Posts

Start Talking on Google Plus: Boost Your SEO

SEO for social networks is not the same as SEO for your website or blog. A large component is the social element and Google Plus is no different. Not only do you need to optimize your profile, link your website and optimize your posts, but you also need to talk to people. This is one of the biggest issues with adult brands and social media, an overwhelming lack of engagement with fans. But it is time to get over it because it is vital to your social SEO.

Sharing your Posts

When you write a post, make sure that you are sharing it to the public. You do not have to do this with every post. In fact you can create a sharing strategy. Share your more provocative post with your circles and then your more generic, aka “safe”, posts with the public.

You have a choice of what circles and with whom you want to share your content. You can make it as limited or open as you would like. But if you want people you don’t yet know to access your content you need to make sure it is publicly available. You do this by selecting “public” when you select your circles.

By making your posts public, not only will people be able to find you in searches but when they go to your profile they will be able to see what you have posted. Many people like to “browse” profiles before they circle someone. Think of this as your Macy’s window and they are window shopping.

Respond Back!

So many people ignore the people who engage with them. This is bad. If you want to grow your network, your exposure and improve your SEO you need to engage back. If someone pluses your post, add them to your circles. If someone comments on your post, respond back…and add them to your circles.

Tag People

A great way to initiate conversation with someone is to tag them in a post. You do this by typing + and then their name (which will auto-populate when you start typing). This creates a tag, or linked text, in your post. Doing this also gives a notification to that person that they were tagged.

This is a great way to start conversation or let someone know that you are talking about them, or their content.

Comment

Comment on other peoples posts. It really is that simple. Stop only looking at what you are putting out there and start looking at what other people are sharing. If you post thoughtful comments on other peoples posts you might make a new contact, create a conversation or debate. You will all be introducing yourself to all their followers who saw that post, because when they see the post they will now see your comment. If it is good they may circle you or look at your shared posts.

Circle People

Circling people is one of the easiest and fastest ways to grow your network. Go out and find people in your interest area. Find people you might want to talk to. Add them to your circle and start engaging with their content. Many people will circle you back just because you circled them.

Finding Content

Finding people can best be done by finding content. You do this through G+’s real time search. Type in a search term and your results will stream in real time what people are currently posting. You can keep this search list auto-refreshing or pause it for easier reading. This is a great opportunity to comment on people posts and find people to add to your circles.

All of these things will help boost your overall SEO. Google+ will rank you higher in their internal search engine, getting you more exposure, and thus helping your overall SEO.

Sexy Talk on Twitter! Tips to boost your Twitter

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Sexy Twitter Lips

Are you chatting people up on Twitter?

How do you super boost your Twitter? When people ask me this I always tell them engage engage engage! Engagement marketing is the most effective form of social marketing. The whole principle behind it is talking to people. That also happens to be the founding principle of all social media. So it is no surprise that it is the most effective way to manage your Twitter.  The next big question is how do I engage? Get with the sexy talk! Ok, it doesn’t actually have to be sexy talk. But you have to talk to people.

Who do you talk to? Everyone! Talk to tweeps who follow you. Find a hashtag or a trend and talk to someone who posted something that made you laugh. Search for keywords for your industry and talk to the people that come up in the search.  The important thing is that you start talking!

Being a wall flower in social media not only will not get people to talk to you, but you will actually be invisible. If you want to be seen and build your visibility you need to put yourself out there. By this I mean talking to people. Tweeting about your business and your website is fine, but make sure that is not all you talk about. You need to talk to other twitters about what they are doing. Retweet their content. Ask them about their work and projects. People love to talk about themselves. If you are wondering how to start a conversation ask them about them.

Social sharing is one of the foundations of social marketing. You build your clicks by having people share your content. The more generous you are with sharing the more generous they will be with their sharing. The soap box methodology of marketing does not work. People on Twitter are not interested in just hearing about you. It is a more of a scratch my back and I will scratch yours type of environment. People want to know that you are a resource, someone who will post interesting and relevant content.

Some of you may be thinking, but I am in porn? Yes, it works that way in porn too. Talk to your tweeps. Retweet pics of their #TittyTuesday posts and they will likely retweet yours. Plus your audience likes to see the interaction. When you talk to other people you become more interesting. Not just to them but to all the folks who are reading your tweets.

So go out there and get talking!

New Fan Page; Good for the Adult Industry!

The Facebook logo on top of a diamond engagement ring

Facebook is getting engaged. Now you can interact as your brand! Will the adult fan page become useful?

