Tag Archives: marketing

Internet, Marketing, Sex Work

Think Before You Tweet

Over sharing is an epidemic on the Internet. All kinds of people share way too much about themselves and their daily activities. From pictures of their lunch ad nauseum to tweeting live during a bad date without their new companion knowing the horrible things they are saying about them behind their back. For a sex worker how much personal info to share with the world can be difficult waters to navigate. Lots of our business be you escort or adult film star comes from personality. People think they know you as a result they buy your films, clips, web-cam time or book an in person session and that’s a good thing. You want them to feel like they know you or at least know your “persona” but there’s a line to walk between the personal and the over personal.  For example, you don’t want to fucking tweet about your gonorrhea! For the love of god learn the line between sharing and OVER sharing.

When you’re feeling depressed that might be a good time to get off line and not tweet or blog a long sad woe is me blog. When the money isn’t flowing do not tweet about it, no one wants to eat in an empty restaurant. Instead plan some new ways to bring in cash, do not write a long emo style I cant make any money in this business dissertation about how no one likes you, in hopes that the anonymous masses will come rescue you. They wont and you will probably attract trolls and then you have a whole new problem.  When you get knocked up by a client ( we all know what “uninhibited experience” or whatever jargon is being used means) do not tweet about it and then go on to tweet  every move you make from getting Plan B, to its subsequent failure, to your trip to get your abortion.  No your protected tweets wont stop everyone from knowing, your over sharing will only get passed around in email. It might be alright for Amanda Palmer to sing about the abortion she got in college, shes an artist trying to make a point. Your a sex worker and that kinda sharing isn’t going to gain you money, clients or respect among your peers. I would even go so far as to say it wont bring you the sympathetic words, thoughts and deeds from the Internet you are hoping it will bring you.

Yes, we all have bad days. Yes, we all make mistakes, but do not forget that when you are a sex worker your brand is who you are. You wouldn’t see “Coke” tweeting about how they are being sued by a customer over their product making people fat, or  big Tobacco writing long blogs about people saying mean things about them and accusing them of giving people cancer in hopes that the Internet would feel sorry for them. No, they keep that shit under wraps. Why? Because info like that could hurt their brand and subsequently their pocketbooks. Big Tobacco doesn’t want people thinking cancer when they think cigarettes and you don’t want potential customers to think pathetic, unsafe, crazy, or stupid when they think of you. You want to manage the bad info not increase it nor do you want to shine a bight shinny light on it. If you get an STI, go to the doctor and do whatever you need to do to fix that problem. Don’t tweet pictures of yourself in the stirrups at the gyno getting your PAP with a caption “My STI and Me” #ImUnsafe. If you are having a bad day and feel sad, take it off line and talk to a friend about it. They care about you they will take the time to prop you up when you feel sad or down or are having a bad day. When you get knocked up and have to cancel a tour, say it’s because you have a family emergency not because you raw dogged a client and now have to “get rid of your little problem” don’t attention seek from the Internet. You will only turn potential money off and the goal here is to make more money, not less money. Learn how to ride the line of the personal and too personal because you want potential customers to feel like they know you, with out giving too much about yourself away. It takes time to master and we all stumble but think before you tweet, blog, or act out on the tubes. Will this temper tantrum hurt my business, will this tweet come back to haunt my bottom line? Will this blog/tweet/post help my wallet or a the very least not hurt it.

Jenny DeMilo: Dominatrix, GFE Escort, Fetish Clip Producer, Phone Sex Operator and Hypno-Domme.

Fetish Model, Internet, Marketing, Sex Work, Webcam

Being a BBW Means You’re Fat

It’s a very rare thought process to wake up one morning and think to yourself “my goal for the next 6 months is to gain 25-50 lbs of pure fat.”  Gaining weight isn’t looked at fondly by “society.”  The thing is, there is an entire population of porn and fetish watchers who are into big women (and men for that matter!), and that population watches a LOT of porn.

