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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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F-Bomb Tweet? Who Cares?

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It was big news last week when a horrendous tweet was sent out by Chrysler that not only insulted their customers and community, but also dropped the F-bomb.

Chrysler Retweet: “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f**king drive.”

This is highly damaging to their brand because it is offensive to so many people.  Of course part of what is offensive is the causal use of the F-bomb.  But really, who cares?  Well, a lot of people.  And this is where the Adult Industry and the rest of the world diverge in some ways.

If you are in the Adult Industry and you drop the F-bomb no one really gets upset, at least not in the same way that the vanilla world does.  People might question why you are being unnecessarily crass, but even that may be unlikely.

What is interesting, though, is that the F-bomb is still generally a Twitter no-no. Even in porn you don’t see people using it very much and when they do it is usually in direct reference to a sex act and not used as an exclamation or just for shock value.

Studies have been done to show that negative tweets are no good. They can cause you to lose followers or slow your network growth.  Despite what people say about drama drawing attention, Twitter has shown that Tweeps like to keep it positive.

This makes me wonder if the F-bomb, despite its myriad uses and meanings, is generally thought of as a negative word; maybe that is why even in Adult business it is used with restraint and avoided whenever possible.

Of course the F-bomb was not the only problem with the Chrysler tweet. The fact that it dissed their entire community and consumer base is the bigger issue.  Even porn stars would not be able to get away with genuinely insulting their audience.

The take-away? Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, and use the F-bomb sparingly, if at all.

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Facebook’s New Fan Page for Everyone!

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Facebook GirlsYesterday the new Fan Page dropped for all Facebook users. Many of us converted our Fan Pages in February when we were first given the option, and because of this we experienced the plusses and minuses of what the new page was about. In fact, we even started an online rally against some of the negatives of the Fan Page wall. Our cry to bring back chronological posts was a success. So the early adopters helped pave the way for the rollout.

Many people in the Adult Industry are leery of Facebook pages, and for good reason.  However, the new layout and functionality will actually make it easier for the Adult Industry to interact with people in a way that does not violate the Terms of Service. If you are using the new features of the Fan Page to interact with other pages and engage in discussions, you won’t be flagged – unless you are spamming. These new engagement opportunities are paving the way for Adult Industry sites to start using Facebook in ways that are actually beneficial.

  • Your Fan Page is visually more like a profile now. This will make it easier for people to
    Feature Photo Friday: PornoBobbie

    PornoBobbie is this week's Feature Friday Photo. He is an adult star, writer (and blogger) and connoisseur of life. This photo just inspires me to be naughty...and naked.

    engage with you, because familiarity breeds comfort.

  • You also have the ability to use Facebook as your Fan Page identity or brand. Now you can interact with other pages, post on their walls and comment on their posts. This will dramatically help with engagement and networking. Previously, you could only interact with people as your business or brand if you were on your own Fan Page.
  • The best part of the new functionality is notification. When someone comments on a post, you will receive an email (if your settings are set to do so) and you will see a notification alert just like you would if you were normally using Facebook. This is a great way to know when people are interacting, so you can respond. The notifications will also let you know when you have new fans. Now you can see your number of Likes increasing and you’ll know who recently Liked you. This is great for demographics and networking.

No doubt there will a lot of discussion about the new Fan Page as it is released for everyone. Stay tuned!

PornobobbiePornoBobbie is this week’s Feature Friday Photo.  Not only is Bobbie a sexy porn star but he is also a talented writer.  He posts frequently to his blog, The Life and Times in Pornolandia, which chronicles his adventures in the San Fernando Valley as a porn star and writer, and the general craziness of life.  Bobbie is another example of a porn star who can write!  He is funny, witty, provocative and alluring. He is also a great Twitter tweep.  Always good for an interesting tweet, I recommend you give him a shout. I also love this picture, he looks academic and devious. My favorite combination.

Read Bobbie’s blog at The Life and Times in Pornolandia

Follow PornoBobbie on Twitter @PornoBobbie

Talk to PornoBobbie on Black Book Buddies!

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Porn Stars Can Write?!? Duh.

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Nina Hartley

Nina Hartley is a great example of an adult star who is also a gifted writer.

Many people are surprised to find out that porn stars can write. There is a public misconception that adult starts are stupid and uneducated.  Well, this is plainly not true. There are many very smart and very talented writers in the adult industry and blogs are giving them a voice where they did not have one before.  Because some porn stars have created blogs, many others are wondering if they should begin one as well.

Blogging is one of the big things you hear people talking about as a necessary addition to any website.  I would argue this point.  There are good and bad things about blogging, but the crux of the issue comes down to the blogger.

You should have a blog if:

  • you like writing
  • you have something interesting to say
  • you have unique content
  • you are willing to make a committment

You should not have a blog if:

  • you don’t really like writing
  • you are only doing it because you think you should
  • you just don’t think you have the time

What you are trying to accomplish?

  • establish authority
  • connect with your audience
  • add value to your website
  • build your brand

As an adult site, blogging becomes a more interesting question.  There are usually one of two things that you want to develop:

  1. Personal Branding
  2. Company Information

If you want to work on your personal branding, a blog is a great way for your audience to get to know you. You can share stories and pictures from behind the scenes from movies and photo shoots. You can give sex tips, modeling tips, workout tips.  You can present your thoughts on the industry and how changes in the industry affect you as an adult star. You can also just be yourself and blog about your life. Many people in your audience want to get to know you on a more personal level. They may feel more of a connection with you if they know what is going on in your life.

