Do you vid? The Facebook rumors might be true.

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woman laying down in lingerie on skype chat

Do you vid?

Do you offer one-on-one conversations with your clients through Skype? Do your clients want you to see them too? Well there might be another platform coming out for you to vid.

Facebook might be integrating video chat into their chat platform. There are rumors, coming from the discovery of video code in the Facebook platform, that FB might be integrating video chat into their chat application.

Video chat has been more of a “when” rather than an “if” for a long time but it is possible that our wait is coming to an end.

With one-third of the U.S. population on Facebook, there is a better chance that your friends are on Facebook chat rather than an email oriented platform like AOL, MSN or Google. And of course integrating FB chat into outside platforms like iChat and AIM just increase the reach and usability. This makes FB a likely platform for chat.

The integration of group chat into the new FB groups, and being able to have email announcements stream into your chat box, has just increased the attractiveness and probable development of the chat function.

Facebook would be a very easy platform for transferring conversations.  Though there are many Skype users out there, there are pleanty of people who are still not on it.  If you were networking on Twitter and wanted to move your conversation from 140 characters to a vid chat you could send someone your Facebook link.  Once they friend you, you start your video chatting.  Not only does this provide an easy way to chat but you have just expanded your network.

Through creating the cross-network relationship you have now increased your reach and can communicate with your clientele in more ways than before.  And of course if you want to build a strong client base and really grow the profitability of your business, your ability to connect to your clients on as many platforms as possible is an important key factor.

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Video Tutorial: How to Send a Direct Message on Twitter

A big question I often get asked is how to send a Twitter direct message. Especially after the New Twitter came out, some people were not sure how messaging worked.  So I put together a video tutorial to walk you through how to send a DM on Twitter. Enjoy

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Chat me up

So often in social media we get focused on making connections, growing our connections and strengthening our engagement. Sometimes we spend so much time engaging that we forget to enjoy it. Social media is social. That is the key element.

I use social media to keep in touch with industry news, to alert me to business developments and to stay on top of what my peers are doing. But I also use it to talk to people.

Ultimately this is where I have my most meaningful engagements, when I am just talking to them.  From these conversations I often get taken off the topic and into a real connection, where I get to relax, be myself and maybe even develop a real friendship.

What about my business networking?  This actually helps it. No one wants to think that you are only in it for the business, because then they may wonder: if they did not have some financial value to offer, would you still talk to them?  That breeds distrust.  Social networking is like real life networking. You cannot just be the guy who wants to meet people because you want to be the guy who knows everyone.  It is better to be the guy who knows a few people well.

Often when my clients start they are reticent about joining the conversation. They are worried they won’t have anything to say or something meaningful to add. I try to tell them that it is a matter of joining in. If you are standing next to someone in a long line, saying hello doesn’t specifically add value to the situation, but it does create a connection.

Are you so focused on the business that you are forgetting the fun? Don’t get so involved with your strategy that you forget about the power of real communication. Because ultimately that is what engagement is, a genuine conversation.

Talk to me, and I might just talk back to you. More than once.

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Cyber Monday: Top 7 Ways to Make Money and Build your Network

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womans legs and the bottome of her skirt, next to her holding a shopping bagCyber Monday is a notoriously big online shopping day. Why does that have to exclude adult shopping?  If you have a site and you sell something, then you should be taking advantage of the buzz about Cyber Monday. Adult sites can use this opportunity as a great tool for driving sales, making money and building your network.

From a business perspective this is an excellent way to work on your social media efficacy.

  1. Promote your promotions!

    Tell people that you are going to offer special deals just for Twitter and Facebook. Build the buzz around what you are going to do. Make it sexy and tell your fans and followers that you are going to do something special just for them, so they better stay tuned.

  2. Use your upcoming deals as a way to grow your network.

    Tell people to spread the word. Use growth benchmarks to give special secret deals, like “When I hit 500 fans I will give away a ….”. If you post videos then tell them that you will do something special on the video or post an exclusive photo.

  3. Exclusive Deals

    On Monday, offer deals that are only available on Facebook and Twitter. Give them access to special content or make a video that is only available if they use a promo code.

  4. Post deals constantly throughout the day.

    This will encourage people to stay tuned to your updates. You can even schedule these tweets so they keep coming on a regular basis and you can focus on engaging with your new and massively growing network!

  5. Set up an auto-DM

    Create a one-day direct message that sends a promo code, or a link to special content to new followers….and promote the fact that you are doing this.

  6. Re-Tweet Promotions

    Tell your followers that you will do a special giveaway to people who retweet your offers.

