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No One Cares How Many Twitter Followers You Have

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Twitter follower treeI see people posting all the time about how many followers they have.  They usually say something like “20 more followers and I will post a naked pic!” or “I am almost at 1000 followers, help me get the last 10!”. From a social media management point of view, the number of followers you have matters. You want to keep track of that. From a social media follower point of view, no one cares.

If you follow someone, you don’t care how many followers they have. You don’t care about getting them to the next thousand. The only reason people will encourage more people to follow you is because they want what you are promising. They want to see the sexy picture or video that you will post.

Though promising something your fans want is a good way to reach your goal, it is not a good social marketing strategy. You are not building relationships. You are not building quality. You are barely building interest.

Instead of going out and asking people to follow you, try going out and following other people. Follow some of the basic rules of engagement…start engaging. Go talk to people. If you start joining some conversations and start following people, they will follow you back. You will make your next milestone and you will be building your relationships. In the end you get it all!

So don’t be a soap box preacher. Don’t just ask from your followers and think that your big contribution is showing them more of you. Remember, social media is about being social.

How Adult Compares in Social Marketing

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The old spice man

Old Spice was one of the most successful social media campaigns ever. It had sex, nudity and humor and was everywhere.

Social media integrates traditional marketing strategy with the social component.  It has become the powerhouse for marketing campaigns.

The Social Media Examiner recently released their Social Media Marketing Industry Report. The top findings show that social media is growing in its influence. Most marketers are increasing their social media efforts across the board. Though the report did not feature an adult section, most of the findings are reflected in the Adult Industry.

Here is a list of the top findings:

Marketers place high value on social media: A significant 90% of marketers indicate that social media is important for their business.
Marketers want to know how to monitor and measure ROI and integrate those results into their strategy.
Social media marketing takes a lot of time: Most marketers are spending a minimum of 6 hours a week.
Video marketing is on the rise: 77% of marketers plan to increase YouTube and video integration into their social marketing plans.
Facebook and Blogging are the two social media platforms marketers want to learn more about.
The top benefits of social media marketing: Social media marketing is generating more business exposure (72%) and improved SEO (62%).
The top social media tools: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs are the top social media tools used by marketers, in that order.
Social media outsourcing is underutilized: Only 28% of businesses are outsourcing some portion of their social media marketing.

The adult industry is no stranger to the power of social media marketing.  Twitter is the playground for porn stars. It is an excellent way to grow networks, keep up with industry happenings and promote content.  But adult has not turned its back on any of the social media networks. Despite ongoing issues with Facebook, many stars continue to rock the Fan Page.

An interesting finding in the report was that video content is generally dominated by large companies.  The time commitment and tech requirements of video are often prohibitive to a lot of small businesses and solopreneurs. Video is one of the best forms of marketable content; it is far more likely to go viral and be shared across Internet platforms (ie. retweeted, posted in blogs, on Facebook, shared via email, etc.). Adult is actually ahead of the curve on the use of video in social marketing. This is not surprising since video is a cornerstone of the industry, but even un-produced content, like video blogs and behind the scenes shots from camera phones, are being actively used in marketing strategy.

Blogs have come in as the number one growth area for social marketing. 75% of marketers say they want to increase their blogging efforts.  Adult blogs are starting to emerge but finding good content has been a struggle.  Most adult sites do not know what to blog about, and the blogs end up focusing on product or site promotion. However, blogging is a great tool for driving traffic to your site. It will even allow adult sites to post content on Facebook, or other sites that frown upon adult content, as long as you keep your blog free of adult images and video.

The biggest inhibitor is the time factor.  When most people get into social media they worry about the time commitment.  Though there is a high percentage of people in Adult who invest their primary marketing efforts in social marketing and spend a lot of time with it, this concern is reflected in the Adult Industry. The Social Media Marketing Industry Report shows that marketers who invest more time into their social marketing found more success.  The great thing, though, was that even people who spent 6 hours a week still gained significant business results:

6 hours per week

  • 58% use social media for a minimum of 6 hours per week. 
  • 65% showed an improvement in their SEO
  • 78% showed an increase in their web traffic.
  • 81% said that social media helped increase their exposure

Less than a Year

  • 45% reported new partnerships
  • 52% had new sales lead generation

More than a Year

  • 73% reported improvement in their SEO

More than 3 years

  • 47% spent 16 hours or more per week on social media
  • 72% reported that social media helps close sales
  • 72% strongly agree that social media increases business exposure
  • 91% report increased traffic to websites

Facebook leads the pack, followed closely by Twitter. If this report were done specifically for Adult, I believe the result would have been reversed.  Twitter is still the social powerhouse.

Social media has become the most effective long-term marketing strategy. It drives traffic, creates business partnerships, facilitates alliances, increases exposure, generates sales leads and improves brand reputation.