Hypocrisy & Sex in Advertising, more from Blogworld

Hypocrisy riddles advertising when it comes to sex. Some interesting dichotomies were discussed at Blogworld Expo 2010 such as the portrayal of acceptable sex in the media. The delineating line in advertising being romantic sex is ok to use for sales but sex for the sake of sex is not. For example, KY Jelly ads always portrays married couples having sex. The message being, recreational sex is OK if you are married.

Of course this is not a new message or a new issue.  In the United States married sex is truly the only kind of sex that is OK to promote, whether it be recreational or procreational.  Sex between unmarried people for pure pleasure is frowned upon, at least in advertising.

Now outright sex might be frowned upon but implied sex, ie. provocative imagery, is not.  At least it is not frowned on for everyone.

The ability to utilize provocative imagery in advertising is inherently tied to the purveyor of the imagery. The brand is the ambassador not their image. So if the brand is respectable then sexually provocative imagery will be accepted, but if the brand is not considered mainstream acceptable then even conservatively provocative imagery will be viewed as innappropriate. This of course is a generalization. We do see backlash when even respectable brands push the envelope too far.  But they can still push the envelope much farther than so-called not respectable brands.

picture of a highway billboard for Adultcon

The image to the left is a Calvin Klein ad that is featured in mainstream magazines. Similar ads are on billboards in major cities, off highways and scattered across the country. The image to the left is a billboard for Adultcon, an adult entertainment convention. The Adultcon billboard was asked to be taken down because of its proximity to a school despite there being nothing provocative about the billboard. The only questionable thing it says is “Adult” and that word is not that questionable, though many would consider the inferred industry to be questionable.

Interestingly though, if you search “Porn Billboard Ad” in Google images, the first image you see is not some big breasted heaving porn star.  Nope Jenna Jameson was the third image! An ad by Calvin Klein is the first.

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Social Media & Sex: Adult Entertainment at Blogworld

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Pete Housley, Kelly Shibari, Nina Hartley and Jamye Waxman at BlogworldIt is safe to say that adult entertainment is under represented in social media.  However, that is better than not represented.  At Blogworld Expo 2010 among all the wonderful and informative panels on social media, blogging, public speaking, brand building and PR was an adult entertainment gem tucked away.

The seminar was NSFW: Exploring Porn and Social Media, with speakers Adria Richards, Jamye Waxman, Kelly Shibari, Nina Hartley and Pete Housley. Though most of you probably know, this panel made up a power house of social media in adult entertainment.

This should come as no surprise, but many traditional SM strategies were discussed as being the same in adult entertainment as they are in mainstream media.

  • Make sure you have a point of view you are always promoting, this helps establish a voice.
  • 80% conversation and 20% call to action
  • It is all about engagement

Adult entertainers are more discriminated against in social media than other public figures.  Pete Housley told a story of an adult star whose name was taken by someone else on Twitter.  The person who claimed the name was squatting with it and refused to give it up. The star had to assume a different twitter handle. Of course this means that the benefit of her brand recognition for her name is received by someone else.  She also tried to get her account verified by Twitter, so that her non-branded twitter handle would be acknowledged as the real adult star.  But because she is an adult star, Twitter did not address her issue.

Though Twitter does not specifically prevent adult entertainment from networking on their service, they won’t really go out of their way to help anyone out either.

What this means is that adult entertainers have to work harder and smarter to maneuver the social media sphere. Of course, if you have to think about and plan out a social media strategy then it is far more likely to be successful then they people who just wing it.

So maybe the inherent disadvantage will prove to be a marketing advantage in the long run? What do you think?

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Spam is definitely not Sexy

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TWAM

The different social networks fill various needs for its users. Linked In is better for B2B and professional networking. Facebook is your social circle online. Twitter is everything from friends to business to news. If you are in the Adult Entertainment Industry then you are most definitely on Twitter. In fact, you might not be on the other social networks because they make it so challenging to successfully market yourself.