Being a BBW/BHM is awesome. As you’ll find in any niche porn, once you’ve got fans, they are fans for life and they are loyal fans. Find what works for you as a BBW/BHM and stick to it. You could stick to the fetish side such as feeder/feedee, domination, or belly play, all of which are extremely popular for BBW/BHM since they feed directly into the larger than life fantasy. Or maybe more on the porn side with straight up hardcore sex. Even as escorts, there is a huge demand for larger than life people, and not a lot of people to fill that demand. I would give the same advice to anyone though—finding your niche is vital and can make or break you.

Being a BBW or BHM means that you’re going to encounter a lot of ridicule. There is no easy way around that fact. Here’s the thing though: the acronym “BBW” and “BHM” are not there to demean you or make you feel ugly. Both use words that are positive reinforcements of your attractiveness. Big beautiful women and big handsome men have just as much insecurity as men and women of average weight. However, the ridicule coming from an anonymous population of people you don’t know can be much easier to handle than the ridicule that comes from your biggest enemy: yourself. Looking in the mirror may not be an easy task, but it may be a lot easier than standing on a scale in the morning wishing that you dropped a pound or two. Confidence radiates just as much as insecurity radiates, so learn to conquer your self-loathing. There is something to be said about a person of any size or shape that radiates confidence! When I first started as a cam girl, I weighed 135 at 5’2” and I was 19 years old. Even then, I was “too fat” for the people who liked skinny girls and constantly had people telling me to loose weight. I’m now 24, and at 5’3” I weigh just below 200lbs. The fat comments haven’t stopped, but the compliments have increased. One of my favorite ways of dealing with fat comments is to point out that whomever is making them is a real genius at pointing out the obvious. Until my youtube channel got shut down, I had a video I would refer people to, about 30 seconds in length of me saying something along the lines of “Saying that I’m fat is like pointing out that dogs have hair. DUH!” and laughing. I got more positive feedback for that 30 seconds than I’ve gotten for anything else, and the people calling me fat ate their words as they sat behind their anonymous youtube profile playing keyboard warrior.

As always, be safe. There IS work out there for BBW/BHM and a lot of money to be made. Do your research on the company you’re working for, or if you’re working for yourself, research BBW porn or fetishism and understand it so you can best cater to it.Don’t be afraid of your body—insecurity shows, even on camera. Learn to laugh at the people putting you down and calling you names.

Sydney Screams: Fetish Model, Clip Producer, Adult Actress, Radio Talk Show Host

Internet, Marketing, Sex Work

Making Twitter Your Bitch

In the last 12 months, I have made over $4000 just based on connections I made through Twitter. I don’t mean residual income from selling videos or photos, I mean $4000+ worth of paid shoots straight off Twitter. If you wanted to add in the income from selling videos and photos from content exchange shoots, that number could easily double. Twitter can very easily be your best friend, but only if you use it to your advantage. Here are some tips on how to make Twitter your bitch:
1. Don’t have an ego so big that you miss important connections. Yea, I get it. We all think we’re the most awesome bitches on this planet, and damnit we deserve to be treated that way! Forget that thought process on Twitter. Having an ego on Twitter is quite possibly worse than having an ego in real life. Nobody cares about your 10k+ followers or that you made $1000 in a day off your clips. People care that you’re a cool person. These days, half of the jobs you’ll get are based off your personality rather than your looks or popularity. Have a sourpuss attitude? That’s a damn shame since there are dozens of others who don’t. It’s way easier to be nice and humble than it is to pull the bitch card.

2. Interact with (almost) everyone. You never know who is a potential client or someone looking to hire you. Obviously the people tweeting comments about how they want to do all sorts of things to you can be ignored or simply just thanked for their support. However, new producers flock to Twitter to find talent, and just because someone doesn’t have a default photo yet might not mean that they aren’t legit trying to get the ball rolling. I’ve been lucky with having some amazing fans pop up from Twitter, as well as meeting new producers and clients. There are jerkoffs on there trying to get freebies or troll you, but in 140 characters it’s quite easy to tell the difference between someone serious and a fanboy or troll. If someone is asking you for photos or videos, send them a link back to your site in response!

3. