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!

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Pics from The Phoenix Forum

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The Phoenix Forum was a great show! I met a lot of amazing people and saw some amazing things! It was a crazy three days filled with networking and new technology and naked women, three of my favorite things. Check out some of the pics.

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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.

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Crowdsurf Naked!

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Crowd surf Naked

Crowdsurfing naked means being honest and asking tough questions. Do you use crowdsurfing as a strategy?

What is the old adage, “Want to do it better? Do it naked!”  …no, probably not an old adage in any society.  But this could be a new motto for social media and crowdsurfing.  The idea behind crowdsurfing is that you are asking a wide audience their opinion about a topic or decision. Kim Kardashian blew Matt Lauer’s mind on her interview with the Today Show when she talked about crowdsurfing decisions from nail polish color to branding her perfume.

“[Twitter] is like the best focus group.” – Kim Kardashian

Kim is not wrong. Twitter as a giant focus group – thousands of people who are all interested in the same thing, from every demographic and around the world, all willing and able to give you feedback and comments. All you have to do is ask.

How do I crowdsurf?

Easy. All you do is ask a question and request feedback, e.g., “Tell me what you think; boxers or briefs?” If it is something you want a lot of feedback on, I would recommend tweeting throughout the day or week, let people know you are trying to get opinions and even ask your followers to help.  The longer you run your crowdsurf the more information you will get. Of course this is within reason; if all you tweet about is your question, you are likely to bore or annoy people. So keep it interesting and relevant and mix it up a little.

Do you need a big following?

Actually no. Having a good size following definitely helps in any crowdsurfing endeavor but is not essential. You can use crowdsurfing as a way to poll people and a way to grow your network as long as you use hashtags strategically.  If you are asking a question about sex, you might want to use the hashtag #sexquestion.

Does majority rule?

There is no law that says you have to do what your crowdsurf results tell you. Ultimately it is up to you. But since you did take the time to get pubic opinion, you might want to take the advice of the majority.

Crowdsurfing can be a highly valuable tool. People use it for getting viewpoints on simple things like where to eat, or complex issues like personal branding and business strategy. The key to successful crowdsurfing is to do it naked; do it honestly and be forthcoming.  If you are going to crowdsurf, be willing to go with the crowd.  Ask the tough questions and you will get better feedback if you are inquiring about something real.

When you crowdsurf, your fans and followers feel involved in what you are doing. It lends an air of authenticity to your social media and helps create an emotional investment between you and your followers, all of which creates loyalty.

Try integrating crowdsurfing into your online strategy. You might be surprised by how helpful your fans and followers really are!

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Facebook Questions: Not a Fan of Fan Pages

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Facebook has rolled out another update. Honestly, this one will not likely have a big effect on the Adult Industry. I am even arguing with myself about how this update will impact the Adult Industry because it is generally irrelevant to Fan Pages at present. But here’s the latest: Questions has been unleashed on the Facebook world.

Questions is a new feature that allows you to create a poll to post in your status update. You can ask any question, then add as many answer options as you wish for responders to choose from. The “options” are your poll choices. You can even offer “Allow anyone to add options” to let people write in their own answer, if they do not want to choose one of your pre-sets.

Everyone likes polls. Everyone likes quizzes. There are more quiz applications on Facebook than almost any other kind of app.  Why? Because we are dorks and love answering questions about whether we think we’re going to survive the next Zombie Apocalypse.  Of course, quizzes and polls are also a great way to crowdsurf ideas.  There are reasons why Survey Monkey is so popular.

Crowdsurfing is a great way to include your audience in your decisions. For Kim Kardashian, crowdsurfing is integral to her business strategy. Where Questions has the potential to be a boon for crowdsurfing Twitter, it is currently a big #FAIL because of its limitations with Fan Pages.

This is what Questions looks like when you are creating a poll:

Questions on Facebook

When you create a poll, it appears in your newsfeed and on your wall.

If you have a personal Profile and you post a Question, it looks like this:

Facebook Question in the newsfeed

In the newsfeed the Question appears as the full poll, showing profile thumbnails of people who have answered.

If you post a Question from your Fan Page, it looks like this:

Questions post on fan page

When you post a Question from your Fan Page, it shows up as a link instead of showing the poll.