So you are on Twitter,  how do you get people to visit your blog, your site, buy your product, vote for you, etc. In essence how do they become clients?

The biggest mistake people make is spam. We have all seen the people who get out there and talk about their product…all day…all the time…incessantly…ad nauseum. If you want to be ignored, do this. You will be hidden on Facebook and no one will read your tweets.

The adult entertainment industry is riddled with Spam. Hell, you could argue that it is a driving force behind the industry.  So what is the balance between marketing yourself and being flagged for spam.  If someone flags you as a spammer then you will be hidden, or unfollowed, or simply ignored.

If you want people to become clients, then you need to become friends first. You need to become a real person online.

  • Be the person who shares information.
  • Be the person who says good morning and wishes people happy birthday.
  • Be the person who re-tweets other peoples blog posts and pictures.
  • Be the person who offers good advice, for free, for no other reason other than you can.
  • Be the person who responds when someone mentions you
  • Be more than a pretty picture and a sexy link

Now you are dynamic. You are interesting. You are a source of information and you are someone people will look to. In the midst of all this good will, tell people about your website or video release. Ask them for to check it out. If you are looking for votes, then ask for support. Ask people to spread the word. And when they do, thank them. Pepper your own goals into your relationship development. Your friends will respond to your requests. They will read your posts, they will go to your site, they will give you their support. They will do this because you are multi-faceted and not all about yourself. They will do this because you have build real relationships with them. This relationship will drive them to spend more money, refer you to other people and will create a lasting (and profitable) relationship with your clients.

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Blogsites can be Sexy!

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If you are an adult entertainer, or in the adult entertainment industry, and you have yet to create a blogsite then you need to put this on the top of your to do list. Maybe you already have a website but it is not easy to update or it just needs to get redone. It is time to convert it to a blogsite! They are by far the easiest and most effective sites to self manage.

Lets face it, in this industry most of us are not going to meet our clients face to face.  Our audience reaches far and wide across the interwebs. Your site can’t just be nice. It needs to amazing and dynamic, like you.  It needs to represent you to your clients, which means it needs to be sexy and captivating. Most importantly it needs to convert spectators to spenders.

For a lot of us creating a website is overwhelming.  Do you know html? Can you use Dreamweaver? Do you know was CSS means? Lets not even start on SEO. A blogsite makes this process much easier.

Most people think of a blogsite as a website for hosting a blog. The reality is it is a completely customizable website that is easy to edit and easy to update. It solves a lot of the utility issues presented by traditional websites and can save you a ton of money on design costs.

Updating your website…

The reason this is important is to drive repeat traffic to your site. If your site is static or unchanging then people have little reason to come back to it. To really drive traffic to your site you need to be a source of information. You need to give them a reason to keep coming back.  This is where a blogsite excels! You can incorporate dynamic content into your site through various widgets, making it easy to automatically stream content from sites such as Twitter, Flickr and Youtube. You can also easily update your site content through blog posts and site updates.

Its almost too easy…

You don’t have to be a web designing wiz to be able to set up blogsites.  Themes are the easiest way to set up a beautiful blogsite.  A theme is a preformed site that is installed on top of your blog.  It comes pre-loaded with widgets designed to make your site dynamic and highly functional.  For the most part you can drag and drop the widgets and easily customize your site.  If you are wanting something a little more complex, the CSS style sheet is easy to edit and the web is full of support sites to help you learn how to edit the code.

If you don’t want to look at code, because who can blame you for never wanting to read html, then there are many designers that are affordable and very familiar with designing on blogsites.  They can get you set up exactly how you need and then all you have to do edit your content, which is very easy to do from the dashboard of your site.

The blogsite theme I use is Genesis by Studiopress. I find it easy to work with and easy to customize.  It gives a great start to a beautiful and unique site, which if you are going to get noticed on your web your webpage is your first impression.

