Making money on MySpace isn't as easy as it once was. It used to be incredibly easy to make money on the site. A marketer could create a fake profile, add thousands of friends using an automated program, and then simply send bulletins out to all of those thousands of people.

Then people started complaining about the ridiculous amount of spam messages they were getting from marketers. Some people would receive dozens of daily spam offerings for everything from Viagra to ringtones to payday loans, and everything in between.

Those people started to complain to MySpace, so to salvage their reputation, they got a lot stricter about enforcing their rules. One of the first things they did was put a limit on the number of friends you could add daily. This seriously hampered a lot of people, who were used to adding hundreds or even thousands of people per day to their spam lists using those automated programs.

Then they started cracking down on bulletin spam, banning some users who abused the privilege. Users would find themselves banned within hours of sending out their first bulletin, which cause many marketers to simply give up trying to make money on MySpace.

But smart marketers found out you could still use MySpace to make a great deal of money if you used it properly. Gone were the days of sending out bulletin spam, spamming affiliate links on guestbooks, and spamming the MySpace forums. But you could still promote your offerings tactfully on MySpace. You should offer MySpace users real value in return for being your friend. If they're just on your list for marketing purposes, make sure you provide them with plenty of free incentives to get them to stay.

Once you've made friends with people, you can direct them to your own websites outside of MySpace. You could ask them to join your forum, sign up to your newsletter, or visit your blog. Once you get your friends to start networking with you outside MySpace, you're free to market to them however you choose.

MySpace won't interfere with your marketing efforts off their site, even if someone reports you for trying to sell them something after they joined your email list from your own private website. Just keep in mind that there's always a chance you could be banned from MySpace for using any kind of marketing there.

Although you can greatly minimize your chances, due to their terms of service that prohibit blatant marketing, there's still that small risk that you should keep in mind. The financial rewards generally makes it worth the risk.