As you can see, there is a big difference between how Questions appear on the newsfeeds and walls for Fan Pages and Profiles, and there is an obvious benefit to posting as a Profile. Because it shows up as a link instead of a preview to the poll, the usefulness for Fan Pages has been generally negated.

If someone does actually click through and answer the question, it will show up as activity in their news feed (as either the link or the post – Facebook is still testing this). For now, the Fan Page link situation is inhibiting the use of this feature as an interactive business tool. Maybe Facebook will change it as they work out some of the kinks.

In any case, if you’d like to try out this interesting new feature, get Facebook Questions.

Make sure to check out Wednesday’s post on Crowdsurfing for the Adult Industry.

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The Phoenix Forum and the Importance of Conferences

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Feature Friday Photo: Ruby Violence

Friday Feature Photo: Coquettish and fetish, all wrapped into one; the exquisite Ruby Violence.  

Next week I am heading to Arizona for The Phoenix Forum, a networking and educational business event for the Adult Industry.  Though I was hoping to speak at the event, I will have to settle for simply attending (well, that’s what happens when you ask too late).  It should be a great opportunity to have some in-depth discussions on business trends and social media.

I really enjoy going to conferences. They are an excellent way to network, make some great business connections, make new friends, learn about up-and-coming trends in the industry and get your face in front of people. As a social media strategist, I spend most of my time behind a computer screen, so being able to get my face in front of people really helps! Plus, I love opportunities to talk to people about what they are doing and have some off-the-cuff social media discussions.

This weekend is Adultcon. I wish I were able to go to this conference as well. One of the challenges is deciding which conferences you are going to attend – they can be expensive, time-consuming and energy-consuming.  It is not possible to attend all of them, unless you are a professional conference-goer. Most of us still have to work when we are not conferencing (and even when we are), so balancing the work and travel can be challenging.

How to Evaluate a Conference

  1. How important is it? Some conferences are really big and significant to the industry. These should be priority.
  2. Is it important to you? Some conferences might be really important to fans and stars, but not to businesses. Make sure you know why you are going; attend the conferences that meet your needs.
  3. How much time and money can you can invest? Like I said, conferencing is expensive. We would all love it if someone were paying all our expenses, but that is not usually the case.  Take a look at how much time you can afford to be away from your daily life, because when you are conferencing you are not doing your regular business. Then take a look at how much you can afford to spend. The costs add up quickly: registration, travel, hotel, car rental, food, entertainment: what seemed like a nice $300 trip just cost you $2000.
  4. Are the business connections important? Sometimes you choose to go to a conference not because of the content it is offering, but because of what its attendees are offering.  Take a look at who is going and if there are people important to your business or brand then you might want to make an appearance. Conferences are about networking, so make sure the networking is valuable.

I decided that The Phoenix Forum is crucial for me, mainly for the networking. I already have some important meetings set up and am looking forward to the new connections I will make.

While I am there I will also take advantage of what the conference is offering. Some of the seminars I am thinking of attending are:

  • Frenemies- Learning from your competition or arch-rivals
  • Technology and Monetization: A 2 Way Street
  • Listening to the consumer Are your price models effective? Learning from consumer spending habits.
  • Head in the Cloud- integrating cloud computing
  • Dot XXX How is .XXX affecting your business?

I am also planning on going to the YNot Grand Prix. This will be my first Grand Prix, so I am pretty excited. Remember, networking is as much about being social as it is about talking business. So make sure you go to social events, but don’t burn yourself out. Ultimately you are there for your business, brand or personal promotion. Don’t let the parties get in the way of your goals.

I’ll head out to Phoenix on Wednesday and will dive into networking and conferencing first thing on Thursday. I already have some great meetings on my schedule, but am looking forward to those that will come up spontaneously . If you’ll be at the forum next week and would like to meet, make sure you email or tweet me.

I will be blogging about the conference and will be live tweeting the entire time. Hopefully, I’ll have some great information to share. I will keep you posted!

