MySpace seeks shop as Facebook closes in

by Clare O’Connor, PR Week UK 18-Jul-07, 18:44

Social networking giant MySpace has put its six-figure PR account out to tender, as it comes under sustained pressure from younger rival Facebook.

MySpace has retained Freud Communications since its UK launch in 2006, but is now hunting for a fresh agency to provide corporate, consumer, strategic, trade and crisis comms.

The site’s director of corporate communications for Europe Chris McCafferty is in the process of finalising a pitch list and expects to appoint an agency next month.

He said the winning agency would have to provide a ‘full gamut’ of PR services.

MySpace still ranks higher than Facebook in terms of website visits, according to internet monitor Hitwise UK. In June, MySpace was the eighth most visited site among UK users, while Facebook was ranked 14th. However, Facebook has this month overtaken MySpace in the number of web searches of its name.

McCafferty insisted that the decision to retender was ‘absolutely not’ a response to Facebook’s increasing popularity, nor the expected opening of its London office.