If you are using a blog to put your company info forward, you can use your blog to talk about movies you are shooting or the next photo shoot. You can share behind-the-scenes and insider information, even sneak deals in for people who read the blog.  Ultimately you can use it as a way for your audience to get to know your company on a more personal level. This helps create loyalty and trust.

Either way, you are focusing on adding value. If you do not think that you can add value with a blog, don’t do it.  If you cannot be consistent, getting your blog out on a regular schedule (minimum of once a week) do not do it.  If you can’t string two words together without swearing or being incoherent, then don’t do it.  But if you can commit to your communication, and you can add some value to your website, then jump in and start writing!

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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.

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My, What a Sexy Twitter Voice You Have!

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Paris Hilton tied up in a microphone cord

Anyone can be sexy. What makes your voice unique in the Twitterverse?

Finding your voice is an important part of the social media process. It seems like this should be easy, especially if you are in the adult industry, but it is not. All you have to do is be sexy, right?  Maybe not.  Crafting your online personality is an important part of your branding.   Thousands of people in the Twitterverse are sexy, so how are you different? What makes you unique?

The crafting of your personality needs to be carefully based around your objective and your audience. Although you may have an idea of who you are online, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be what elicits the most responses from your audience, or drives the most click-throughs.

Are you a dom? Do your followers want to be bossed around? Are you a vixen? Do you need to be coy and illusive? Are you a Diva? Do you need to be strong and demanding?

You not only need to figure out who you want to be, but you need to figure out who your audience responds to strongly.  For some people, primarily talking to other porn stars works for them. Their fans want to see the behind-the-scenes of the porn life.  For most, this is not enough.  You have to actually talk to your fans and relate to them.

When I first start working with a client, I take a splatter approach to posting. I experiment with a variety of posts, with different tones and content. I do this to begin establishing what their audience will respond to. Your online followers are a unique group, thus you cannot base your communications on the success or failure of someone else.

If our online personalities are a product of our branding, they can also be extremely formative to the evolution of our branding. Pay attention to what your audience responds to, because if your goal is to reach them for sales, support or awareness, you need to know what approach and tone will engage them. Remember, you can’t just bat your eyes on Twitter and get people to do what you want, you have to offer substance and make that substance uniquely yours.

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Pink Visual is in the Cloud

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The locker icon from PVlocker.com

Pink Visual is lifting porn into the new era of cloud computing.

Pink Visual is taking a major step forward in porn technology with the announcement of their newest site PVLocker.com What is PVLocker?  Porn in the cloud!

Let me explain a bit about cloud computing. Most people don’t seem to know anything more about it than the Windows Cloud commercials, which makes it seem that this is something Mr. Gates can take credit for inventing.  The cloud is like having a computer online. It is a location independent server that holds your files.  Basically, it is an online hard drive you can get access to anywhere, from any computer, including mobile devices.  Assuming, of course, that you have all the proper verifications to access the information.

The cloud acts as a backup hard drive for your important files, and it is also great for sharing files with other users, especially when project collaboration is key.  A big advantage is being able to reach it from another computer, or your phone, or your iPad.  I contact my cloud drive from across the room, because it is easier to access the drive then it is to transfer documents from one computer to another that are not on the same server.

Sexy image of Madam Kitty in red lingerie

Madam Kitty is a sexy and capitvating independent phone sex girl.

The interface of the cloud can be something as basic as a system of folders, or something fancier that is replicating the desktop of your home computer.

What does this mean for porn? It is creating a new distribution and storage solution for porn content.  Pink Visual will allow people to buy porn (from Pink Visual) and store it on their PV cloud drive.

So why is this great for porn?

  • People will be able to store their purchased porn online.
  • They will be able to access it from any computer or mobile device.
  • They will not have to store it on their hard drive.
    This is a huge benefit; some people do not want to store porn on their computers for fear that others may find it (the biggest fear by far). Or fear of downloading viruses.  It also keeps their hard drive from getting filled up with video files, which take up a lot of space, because high quality videos are large files.
  • Free from subscription sites.
  • Store the videos you want, creating a custom porn library.

Currently the site will only allow you to store videos you buy from Pink Visual, but they do have plans to make it into a true cloud storage solution, where you will be able to store content from other sites as well. This does make me wonder if they will make agreements with other content distributors to allow their content to be stored in the locker; an embedded code that permits cloud storage would also help prevent the potential storage of pirated porn. They could also license those sites to have a download option that goes to the PV Locker.

The big difference from traditional cloud solutions is that there will be no sharing. This is part of Pink Visual’s commitment to battling piracy. You can only view and store your own videos.

Pink Visual’s leap into cloud computing represents the next era of porn storage and distribution. As Q Boyer, Director of Public Relations for Pink Visual said, “Looking at the current trends, including the popularity of social media and social networking, it seems pretty clear to me that consumers are actively rejecting all such attempts to dictate terms to them. They want their entertainment when they want it, where they want it, and how they want it.” Pink Visual is meeting that need with technological gusto!

The image featured in this post is of Madam Kitty. She is a sexy and captivating independent phone sex girl.  I have spent a lot of time talking with her on Twitter and have enjoyed every second. Not only is she sexy, she is smart too. Make sure you go to her website at www.madamkitty.com and follow her on Twitter @madamkittys *

*Featured images are not paid and 7 Veils Media, Inc. does not have any financial association with the image, company or website. They are given by the owner of the image specifically to be used for the 7 Veils blog.

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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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