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Adult Entertainment Social Media Marketing Challenges

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big-followingAdult entertainment presents unique challenges in social media. Every adult entertainment business owner is looking for ways to drive traffic to their site. The big question, how do I get more people to my site? Traditional methods include Google ads, traffic buys and SEO.  Social media has been gaining more traction in the traffic arena. We are even starting to see industry conferences (Xbiz, The Phoenix Forum, Internext) featuring social media on their traffic panels.

What makes social media special?

Traffic from social media is considered qualified traffic. This means that every person who comes to your site from a social media source is already interested in what you are selling. People can get frustrated because purchased traffic will often be higher than what is driven organically from the social media networks. However, the adult traffic from social networks have a higher conversion rate. So the value of a social media client is higher than that of purchased traffic.

Why is social media for adult entertainment different?

The adult entertainment industry cannot use social media in the same way that mainstream business does. There are restrictions on many of the networks, Facebook, Google Plus and Pinterest, to name a few. These restrictions often prevent adult websites from linking back to their site or even sharing content.  This begs the question, why are adult brands using these social networks and how are they using them?  There are ways to work around the restrictions. This often involves being creative in your content creation and opening up to alternate routes for driving traffic. Many adult companies will also use the restrictive networks as a tool for branding instead of traffic.

The restrictive networks are not the only ones out there. One of the best sources for traffic is welcoming to adult entertainment, and that is Twitter.

Twitter is one of the top traffic driver for websites. This is often true for both adult and mainstream companies. Twitter allows for more aggressive networking and is a platform designed for content distribution. The one restriction on Twitter is that adult companies cannot pay for a sponsored tweet or ad.

Tumblr and Reddit can also be good sources of traffic for adult entertainment, though they are restrictive on the use of affiliate codes.

Google Ads vs. Social Media

For years Google Ads has been the go-to ad platform for most businesses. If you want to boost your search for your keywords, you went to Google Ads. However, Google has restricted adult ad placement on their search engine. This means that Google Ads is off the table for most adult entertainment websites. Social media is the next tool to pick up the slack.

If you are interested in discussing your social media strategy for your adult entertainment business, please contact 7Veils. We are the premier social media marketing company in adult entertainment and would be happy to discuss your adult social marketing presence.

Long Term Networking

Sexy Tree

This didn’t happen overnight. Give your contacts time to grow and develop.

For many people conferences are an important part of our business networking. They are a way we can keep up with the industry changes, technology, and new people. It is the best way to make real life relationships with people and take your conversation off the computer.

This week 2 big conferences are back to back. Internext is the 15th-17th and AEE is the 18th-21st. There will be many important people from the adult entertainment community at one, if not both, of these conferences.

A lot of people go to these shows with unrealistic expectations. They think they will meet people and as soon as they get home they will have a treasure chest of opportunity. Well, in some ways they are right. The networking is incredible. If you make the right connections you might have a treasure chest of opportunity. To mix my metaphors, that doesn’t mean that they will fruit over night.

When you go to a show be prepared to nurse those relationships. The show is just the first step, though a very important first step. Now you need to follow up. You need to keep in touch. Over time you will be surprised at what can come from these contact. Sometimes direct businesses, sometimes referrals…sometimes both!

Occasionally an opportunity will convert immediately after a show, but often time they have  a several month gestation. So go to the shows but give it time to develop.

Shop for Porn! Harnessing Social Media for Black Friday

Sexy shopping bagBlack Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year. But does that mean that people are only shopping for their kids or parents? No. People are shopping for everything and that includes porn!

Though these tactics are mainly used in mainstream business, they are still highly relevant. On Black Friday people want to shop and you need to know how to harness that.

Here are two ways you can use social media to drive some extra sales over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Facebook

  1. Custom Landing Page
    Create a custom landing page that shows some great graphics and text to feature your Black Friday special. This is a lot easier than it sounds. You can use easy to use landing page design programs, like Lujure to do a simple drag and drop to create your page. You can also add trackable links using Google Analytics, which you can automatically add to the page, or by using link shortners like Bit.ly to track clicks back to your site.Here are what some other major retailers are doing with their landing pagesto help give you some ideas.Just like with anything adult on Facebook you have to be careful. They don’t like anything too provocative, but that does not mean you can’t have some fun. Take a look the Victorias Secret landing page. Sexy and still pushing the sale.
  2. Promote on Facebook
    If you did create a custom landing page then promote your sale by using the link to the tab. That way you can direct people to your new beautiful page to promote you sale. You can also link back to your website or anything else that will give information about your upcoming event.
  3. Facebook Ad
    Thought Facebook ads have a low click through rate they are incredibly easy to target and for even specific promotions they are perfect. If you have a physical location you can easily geo-target your ads, making sure the ads will only appear to people in your geographic location. If you are solely online, you can also target via age, gender, education and interest. Again, if you have a custom landing page, make sure that new people will automatically go there by setting it as your default place to land for new users (you can do that by going into edit info on your page, manage permissions, and then chose where you want new users to land).

Twitter

  1. Marketing Tweets
    Set up tweets that talk about your sale. Make sure to use hashtags to target your specific niche.
  2. Twitter Promo
    Even if you already have a sale event going on, you can still add a little extra to help your Twitter peeps. The tweeps love to know they are special. Give them their own promo code to use to get an extra bonus when they shop with you.
  3. Retweet Promo
    Retweets are a great tool in viral marketing. You can ask people to tweet your link out and let them know that they will receive a special discount by tweeting the link. There are a couple ways you can do that. You can either specifically ask for retweets and then DM anyone who RTs you a promo code or you can create a special trackable link to your website that will give people a special discount. The second way is easier and will need less involvement from you. Plus it is more conducive to the viral marketing process. People can promote your link, go to the page and get the promo. Plus by using a trackable link, or a specially designed page for your “twitter promo” you can track exactly how many people came to the page and get a gauge for your promo ROI.
  4. DMs
    We all hate those auto DMs that welcome people to their twitter. But DMs can be useful. If you are doing a big sale you can send DMs to your followers and let them know about the sale. If there is a a promo code, give them that as a special “twitter” gift. Though many people ignore DMs that are obviously ads, if you write it in a personable fashion you are likely to get a few bites.

Everyone is talking about everything, you just need to make sure you are harnessing the conversation to give your business a boost.

Being Interviewed on The Elm Avenue Show

On Wednesday I am going to be interviewed by Elm Avenue. This is a online video interview show that talks to people in the adult entertainment industry to help educate people who are interested in learning more about the adult industry. The show was started by Extralunchmoney.com founder Benic Way. The idea came from the launch of Extra Lunch Money. When Benic and his partner Eric were starting the business, only one of them had experience in the adult industry. As two good tech savvy people they hopped on Google and started to research.

For any of you who have ever tried to research actual adult business, and were not just looking for porn, you will know that the information out there is sparse. Often times people have to go to the conferences and attend panel after panel to learn about the inner workings of the industry. As a frequent panelist, I can tell you that they are an amazing resource and give you direct access to many of the leading industry experts. However, not everyone can afford the time or money to go. Not to mention that you might not want to wait until the next conference to learn about the industry.

Benic and Eric decided if they were going to do the research they should contribute back to the community and share their knowledge. Much like industry blogs…like this one…there are many people who want to share their knowledge and help other people navigate the murky business waters. However, the issue in adult is there are not many industry blogs that share inside information. Though more are coming into development all the time. I even know of some interesting adult business communities that are in development. 😉

Launching Elm Avenue was a great way to get even more in depth information from people within the industry.

On Wednesday I am going to be one of Benic’s featured guests. So stayed tuned and I will blog about the interview and share the links next week!

And if you are wondering why it is called the ELM Avenue Show.. ELM – Extra Lunch Money. 🙂

Porn on LinkedIn? The Social Network You are NOT Using

 

Naked LinkedIn

Porn has a place on LinkedIn

Porn on Twitter? No problem.

 

Porn on Facebook? Yeah, its there. But a little more tricky.

Porn on LinkedIn? You bet! But not in the way you are thinking.

LinkedIn is currently the fastest growing social network. It surpassed Twitter in May after the company went public. But LinkedIn is often associated with people searching for jobs. That is not all it is good for. LinkedIn is the social network for business people. It lets you put up your resume and then connect with a wide variety of people, from colleagues to people you want to possible do business with.

The groups are a very powerful function. They are generally topic related. When you join you have to opportunity to post information or comment on posts about the subject topic. It is also a great way to begin networking with people you are interested in connecting with. For instance, there is an adult social media group for people to share and discuss issues in adult entertainment and social media.

But what about porn on LinkedIn? Because this is a business site this is not a place for content distribution. However, that does not mean that it has no value or place in adult entertainment. If you are in adult entertainment then that means you are in business. There are a lot of people in adult who are on LinkedIn, from entertainers to webmasters, photographers, studios, etc. Because this is not a place for posting content it opens up the potential to have a business related discussion or networking opportunity.

Through the groups you can reach out and get advice from other industry professionals, but you can also do some great networking for your business or brand. Interested in talking to a studio? You will be more likely to get a person who is open to networking if you contact them through LinkedIn.

Essentially the removal of the blatant sales promotional element allows you to focus on your blatant personal promotion. But the site is designed for that purpose, to promote you and your qualifications. So if you are in the adult industry and you are not yet on LinkedIn, it is time for your to embrace this social network.

XXX: Good for your brand, bad for your URL

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Friday Feature Photo: Coco Devine

Friday Feature Photo: The petite and sexy Coco Devine. She is XXX in all the good ways.

There is a lot of discussion about using .XXX as an adult alternative to .com.  AVN has a 5 part series about the ramifications of the dot xxx push. Although this discussion has taken place for the past few years, the issue is top news again because the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has a GAC (Government Advisory Committee) that is reviewing the issue before it decides the next step. The ultimate decision will determine whether “dot XXX” will be encouraged as a “dot-com” alternative for adult sites.

