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Facebook Removing a Feature You Never Knew About

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Facebook TattooThe use of Facebook in adult entertainment is always a big question. But many people persist in using Facebook for branding purposes. So for those of you us who persist, there are some updates happening that might affect the way you use your fan page.

Facebook is removing yet another feature from Fan Pages. As of Sept 30th, you will no longer have the ability to update your fans via email. I am sure many of you didn’t even know that you could update your fans via email, well if you are just learning about this now you have about 2 more days before it is being removed.

So why is it being removed? For the exact reason why you are wondering why you have never received a page update. Well, it is likely that you have and did not know it. When Facebook updated their email service, they created their version of a spam box. It is a file on your email called “Other” this is where Facebook puts any email that it thinks is likely spam or unwanted. Of course this means any email from a fan page. They only way around emails not being filtered into this other box was to go into your email, open up a message and then move it to your “messages” box. Of course non of us ever did that. In fact, most of us never even go into the other box.

Since all fan page emails get shoved into other as soon as it is sent, Facebook has decided to remove the option entirely. Often times when a big update goes through, like Facebook email, certain things don’t function the way they were anticipated. Though Facebook wants people to use their network as a primary email address, most people are not. Very few people look at Facebook as a way to communicate with people not on the social network, and they definitely do not view it as a replacement for their primary email address. So the spam filter is under utilized and generally ignored.

A good use for True Twit Spam?

 

Woman on a computer saying "I wouldn't mind the spam half as much if they would send me more pictures of naked men."

Spam is unwanted email. Are you sending spam before you send your spam?

Finally a good use for True Twit Validation! As you probably know I do not like True Twit Validation. In my opinion it is the most commonly accepted form of Twitter spam. However, today I received a True Twit email that actually made good use of the application.

True Twit advertises itself as helping you prevent spammers and to keep you from having your DM’s and newsfeed filled with spam bots. However, the only way it does this is if you auto-follow people back. Otherwise someone following you does not affect your spam at all. You cannot receive DM’s from people who you don’t follow nor will they be in your timeline. Only people who you follow are in your timeline.  So now you are the person sending the unwanted DM to the person who is trying to follow you.  Not only are you essentially cock blocking their follow, but you are generally being annoying for no real reason.  But that changed.

I received a True Twit email that said:

Please verify your Twitter account so they can follow me afterwards.

That little bit at the end was the first time I felt a validation email gave me real reason to validate. If you auto-follow people back, you are ensuring that you do not auto-follow bots.  However, you are now giving the person a reason to validate because you are promising a follow back.

I still think that True Twit is spam.  I still think that no one should use it and that the only reason most people do use it is because they get really tired of filling out the stupid CAPTCHAs. There are still many people out there who will never fill out the validation and would rather not follow you than go to True Twit.  So even if you are using it to vet your auto-follows, you are still propagating the spam. In fact, most people think that if you are willing to start off a Twitter relationship with spam, that it is likely you will continue to send spam for as long as I am following you.

If you really need to vet all the people you follow, use a tool like socialoomph.com which lets you do that before following people but without clogging their email box with spam.

Facebook lets you evict your fans!

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Sexy fans

Are your fans enthusiastic or crazy spammers?

Facebook has added a great new feature for Fan Pages, the ability to unlike a page or person.  Are spammers plaguing your Fan Page? Do you have fans who post inappropriate content? Now you can do something about it besides just deleting the post.

In February, Facebook made some big changes. One of them was allowing Fan Pages the ability to like other Fan Pages.

Well, some pages started Liking pages and then posting inappropriate content on their wall. The page could remove the content, but they could not do anything about the page that Liked them. So they were being left open to more spam, plus they were also getting associated with these pages by being listed on their Likes. So, for example, if a hate group Liked your page, you would be listed on their page among the pages they Liked. With the Fan Page’s ability to set their featured page, you might even be a featured Like, displayed prominently on their sidebar.

Facebook now allows Fan Pages to remove a Like from their page. You can “unlike” them, even ban someone so they will not be able to post or otherwise interact with your page.

This new feature doesn’t just let you kick people off your page, it will also help you engage better. You can now sort your fans by people and pages, so you can see everyone who Liked your page. This gives you more opportunity to interact with other pages and deepen your Facebook relationships.

Keep in mind, if you are posting content on other people’s pages, you can now be removed. If you get banned by pages, you might also risk catching the attention of Facebook and getting deleted from Facebook for spam. So when you post on another Fan Page wall, make sure it is quality engagement and not spam.

paper.li is your porn spam daily

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paper.li porn spam dailypaper.li made a big splash on Twitter last fall. By December, paper.lis were becoming a frequent visitor to the Twitter timeline.  I did a review on the good, the bad and the ugly of paper.li.  As I saw more of them being posted, I also began to wonder about a few things:

  • Are people actually reading them?
  • Do they have any effect on SEO?
  • Would they actually drive traffic to my site?
  • Do the people posting even realize they are posting?
  • How much more spam does the adult industry need?