Friday Feature Photo: Ruby ViolenceThe fabulous Ruby Violence is the Feature Friday Photo.  Ruby and I met through Twitter when I tweeted about her being on the cover of the new DVD, Girlfiends #9. An avid tweeter, @rubyviolence is a great person to tweet with, quick to respond and a good conversationalist. Her website has a lot of  content, from videos to pictures, and a great blog that gives you tantalizing previews of her site.  Ruby’s blog not only previews sexy vids and pics, but she shares insights about her photo and video shoots. Her philosophy is “Violently Sexy”, which says that women can be beautiful and sexy without being ‘sluts’ or ‘whores’; they can be sweet and pure and still be strong. This ethos is captured in her photos and her demeanor.

Go to her website: www.rubyviolence.com

Talk to her on Twitter: @rubyviolence

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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.

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Tweet Dirty to Me at Exxxotica Miami

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Exottica Miami Seminar: Hot to Get into Adult A to Z

Learn about getting into the Industry from highly specialized business experts.

7 Veils is coming to Miami!  I will be presenting as part of Michael Fattorosi’s seminar series, “Getting into Adult – A to Z“.  Michael is heading up and moderating this 3 day workshop. He’s an Adult Industry lawyer, and you can find him on Twitter @pornlaw.

Getting into Adult – A to Z will teach you how to get into the Industry, in front of and behind the cameras. There will be valuable discussions about business strategy and career management.  Definitely a great opportunity to speak to highly specialized Industry professionals about your adult career, and get some personalized advice and tips.

I will be presenting: Tweet Dirty to Me: learn to use Social Media to get the clicks. You will learn how to use Social Media to reach your audience, get people to talk to you, promote your brand, and of course get them to click your links!

I will post more about the event as we get closer, and I am very excited to be taking part in this conference. Let me know if you’ll be attending!  While I am there, hit me up about your social media strategy – I just might have some good suggestions!

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Adult Social Media: Rallying for Japan

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Stand for Japan

Friday Feature Photo: Ela Darling

Friday Feature Photo: The beautiful Ela Darling, a talented, sexy model and adult actress.

Today is the start for Stand for Japan an effort spearheaded by Sabrina from Deepsabrina.com. Sabrina is encouraging all models, webmasters, affiliates, producers, distributors, media and everyone in the adult industry to encourage their web traffic to go to the Stand for Japan Red Cross site and make a donation.

Sabrina added, “I would simply like to thank all those who adhered to Stand for Japan, showing an unselfish and unprecedented sensibility in this industry. It’s really refreshing to see that there are still people choosing solidarity over traffic and personal gain. Again, thank you very much!”

The devastation in Japan is beyond comprehension. While electricity and phone service have been hugely affected, leaving many survivors without either, the Internet has remained virtually unaffected. This makes social media not just an effective means of communication, but one of the only means.

The wreckage in the aftermath of this tragedy is horrendous – and the use of social media has been incredible. It is becoming the go-to technology for emergency and disaster relief, management, communication and recovery.

One of the most amazing features of social media is the ability for swift response. Whether it is communication about real-time events, sharing news or raising disaster relief funds, social media has immediate and worldwide impact on all aspects of emergency and disaster management.

Japanese porn stars Maria Ozawa, Sola Aoi, and Ai Sayama have been using their social media and their influence to drum up support for Japan and sharing how the devastation has effected them personally.

The social media effort is not limited to individuals and non-profits.  There have been a lot of tweets, updates and encouragement by adult industry folks to go and donate, spread awareness and build community. The adult industry has a lot of influence, and this tragic situation enables it to use that influence for a greater good.

Twitter

Twitter was the number 1 social network used for anything about the earthquake and tsunami. The Tweet-o-Meter, a website that tracks twitter usage per minute, has pretty much remained pegged at 1200 tweets per minute for usage in Tokyo since the disaster began.

Hashtags

Hashtags are a way to keyword-identify a tweet, so people who are following a topic can use that keyword to track the topic. According to Mashable, the most popular hashtags are #Japan, #JPQuake, #JapanQuake, #PrayForJapan, #Tsunami and #TsunamiCharity; real-time Tweet map; Save Japan (updates in Japanese); and the UN’s Must-Follow Twitterers

Twitter posted a blog, in Japanese and English, that details how you can help by using Twitter.

Facebook

Relief and resources pages popped up almost immediately on Facebook. Nearly every major relief non-profit is using their Facebook Fan Page to help raise money for Japan.

Japan Earthquake reports news and information about the disaster.