As it seems more likely that .XXX will be pushed, many sites have already reserved their .XXX URL.  So, the infamous www.sex.com would become www.sex.xxx. Seems like it could be sexy right? Not so fast. A .XXX TLD (top level domain) can seriously hurt your web business.

The purpose behind this is to let people know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that a website contains adult content.  This is being done under the guise of child protection.  If you are in the adult industry, you know that any site that is on the level already implements child protection. In fact, Adult Entertainment is one of the biggest supporters of child protection and actively pursues new and better ways to keep inappropriate material from children. Fact is, the people who avoid child protection are not part of the legitimate adult industry, and they will continue to avoid it.

Dot triple X will only give people a false sense of security.  Any site that chooses will still be able to use a .com domain. Larry Magdid, creator of Safekids.com, says “As an Internet safety advocate, my concern about .XXX is that it could give parents a false sense of security…It would be like setting up a red-light district in a community while also allowing adult entertainment establishments to operate in residential shopping centers.”

Many people have purchased their .XXX to ensure that they are able to hold on to their branding. The ICANN seems to be interpreting this as industry support for the TLD.  However, this is not support – this is a reaction to the very real possibility of a new TLD and people not wanting to sacrifice their brand identity because they got on the bandwagon late.

From a website owner point-of-view the .XXX is bad for your site from a technical standpoint. Yes, people can block it, but the people who would do this are not your audience anyway. You don’t care if Joe Parent blocks .XXX but you do care if Google does.  Google already prevents their search auto-fill to populate for anything that is considered questionable material. It would be an easy step to block dot .XXX from appearing in any search results.  This would substantially limit organic traffic and completely nullify any benefits from SEO.

Our Friday Feature Photo links to a site with an xxx in the URL:  www.cocodivinexxx.com. But this is fine, because it is in the site name, not in the TLD.  Having xxx in your URL will not get you blocked. Having it as your TLD is going to cause you problems and loss of traffic.

There are many potentials for blocking, from search engines to internet browsers setting their safety defaults to automatically block .XXX. It also sets the site up for being blocked from merchant account and hosting companies that don’t want to be associated with a business that is blatantly adult.  With all of that, let’s not even talk about the potential to be riddled by spam through any contact information on the site, yikes!

Overall we feel that the .XXX is a bad move for any website.


Friday Feature Photo: Coco DevineThe Friday Feature Photo is the beautiful Coco Devine.  As she says, she is the newest, sexiest, most curvaceous girl on the web.  She is definitely right. Not only is she sexy she is also a great person to tweet with.  You can see her pics, videos and even talk to her live on her website webcam. Then go and chat her up on Twitter!

Go to her website: www.cocodivinexxx.com

Talk to her on Twitter @Coco_Divinexxx

You can call her for bookings at: 888-800-8761

or email her at [email protected]

 

Pics from Porn-Con!

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What an amazing weekend it was! Made lots of great connections and the audience for our panel presentation was “standing room only”.  I’m traveling home from Las Vegas today, exhausted but very satisfied (kinda like a really gooood night…). Watch for more updates this week.  Meanwhile, here are a few pics from the fabulous Adult Entertainment Expo!

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Las Vegas, I have Landed!

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Las Vegas Sign

I have arrived at the Adult Entertainment Expo! Las Vegas, I am here – and I am ready to tear up the town!

Since I did get on a plane at 6 am I’m a little beat. So I’ll freshen up, transform my travel-worn hair, face and clothes into sexy and cute, and go talk to all the wonderful stars!

I will start live tweeting soon and will post pics to the 7 Veils blog and Twitter feed.

Stay tuned!

Going to Porn-Con! AEE, here I come!

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AEE Logo

On Friday I am heading off to the biggest show in adult entertainment…Adult Entertainment Expo (AEE), also affectionately known as Porn-Con. AEE is the biggest conference of the entire year for everything that concerns adult entertainment.   Everyone in the industry will be there:  meeting, connecting, selling, networking and showcasing.  So yes, I will be there too.

I will be part of a panel called Selling Through Social Networks. Moderated by Jay Kopita from Ynot.com this panel features brilliant and well-informed co-speakers: Eric Bernstein from Embalaw.com, Danny Dover from SEOmoz.org, Peter Housely from Naughty Tweet, and Matt Pierce from Pink Visual.  I am looking forward to being with such an exciting group of industry leaders.  Make sure you come and see us!

Besides schmoozing with all the wonderful stars and speaking on the social media panel, I’ll be at the AVN Award Show. This is the biggest award night in the industry, and I can’t wait to see all the beautiful stars walking the red carpet.

I will be live tweeting and posting pics throughout the weekend.  I will even try to get some video to share with you when I get back…maybe even some fun and sexy stuff from the show.  So follow me on Twitter to get the live tweets, @7_veils or check in on the blog to see what I post.