I gave it a try, and one question was answered right away. No, I did not know when they were posting. I would see the occasional retweet and then would realize that my paper.li went out. They were also pulling from stories I would not necessarily choose. Because I did not know the post was going out, I did not see the paper before it was created. So no content approval.

The traffic question did not take long to answer. As more of my stories were caught in the paper.li generator, I watched my traffic sources to see how many billions of people were coming to my site because of this “paper”. Well, the answer was zero billions. In fact, I was not receiving any traffic from the tweets. At most I was getting the occasional retweet, which also generated no traffic.

So then I began to wonder if anyone was actually reading them. I don’t. When I see them, they just filter through my newsfeed like other auto-posting spam. The only time I open them up is when I see my name mentioned. Then I check the story and re-tweet. Even then, I don’t usually look at the other stories. About 1 in a 100 times I see another story in the paper where I actually click the link. I decided that if I am not reading them, the likelihood that other people were reading them was pretty slim.

The other issue is the idea of auto-content generation. paper.li automatically pulls content from specified users or keywords and then puts it together in the form of original content. The author credits are not always right, and if they are wrong there is nothing you can do about it. Once created they are posted to your account, jamming up the timeline with paper.li posts. Usually we call posts that jam up the timeline with content that we ignore spam,;why is this any different? Oh wait, it isn’t! At least the spam that jams up my news feed has boobies and man candy in it.

I like the idea of aggregating your favorite content into a single page and then sharing it with your followers. But this is more like phoning in your news aggregation. You have little control and it is just junking up the timeline. In fact, people are starting to block paper.li from their timelines. Which makes it officially what? SPAM!

15 Tips to a Tip Top Twitter

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Twitter is one of the strongest tools in social media for the Adult Industry.  You can essentially post what you want,

Feature Friday Photo: Seth Gamble

Feature Friday Photo: the very sexy and talented Seth Gamble.

without fear of being deleted. You can network with people any time of day or night and every audience is to be found, from fans to B2B. This means that your Twitter needs to be working for you and not against you.

Having a strong Twitter bio is important. This is your first impression – your first chance to get someone to like you. This is also how search engines find your profile, so you want to make sure it is SEO optimized.

Once a week I go through my new Twitter followers and decide who I am going to follow back.  I consider a lot of factors in deciding why I follow or don’t follow someone.  One of the biggest reasons is their bio on Twitter.

Think of your bio as your 10 second elevator pitch. You have 160 characters to tell me why I should be interested in you.  If I like what I see, maybe I’ll click your profile and check out your most recent posts.  If those are interesting then I’ll follow you.  But the bio is your handshake.

5 Tips for a strong Twitter Bio:

  1. Tell me who you are. Are you a public figure? What do you do? Why are you here? I want to know who I am following
  2. Web Address: if you have a website, put the url in your bio.
  3. Don’t be crass or abrasive.  If you seem unfriendly and rude, why would I follow you?
  4. Don’t try to sell me.  If your bio is trying to push a product, that tells me you are about your sales and not about engaging with your followers.
  5. Be charming. Be nice. I want to think that if I follow you, you are approachable.

5 Tips to optimize your Twitter Bio

  1. Putting your web address in the bio is an easy way to have your Twitter associated with your business in the search engines.
  2. Use industry key words in your bio. Do some keyword research and make sure to use some of the big ones. That way, when people use them in a search you have a chance of coming up in the results.
  3. If your name is branded, use your name, so when people search your name they will find you.
  4. Don’t shorten any words.  Search engines don’t search for abbreviations. So unless your key term is usually abbreviated, spell it out.
  5. If you have a long URL for your website, use a Bit.ly to shorten it.

5 Ways to make me think you are a spammer

  1. Sending an auto-DM like, “Are u fun?” This is just spam.
  2. Using a validating service like TrueTwit. You are not preventing spam, you are creating it.
  3. DMing me the same message over and over…
  4. Tagging me in a post to a random link. If you post a link that says nothing but the link and my name..wham, bam, spam!
  5. If your avatar is an egg, I will think you are a spammer even if you are not.  Put in a pic.