Solidarity with the victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan 2011 is a Belgian page created to show support and communicate news about Japan.

Dog Bless You is a non-profit that assists with rescue operations. They are sending a team to Japan to use dogs in the human rescue effort. Explore.org is donating $1 for every Like the Dog Bless You page receives.

American Red-Cross has a page on Causes, a Facebook app that lets people donate to charities on Facebook.

Save the Children also has a page on Causes.

FarmVille, CityVille and FrontierVille, games on Facebook created by the company Zynga, have partnered with Save the Children’s Japan Earthquake Tsunami Emergency Fund to get their users to purchase virtual goods for the games as a way to donate to the fund. 100% of the proceeds from the purchase of sweet potatoes in CityVille, radishes in FarmVille or Kobe cows in FrontierVille will go towards Save the Children’s efforts to provide relief in the Pacific.

YouTube

Some of the most poignant imagery from Japan has come from videos posted on YouTube. Personal video accounts of the disaster are giving all of us an experience that communicates the immense impact of what has happened.

If you search YouTube for Japan Tsunami the video results will be overwhelming, from news to personal videos from around the world.

Maps

Tweet Map

Map enthusiast Virender Ajmani (@mibazaar) created a tweet map. This is a map that displays a new tweet every 5 seconds from Japan. The tweets are from within a 600 km radius of Tokyo, Japan and are tagged with either earthquake or japan or tsunami.

YouTube Map

Virender Ajmani also created a YouTube map that shows Geotagged videos from within an 800 km radius of Tokyo, Japan that are tagged “Earthquake/Tsunami”. Geotagged videos means that the video has been tagged, or identified, as being from a certain location.

Seismic Activity

Maplarge.com created a map that shows you the seismic activity and the size of the earthquakes that hit Japan.

Flickr

Photos from journalists and photographers to camera phones are streaming into Flickr tagged with Japan Earthquake, Japan Tsunami

Live Video

Live video has streamed from myriad sources around the world. Here are a few:

Google

Google has created Crisis Response and Japan Person Finder to help with the disaster. Crisis Response gives emergency information, including numbers for missing persons, and information for relief donations.

The Japan Person Finder is a page that lets you put in a report for a missing person or share information you might have on a missing person.

Text

The American Red Cross is taking text donations, like they did with Haiti. If you would like to donate to their Japan Earthquake Relief, just text REDCROSS to 90999. Each text provides $10 towards the Red Cross’ humanitarian efforts.

Other Resources

  • Blog RSS feed: Japan Earthquake is a blog feed that is streaming blog posts from major news sources, reporters and bloggers.
  • Internet Browser Toolbar: Tsunami news in your toolbar is a tool bar that normally streams internet radio, but now has a feature allowing your to stream news about the disaster in the toolbar of your internet browser.
  • Hellobar: The hello bar is a tool that allows you to add a bar to the top of your web page that displays a message. Look at the top of this page and you will see my Hellobar. The company is allowing people to sign-up (which has been previously limited) in order to have a support Japan Hellobar.
  • iTunes: Created a donation page making it easy to use your iTunes account to donate to the Red Cross.

There are resources and networks all over the Internet sharing information, connecting people, streaming news and images and bringing all of us closer to the realities of what happened in Japan. The ones I listed are just examples of what is available. The call to action from the social media community has been tremendous. Where we were just starting to get an idea of the effects of the earthquakes and tsunami, we were also just starting to get an idea of the effects of social media in relation to the disaster. It makes me proud to be a part of the community that is mobilizing rescue, communication, fundraising, information and a worldwide community effort to help our international neighbors.

Make sure you are getting out there and spreading the word, and please click the banner at the top of this post to make a donation to the Red Cross and give Japan some much-needed help.

Friday Feature Photo: Ela Darling This week’s Friday Feature Photo is the beautiful Ela Darling.  We met at the Adult Expo, and I was immediately captivated. Not only is she beautiful, but she is a lot of fun to talk to. We immediately started to tweet and I have been a fan ever since. Her website is great. She has an amazing photo gallery ranging from classic sexy, to period pieces, fetish and bondage. Her photos are creative and captivating. On her blog she shares pics, videos and radio interviews.

Make sure you visit her website: darlingela.com

and talk to her on Twitter @eladarling

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