  7. Promote You

    Tell people that you are going to be online talking and tweeting with everyone.  Make access to you part of the deal. Create times of the day where people can ask you questions, or where you will do a live feed. Tell them that you will offer special content or deals for the people you talk to.  Promote yourself as a way to promote yourself!

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Are you in her box? The new Facebook Email

woman wearing a sexy mailmans outfit

If I send you an email right now, I know that it goes to your inbox.  Worst case scenario, it might go to your junk mail box.   The new Facebook email might change that.  If I am not on your “preferred” list then I might not be getting into your box.

Are you sure you are getting in her box?

Here’s what is new and different, good and bad about the new Facebook email:

What will my email address be?

Anyone who wants it will get the @facebook.com email address. You can sign up for the email address here. Your email address will be your Facebook [email protected].  Not sure what your user name is? Not sure if you have one?  Go here to set up your user name.

Good: Easy branding.
Bad: Most people can guess your email address.

Who can email me?

Everyone.  You do not have to have facebook, or facebook email to email someone with an @facebook.com email address.  Now when you send an email you can reach any email address as opposed to only being able to message fellow facebookers.

Good: Everyone can email you.
Bad: Everyone can email you.

Social Inbox

The biggest change in email management is the social inbox.  This gives you 2 boxes inside your email. 1 is the preferred email and the other is, well, “other”. The preferred inbox is where emails from people you want to read will go.  Facebook decides this though social mapping. They base this on who you interact with on Facebook.  You can add or subtract people from this inbox. So, even with the social inbox you can still control who is in your “preferred” list.

The “other” box is literally a catch-all for everything else. It is meant to contain emails you still need to read but don’t want to prioritize, like bills and newsletters.  However, since there is no spam folder, this is also where all your spam will go.

The other interesting feature about organizing your emails by “preferred” and “other” is that you will receive notifications any time you receive an email in your preferred box.  Depending on how you have these set up, the notifications can go to your phone, SMS & Text, facebook notification, and even to your chat window if you are logged into Facebook.

Good: You can easily read the email you want to read before anything else.
Bad: You might miss important emails because they are not in your preferred box.

Will there be spam?  oh yes.

The new email address makes it easy to figure out email addresses.  They are crawlable by bots, so the spam bots will be able to collect them. So it is possible that you will be flooded with spam.  Since there is no junk mail box, all your spam will go into your “other” folder. The biggest problem with this is that you will have emails that you want to read in your “other” folder and they might get lost in all the spam.

Good: Got nothing for this one.
Bad: Lots of spam.

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Social Media Best Practices (and some other good ones, too)

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Poster with a womans cleavage and a padlock holding her shirt closed and the caption says NSFW modeThe ASACP just released their Social Media Best Practices to help guide those of us in adult entertainment to make sure that children are not accessing unsuitable material. It is not just children we are protecting.  If someone accesses inappropriate material at work, they could get fired.

A friend of mine once bought a DVD boxed set of B movies from the 60’s and 70’s.  During holiday celebrations, he popped in the first disc to sit down and watch one with his entire family. His parents, brother and sister-in-law, nieces, nephews and daughter were all there.  When the movie came on, he realized that this was an old porn.  Whoops.

Social media is trying to help insure that you know what you are about to see, so you can make sure that you are in the right place at the right time, and not “accidentally” stumbling across anything inappropriate.

Listen to Joan Irvine talk about Social Media Best Practices in her blog radio interview on Sin 2.0.

Social Media Best Practices

  • Label all sexually explicit ‘social media content postings’, including but not limited to: text, video, audio, images or widgets enabling any software functionality.
  • All social media content postings should indicate “Age-Restricted” or “Sexually Explicit” based on the content.
  • When you direct people to age-restricted content or commerce on or from online social networks & mobile devices, ensure that all of your social media and mobile pages from blogs, ads and e-commerce tools to videos, fan pages, apps and widgets are labeled with the Restricted to Adults – RTA website label (http://rtalabel.org).

Additional Good Practices

  • label your tweets or posts with #nsfw (not safe for work)
  • Make sure that you have a landing page that is not explicit, that lets people know they are about to enter an explicit website.
  • Set an age limit of 18+ on your Facebook fan page
  • If you have a Facebook profile, create a group for your explicit postings and restrict all explicit talk and postings to the group. Make sure to make your group private.

Let us know if you have any other good practices to add to the list!

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Sex and Facebook Ads

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scantily clad girl in a christian singles ad on facebookIf you thought having an adult Facebook page was hard to accomplish, try running an adult ad. It is almost impossible. Even running content that is considered family friendly can be really hard to maintain due to the strict rules set forth by Facebook.