Facebook is getting engaged! On Friday the new Fan Page design was released. The biggest news from the announcement is the ability to use Facebook as your Fan Page. For the adult industry, getting the full benefit out of the Fan Page has been a challenge.  However, things just got a little easier.

Adult industry Facebook sites have been relegated to posting only on their Fan Pages, and even then they tend to get deleted because of these posts.  Often times, people’s admin profiles get deleted as well, if they have used their admin profiles to network on Facebook on behalf of their Fan Page.

The rule of thumb for having an adult site on Facebook is: keep it rated PG. Other people are posting PG-13 and R rated content, but if you are in the adult industry you are going to be scrutinized more heavily. So tread lightly and you will be fine.  The real purpose of your Fan Page is to get people off Facebook and onto your site, so use it to transition platforms and as a way to engage with your fans.

The new engagement ability makes this last part much easier to do. You no longer have to network with your personal profile; you can focus all your engagement efforts onto your Fan Page.

What this means

When you go to your Fan Page, in the right hand menu bar, at the very top, there is a line that says “Admins”. This shows you who the administrators are for your site, and is only visible to them. Fans do not see this. Directly under that line is a list of Fan Page operating options:

The menu to help you use Facebook as your Fan PageThe first line says “Use Facebook as…”. This allows you to operate Facebook as your Fan Page. You can post comments on people’s posts, “Like” other pages and post on walls as your Fan Page name. You can do nearly everything you would do as a profile.

This means you can use Facebook as your business or brand, while keeping all your brand activity tied to your Fan Page.

Previously, if you wanted to comment on pages or posts as your brand you couldn’t do it. Many people would create additional profiles for their businesses just so they could talk to people on Facebook in a location other than their Fan Page. There are many businesses who opted to only have a profile instead of a Fan Page because of this limitation. However, this limited them to a fixed number of friends. They also risked being deleted, because you are not supposed to use personal profiles for business purposes. That is why Fan Pages were created .

How it affects engagement

The simple Facebook rule for business is this:

If you want to have an effective Fan Page, you need to talk to your fans.

If you talk to your fans you will increase your reach. You will be passively networking through your interactions with people. This was easy to do with a profile and hard to accomplish with a Fan Page. Now you can post everywhere! You can put your business page in front of as many folks as you are willing to talk to! You just increased your capacity to network infinitely.

Where Adult has to be careful

The new engagement puts you at a higher risk for being flagged for spam.  Just because you can now post anywhere, it does not necessarily mean you should. You can still be marked as spam if you are not using your new communication channels with care.

Remember, engagement is about talking to people, not about putting your link out there as much as you can. If you join conversations, and have something interesting to say, you will get people to your page and your website.

Adult Fan Pages cannot have profile images that are too provocative or sexy.  Make sure your comments are not just limited to posting links or photos – in fact I would avoid this. Join conversations and try to encourage people to visit your Fan Page, then make it easy for them to find your website.

Does the New Facebook Fan Page Help Porn?

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Woman in red dress holding her head and screaming

Most of the changes are good. One change is bad. You'd better know which one!

Most of us have just gotten use to the last batch of changes on the profile. Now Facebook has just done a major overhaul on the Fan Page. Last Friday, Facebook announced they have made changes – not just to the layout, but to the functions of the Fan Pages as well.  Many people in the adult world have had a lot of challenges using Fan Pages, but many of us still use them.  This new functionality might help get the word out about your page without having to rely on advertising (which is basically impossible) or posts, which are not necessarily shared because of content.

  • Profile style layout

    The layouts now share the same style as the redesigned profile. This streamlines pages and profiles, making them easier for people to use, because they share similar features.

  • Posting as a Page

    You now have the option to post comments on other people’s pages and profiles as your professional page name. This is a big benefit for increasing engagement for your page.  As an adult page, you can now comment as your “brand” name on others’ posts or walls. This allows for increased visibility for your page while you interact more with your fan base. But you still have to be careful of being flagged for spam!

  • Photo Strip

    The photo strip we have become accustomed to seeing on our profiles is now on your page. Instead of the photos being the most recently tagged images of you, they are the five most recently uploaded photos. This can only be done by the admin, but if you post your pics carefully you can create a really nice photo strip that helps your branding.

  • Change your Category

    You can now change the category of your fan page. It used to be that once you picked a category for your page you were stuck with it. Maybe you set yourself up as entertainment, but now you want to switch to personality or to a brand. Now you can!