StudioPress Premium WordPress Themes

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Sex.com: Why you need a good domain name in adult entertainment

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Sex dot com

whitehouse.com

Nasa.com

yahoo.com

These are just a few of the web address that people go to and accidentally end up on a porn site.  The owners of these sites were no dummies. They knew what they were doing.  If you wanted to go to the White House, aka. where our president lives, you need to go to whitehouse.gov. If you wanted to see the National Aeronautics and Space Administration web site you need to go to Nasa.gov.  And if you want to go to the search engine, you need to go to yahoo.com. If you did not realize that whitehouse and Nasa were both .gov and not .com, or you mistyped yahoo, then you ended up on a porn site. Such simple mistakes that took you to wildly different content than was originally intended.

Though many people did not want to end up on those sites, there were many who were not upset by the surprise detour.  Whitehouse.com was pulling in over a million dollars a year before he sold it in 2009.  Who was the most interested buyer?  The government of course.

I point these out because your web address is important.  Sites like godaddy.com have made domain (web address) buying a cheap and simple process.  Now when people buy a web address, if they do not want someone else buying its nearest neighbor, they will buy the .com, .net, .org, .cc etc. addresses.

Finding a good web address that is easy to remember, or like yahhoo.com, an easy site to trip over, is important.  You want people to remember your web address.  People are reluctant to bookmark adult entertainment sites, especially if they have kids who access their computers.  So if you have sexywoman.com you are much easier to remember than, XXXwildboysexytoytimefuntub.com. Though now I am tempted to buy that domain because it is making me laugh.  But you get my point.  You want a domain that is to the point and easy to remember.  Keep clever banter, or witty puns to your site content. But if your site is videos of sexy blonds, then sexyblonds.com would be a good domain name.

Drive traffic by making it easy for people to find you and be memorable.

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Why a Talent Agent isn’t Enough: How to make more money

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Porn Star ValueYour talent agent doesn’t do it all! If you want to make more money and increase your star value you need to make sure you know what people are actually doing for you. It is also good to know what they should be doing and what they shouldn’t be doing.

It is nice to think that one person will do it all.  That one person will manage you, promote you, book you, brand you and network you. The fact is, they won’t.  This is actually a good thing, unless you are unaware of it.  You do not want all your eggs in one basket. You do not want your career and reputation dependent on one persons investment in you.  If you were to fall out of good grace with that person, what happens?  If you have different people handling different aspects of your professional life you will get better quality of work and not feel that if you left one person that your entire career will fall to pieces. So to take advice financial managers….diversify!

You talent agent is the person who will help get you jobs. They will find you gigs and work on getting you work.  Because if you don’t work, they don’t get paid.  A good talent agent will negotiate contracts and will not only work on getting you jobs but will work on getting you bigger and better paying jobs. But they don’t market you. That is your job.

A producer makes the movies.  He promotes the movies.  If you are in his movies, then he is also promoting your movies. But this is not the same as promoting you.  The producer is interested in building your reputation because that will help him sell more movies. But you see how ultimately he is interested in selling movies, not promoting you.  Because if you make a movie with someone else, then they are making money and not him.  So he wants to promote his movies and you want to promote you..and his movies…but mainly you IN his movies.

A marketing or PR manager will market you.  Their interest is in increasing your star value!  They want to improve your reputation. They want to make sure that everyone knows who you are. They will create YOU the brand and household name! They will also help you establish a marketing strategy and will help implement that strategy.  Their entire focus is marketing you.  This will then helps promote your movies which promotes you and helps you get bigger and better jobs.

So ultimately if you want to make more money, get more clients, sell more product and get better jobs, then you need to market yourself and increase your star value.

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Talk dirty to me on Twitter

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Follow Me StockingsI am sure you are sitting at your computer, wearing your sexiest of sexy underwear and fully oiled up while you are tweeting away with all your Twitter followers. I am sure that you have a deep and meaningful relationship with every single person you tweet with and when they send you a pic, you really are crazy attracted to them.  Ok…so now that we are done with those urban legends lets talk about building relationships that help people actually believe it when you tell them this.

