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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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Is your name too porno for Facebook?

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Naked Man holding a sign that says Facebook in front of his groin

Many porn stars are on Facebook.  There are lots of people in adult entertainment that have profiles and pages.  One of the big issues with being in adult entertainment and being on Facebook is promoting yourself without getting your account deleted. One of the first things you have to ask yourself is, is your name too porno for Facebook?

To make sure that you are within Facebooks terms of service, the content of your posting has to be chosen wisely.  Keeping that in mind, the name of your Facebook Page also has to be chosen wisely.  So what happens if you didn’t?  Until very recently you would have been stuck with it.  Even worse, you might have to delete your page or have your account deleted.  If you have built up a following, then deleting your page is probably the last thing you want to do.

So what are some reasons you might want to change your page name?

  1. You notice a grammatical error
  2. You thought you were being clever and realized later that you weren’t
  3. Your company changed its name
  4. You had your agency in your name and you left your agency
  5. Your name is location-based and you move
  6. You think that you must have a location in your name, and then figure out that you don’t
  7. You have a date in the name and it expired, but your page didn’t
  8. You realized that you used a foreign swear word
  9. You realize that having F*$% in the title of you page is not the best idea ever
  10. It is clearly pornographic

Facebook is testing a new feature in Facebook Pages that will actually allow you to change your page name.  The catch is, you can’t have too many likes on your page.  What they are not telling us is how many is too many.  So if you have thousands of people who like your page, it is most likely too late to change the name. But if it is a newer page, you should still have time.

So consider the “porn quotient” of your Facebook page name. You may now be able to change it.

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Porn not Verified on Twitter?

Are you verified on Twitter? Does it matter? Is it important?

For some people getting verified on Twitter is extremely important. Twitter verification is essentially a big blue check mark that says you are the real deal! It is Twitter’s way of establishing authenticity behind a well know and public persona. It is used for public figures, ie. politicians, celebrities, rock stars, etc.

Jenna Jameson verified on Twitter

One issue that a lot of adult stars face is the inability to get verified. Maybe someone already claimed your name and won’t give it up, not doing anything with it, just cyber-squatting.  Maybe they claimed your name to spam.  Maybe they are just posing as you.

Your name is a brand. You have worked hard at getting name recognition and you should be able to reap the rewards, not some random person in cyber-space who doesn’t know you from Adam. What is even worse than someone squatting on your name is if they are spamming or misrepresenting you.  Are they damaging the good name you have built?  This is, of course, why Twitter started verifying to begin with.  But many people in the adult industry have had great difficulty getting verified, or getting Twitter to help them resolve issues of cyber-squatting or spam/misrepresentation.  And yes we speculate discrimination.

Pornstar Tweet felt strong about this issue as well and created their own verification system for the stars they list. They vet the stars on their list and with any they can without a doubt authenticate, the readily offer their own check mark. Though unfortunately their check mark only appears on the list on their site and doesn’t translate to the Twitter avatar.

However, Twitter not verifying is quickly becoming a mute point because they are no longer verifying accounts. Since the change to New Twitter, many verified accounts have even lost their prized check mark.  Though support@twitter does say they are restoring them to their rightful owners.

The change to new twitter seems to come with the promise of a change to the verification system.  Apparently the verification system was in its beta form and Twitter will be rolling out a new and improved system.  Maybe this new verification system will be more open to verifying adult stars who have worked hard for name recognition and deserve to have that little blue check mark!

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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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New Twitter & Adult Film Stars- Is it Less Sexy?

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If you are in the adult entertainment industry, actor, producer, photographer, etc. then you will be familiar with custom Twitter backgrounds. It is actually rare to see someone in the adult entertainment industry who does not have a custom background.

But since September 14th, has the new Twitter release made custom backgrounds become a thing of the past?

Before the new release, a custom background on your Twitter page was a important facet of building your brand. Custom backgrounds allowed any company or individual to show PG13 publicity pics, show off awards, promote a new film or drive traffic to a website. It was a great way to hook a new follower.

Technically custom backgrounds still exist. It’s just that the re-design of Twitter‘s interface prevents them from being seen. In the new interface, “You will now find @mentions, re-tweets, searches, and lists just above your time line – creating a single, streamlined view on the left of the screen. On the right, you can see the features you’re familiar with, including whom you recently followed and who recently followed you, favorites, and Trending Topics.”

The re-organization of information does make the navigation of Twitter much more intuitive but presents a new challenge in branding and identity.

Twitter users will now have to build their brand awareness or their public persona primarily by the content of their tweets. The new interface encourages users to share more multimedia. However, you still have to post interesting content to entice followers (and would be followers) to click-through.

Ultimately, I do not think this will change the way in which people tweet. Yet, the new interface does re-emphasize the importance of your tweets and the relationships you build.

It is not how you look but what you say that matters. So increase your engagement by posting more pics and make sure your Bio can hook followers!

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