  • Featured Likes

    A page can now Like another page. These Likes are featured on the left side panel of your page. Beyond that, you can assign “Featured Likes”, meaning you can designate special pages you want to focus on. This is a fun way  to show favor to another page by giving them what amounts to prime passive advertising real estate on your page.

  • Featured Page Owner

    Just like Featured Likes, you can feature a page owner. This will also appear on the left side panel of your page. This is a great way to draw attention to a specific person.

  • Filtered Wall

    This is the big bad! Facebook is now filtering your wall posts. You have 2 choices. One is to only display the posts from your page, which will show chronologically. The other is to display all posts. Facebook is filtering the “everybody” setting by popularity. So, not all posts, tags or mentions will be displayed on your wall. Plus, to be even more frustrating, they are not being shown chronologically either. Posts from today might be directly above a post from last week, or a post from three weeks ago might be at the top of your wall!

That’s the overview of the latest changes. I will explore these a bit further and give some tips on how these can work to the advantage of your adult fan page! Stay tuned!

What’s the Next Big Trend in Porn? (part 2)

On Monday we spoke about the “next” trend in porn.  With threats of pirated content and free amateur tube sites, the survival of quality porn is being threatened. The adult industry is no stranger to being on the front end of the technology adoption curve and cutting edge tech strategies.  We are already seeing how mobile and 3D are coming in with a bang.  But the new trend in strategy is engagement.

Not only are studios creating more ways to deliver content, they are finding more interesting ways to deliver it.  Riding on the popularity of “webisodes” on mainstream networks like NBC and FOX, you might start seeing your favorite porn star, like Jenna Haze, creating webisodes.  The neat thing about them is they are much like sitcoms – you get attached to the main actors. When you combine webisodes with Jenna Haze’s great Twitter strategy then you will have a more interactive experience because Jenna will be able to drop clues about the up and coming episode and discuss the past episodes with fans.

With interactive sites that feature webcams with chat, live Q&A’s with fans, Skype, vidchat, blogs, Twitter, Facebook and more, we are seeing porn tearing down barriers.

Joanna Angel, the owner of Burning Angel: “I think things that are becoming a lot more community oriented. The wall of the porn star is breaking down and I think we’re moving in a direction where there’s a lot more interaction between fans and stars.”  (Joanna Angel as quoted on CNN)

Whether it is communication on live chats or Twitter, or virtual cams where the customer controls the toy, the porn world is going to be getting to know their fan base. If you want to stay ahead of the curve you better figure out your engagement strategy.

Follow Friday: More than just Shameless Promotion!

Are you growing the quality of your network with Follow Friday?

What is the point of Follow Friday? People ask this all the time. It so often seems like it’s just gratuitous plugging of people’s friends.  Well, you are not wrong; however, you are not right either.

What is Follow Friday?

Follow Friday is a hashtag event that happens every Friday.

People tag their posts with #FF and then list names of tweeps they want to give a shout out to.

Why should I bother?

What Follow Friday promotes is engagement.  People offer the coveted #FF to a list of people they engaged with that week.  It is tells everyone who reads your tweets, “these are people I talk to, and people who talk to me”.  These are individuals with whom I have real relationships – they are concerned with conversation rather than just promoting their message.

So when some gives you a #FF they are telling all of their followers that you are a quality tweep.

The FF Strategy

#FF is as simple as listing names.  However the way you group people matters.  You do not talk to them without thinking about what you say, so do not #FF without thinking about it first.  Put similar people in like groups.

  1. When you group people in a niche you can categorize your #FF by saying “My social media #FF” or “My adult super star #FF”. This allows for easier and more effective networking.
  2. People can be peculiar about who they are grouped with. I had a social media tweep comment about being grouped with a bunch of porn stars. Afterward I realized they did not necessarily want that association. They know that I am in social media for adult entertainment, but they weren’t.  So you might not want to have your business development tweeps in with your Titty Tuesday tweeps.  Its like a seating chart at a wedding. Just because they like you does not mean they like each other.

FF Tools

  • Follow Friday Helper is a good tool. It makes it easy to see who you have been engaging with and helps you put them all in one tweet.
  • Top Follow Friday will let you see who is endorsing whom.
  • The Twitter Tag Project will look at your last 200 tweets and identify who you have engaged with and will create your #FF post.

It is Monday. You have all week to collect your Follow Friday tweeps.

Will you #FF?