loyal to technological innovations than the fickle-minded youth. My grandma has a Facebook. (We’re not Facebook friends by the way) My grandma still has an AOL account which means that she sticks with companies, even if they are failing.

I think Facebook has and will continue to dominate the social media market. Unless Google+ has got some marketing strategy that will blow us all away. The competition will inevitably make social networking better. Just how much better is what we will have to find out…

Sources:

http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/sectors/media/four-reasons-why-myspace-failed-to-retain-the-social-network-crown/3022208.article