Feature Friday Photo: Seth Gamble This week’s Feature Friday Photo is the very sexy Seth Gamble.  I would like to say I was captivated by his beautiful blue eyes or his amazing body but I was drawn in by his Twitter. Seth set him self apart on Twitter because he was so genuine and approachable. This boosts his star power exponentially.   He says that “well-behaved people rarely make history….life is a gamble…I’m all in.” Seth is also a very talented actor and has appeared in a ton of movies. Make sure you check out his films and follow him on Twitter.

Visit him on Twitter @sethgamblexxx

View his acting bio

Seth a big supporter of Hot Rawks, an injected aphrodisiac made from raw organic superfoods and herbs.

TrueTwit: how to turn yourself into a Spammer

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Tweet Bot
Bots? What bots? Illustration by Steve Talkowski

TrueTwit Validation is a service that lets you verify if the person following you is a bot or not. Of course I am getting these verifications from people who use their accounts for spam as well as real tweets. You just have to love the irony.

If you wonder why I would follow anyone who spams, when you follow people in the adult industry you are often risking a little spam.  I follow the person to vet them. If they are all spam, I unfollow. Plenty of people I follow are a mix of spam and real tweets.

If you sign up with TrueTwit, every time someone follows you they receive an auto-DM that asks them to click a link and fill out a Captcha to verify that they are human.

Anyone can sign up with the service for 30 days for free. Then you no longer have to receive these annoying DM’s or fill out a “verify you are human” Captcha. And after the free trial, you pay $20.

I have received an increasing number of TrueTwit Validations from people. I believe this is because by signing up they don’t have to receive the auto-DM’s anymore.  However, they are now perpetuating the spam by avoiding it themselves!

Ironically a lot of the people who are sending me the TrueTwit validation auto-DM’s are people who use their accounts for Twitter spam. The whole point of the service is to help you avoid it – they even advertise that it does this. That doesn’t actually make sense. If someone follows you, they cannot DM you. They are not appearing in your Twitter stream. So what spam are you getting from them?  The only way you would get spam from them is if you auto-follow people.  Here is an easy solution: don’t auto-follow!

And by the way, this is not a sure-fire way of preventing bots from following you.  If the bot owner signs up with TrueTwit they will not have to fill out the Captcha.

I read a great blog post about TrueTwit. It essentially answered my questions.

Basically, why would anyone want to use this?

  1. Who cares if a bot follows you?
    If you have quality tweets and engagement, the majority of your followers will be real people. So if you have a couple of bots, does it really matter?
  2. Why do you want to spam your new followers?
    If you are using TrueTwit then you are sending an auto-DM to your new followers that is basically spam.  Except now you are not spamming them with your own site, you are spamming them with someone else’s.
  3. How many followers are you losing?
    How many people don’t click that link? How many don’t fill out the Captcha?  Because if they don’t then you are not getting their follow.  So how many people are you losing because you are trying to prevent a bot that can get around the validation anyway?

So do your followers a favor, and just say no to TrueTwit.

Promote your porn on Twitter, promote your brand on LinkedIn.

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Veronica Vaughn LinkedIn Profile

Veronica Vaughn promotes herself as a business owner first and adult star second. Like Veronica, keep your social networks connected. Her LinkedIn is for networking but her linked Twitter account is for promotion.

LinkedIn is the largest business networking site.  It is where you go to post your resume, find jobs, meet people, make connections, create business alliances and have access to amazing business resources. This is not generally where you’d think of porn.  In fact, the public does not usually think of any adult star as being invested in business.  However,  the most successful porn stars have great business heads; that is why they are successful. .

LinkedIn has generally been the forbidden network in porn. Most people in the adult industry have not viewed LinkedIn as an adult friendly platform. This is true, it isn’t.  But it is not against people in the adult industry, it is against using the site as a promotion for porn.  In all fairness, it is against using the site as commercial promotion for any business.  The network is not actually about promoting business, it is about building business connections.

Much like Facebook, it is primarily a self monitoring community. If your profile is essentially spam, you risk being deleted. If you spam groups, your posts will be deleted and you may be removed from the group. If you are obviously engaging or promoting illegal activity, you will be deleted.  But if you are focusing on developing your business connections you will be fine.

LinkedIn is a place where adult stars can focus on the business side of their networking –  meeting producers, studios, agents, distributors, managers, etc.  LinkedIn groups are  your greatest resource.  There are groups for every possible topic. Interested in Social Media? Join the group Adult Social Media and keep on top of what is happening in social media in adult entertainment.

Join a group, read the discussion and then take part. The more you use the groups the more they will benefit you.  As you participate, you will meet people and expand your network.

Are you needing information? Ask the group.

Are you needing help? Ask the group.

Are you looking for business connections? Ask the group.

To network on LinkedIn you just need to position yourself as a business person.  Promote your porn on Twitter. Network your brand on LinkedIn.

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.