To run a successful ad campaign on Facebook you have to start with the content of your page. Your content has to be deemed acceptable, and Facebook has some pretty strict guidelines. Many of these seem pretty simple and straightforward. But the reality is, when you are on the network and doing your thing, it can be pretty hard to color within the lines.

Facebook Rules for Advertising:

General Rules:

  1. Ads must directly relate to the content on the landing page.
  2. Ads must clearly represent the company, product or brand that is being advertised. Products or services promoted in the ad must be directly available on the landing page.
  3. Ads cannot insult, harass or threaten a user.

Translation:

  1. You cannot have an ad that is advertising something different than the page it is linked to.
  2. You cannot pretend you are a different company or a different person than you actually are.
  3. You cannot tease or taunt people in your ad to get them to click on the ad.

Landing Pages:

  1. Ads that contain a URL or domain in the body must link to that same URL or domain.
  2. Landing pages cannot generate a pop-up (including “pop-overs” and “pop-unders”) when a user enters or leaves the page.

Translation:

  1. If you show a web address in your ad, the ad must link to that web address. So you cannot have a web address but have the link go somewhere else.
  2. When you click on the ad it cannot take you to a page that has pop-up ads or pop-up pages.

Targeting:

  1. Any targeting of ads based on a user attribute, such as age, gender, location or interest must be directly relevant to the offer, and cannot be done by a method inconsistent with privacy and data policies.
  2. Ads with adult themes, including contraception, sex education and health conditions must be targeted to individuals at least 18 years old. Platform ads should do this via Demographic Restrictions, not by obtaining user data.

Translation:

  1. When you target an ad to your audience, it has to be directly related to the content you are advertising. So if you are advertising a dating site, it has to be directed to singles.
  2. Any ad with adult content can only be directed to people 18 and older.

Prohibited Content:

  1. Adult content, including nudity, sexual terms and/or images of people in positions or activities that are excessively suggestive or sexual, or provocative images in violation of community standards;
  2. Adult friend finders or dating sites with a sexual emphasis;
  3. Adult toys, videos or other adult products;
  4. Ads must not be false, misleading, fraudulent, or deceptive.
  5. Ads will not be permitted in cases where a business model or practice is deemed unacceptable or contrary to Facebook’s overall advertising philosophy.

Translation:

  1. Porn. Naked pictures. Sexual pictures. Naughty words. Violence…in a nut shell. Nope, probably no nut-shells either.
  2. Dildos, vibrators, strap-ons, lube, and pretty much anything you would find in a sex shop.
  3. You cannot lie in your ad.
  4. You can’t go against the code of ethics in the Facebook Terms of Service.

Most people in the adult industry will find advertising on Facebook pretty difficult. Some of you will be able to do it, depending on what your website or content is, some might not. Learning the rules are the only way to know if you can.

Stay tuned for the next post on porn stars advertising on Facebook and learn some tips and trick on how to run a Facebook ad if you are in porn.

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Does Facebook own my photos?

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girl wearing a plaid skirt, with no top on and a banner going over her breasts that says "Facebook is hotter than me."Facebook owning the rights to our photos is something most of us never think about when we use it. But if your photos are part of your business or professional image, then this might be a big concern for you.
The Facebook Terms of Service state:

  1. For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (“IP content”), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (“IP License”). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.

What this means is that when you post photos on Facebook you give permission to Facebook to use that content, however they only have the right to use your photos in connection with Facebook or Facebook promotions, like television or internet ads.

The exception to this is if you have your privacy settings to only show your photos to your friends list. Facebook will respect your privacy settings.

When you delete your account, Facebook no longer has rights to use your photos. But there is a catch. This is only true if you have all your photos set to be visible only to your friends. If they are visible to friends-of-friends, networks or the public, then Facebook has rights to use them whether you have an account or not. Also, if you post a picture on a friend’s wall, and they do not have their profile set to private, then Facebook has the rights to those pictures too.

The likelihood that Facebook is going to use your photo is pretty slim. And if they do use it, it will only be used on Facebook or for Facebook promotions.

If this is a concern for you, there are a few ways you can help prevent unwanted distribution of your photos.

  1. Put a watermark on your photo, or put a line of text on it that says “this photo is the property of…”

This will also help prevent people from snagging your images.

A watermark or line of text won’t technically prevent Facebook from using your photo, but it does greatly reduce the possibility.
  2. Change your privacy settings to “Friends Only”. 
This will only allow your friends to see your photos.  However, public figures like porn stars, dancers or prominent business people, most likely want their images available to everybody.
  3. As an adult star or dancer, you can use your publicity shots or teaser pictures exclusively in your profile, since you probably don’t mind if people share them.

Read about how not to get deleted from Facebook! More information on Facebook practices for Adult Entertainment.

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