Social Networking as a Marketing Tool: The Case of a Small Australian Company

Abstract

This case study examines a Web 2.0 exemplar, MySpace, as a marketing tool for a small Australian company targeting traveling youth, Go Workabout (GW). Members of a popular social network site (SNS), MySpace, create profiles and connect with other MySpace members including individuals and businesses such as travel organizations Contiki and STA Travel. As one success measure is the number of friends in one's profile—both companies have over 1,500 friends—GW hopes that emulating Contiki and STA's MySpace profiles will yield many friends, thus creating awareness for GW and its services. The initial results seemed promising with 101 friends, but friends dwindled to 93 after a few months, and to 88 after nearly 2 years. Aside from adding to the limited knowledge in SNS tourism marketing, this article illustrates difficulties, realities, and potential benefits of SNSs as a marketing tool for a small company.

Keywords:

• Web 2.0
• Internet marketing
• user-generated content
• social network sites
• MySpace

The authors thank Kyle MacMillan, Patricio Carrera, Chia-Yu Chiu, Pailin Pratipwattanawong, and Somjai Chienwattanasuk for their assistance, cooperation, time, and work on this project. This article was developed from an abridged version presented at the Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism (ENTER) 2008 conference, titled MySpace, My Friends, My Customers.