Following a conversation on Twitter is much like following a conversation in person.  If someone says something to you or asks you something, you have to respond accordingly.  Too many people engage with fellow tweeps without paying attention to what is actually being said.  They will respond to a question with a sales pitch, or a thanks for taking a look at our website. What you don’t want to do is leave your potential client thinking that you don’t actually hang on every word.

I recently had an interaction with an Adult Tweep and she asked me to send a pic.  So I did.  People often want to know what I actually look like, for some reason people don’t believe that my little twitter icon of the girl with the veil is me! ha ha…yeah, so they are right.

So I sent her a link to a pic of me and then a pic of me from my wedding.  She sent me another DM telling me I was hot and asked if I were single….. um, yeah.  I said, well no. Obviously she was not actually paying attention to what I was saying.  Through more conversation it became clear she had no recollection of me, despite a number of conversations. This is not a singular experience. This is a synopsis of many conversations.

No one expects you to actually know, and remember, every person you talk to. But no one wants to think the show is a show. If you want the casual observer to become a client, they have to think you mean it. So the trick is to fake it till you make it.

It can be very hard to keep up with the myriad of conversations that happen on Twitter.  The more followers you have and the more interesting your content, the more people will want to engage with you.  This is why capitalizing on your momentum is integral.

Twitter applications like Tweetdeck and Hootsuite make following your conversations much easier.  When you receive a mention you can click “in reply to” (in Tweetdeck) or “show conversation” (in Hootsuite) to see the interactions you are having with that person.  This will allow you to respond appropriately.

This simple method of following your conversations will allow you to deepen you existing relationships, develop new relationships and demonstrate to other followers that you not only engage but your engagements are important to you. Then when you share a link to your website or suggest someone look at your product or join your vid-chat or webshow, they will be far more receptive and it won’t be taken as spam.  When you engage in the conversations, people will click your links, go to your sites, retweet your posts and tell their friends to follow you.

So take the time to respond conscientiously, it is worth the effort.

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Promoted Tweets on Twitter: Open to Adult Entertainment?

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Twitter just announced that it is officially rolling out sponsored accounts and promoted tweets.  This means that certain accounts will be paying to be in the “suggested user” sidebar. Certain accounts being bigwigs like Xbox and other large corporations. The suggestions are on people interests.  Twitter has an algorithm that factors in the people you follow, commonality among the people you follow,  as well as key words and hashtags. Their goal is to make the suggestions relevant to you, so you will be more likely to follow the sponsored suggestions. But will twitter blackball the adult industry the way that google has? Are we likely to see Playboy or Jesse Jane as sponsored accounts?

Twitter has also released that third-party applications will be feeding promoted tweets.  Currently if you are using twitter.com to do your primary tweeting and feed reading then you will already be use to seeing promoted tweets in your streams, especially when following hashtags. However if you use hootsuite or tweetdeck then you have been saved from promoted tweets.  Well, not any more. If you use hootsuite then you will start seeing promoted tweets in your stream. This would be the perfect spot for adult promoted tweets. Anyone who follows keywords like porn, adult, boobs, tits, sex, etc. would have a promoted tweet camping at the top of their keyworded stream.  And honestly the audience who follows those keywords and hashtags would probably be pretty receptive to a promoted topic related tweet. But the question remains…will Twitter make this available to the adult industry?

Right now people are wondering when Twitter is going to make these marketing options available to everyone and/or anyone? Right now the select few who get to use this service will be paying a premium for it. Despite the likelihood of high costs, I am sure there are many in the Adult Industry who would be extremely interested in taking advantage of such premium twitter real estate. So lets see if the Adult Industry will get a chance to bid for this prime Twitter real estate.

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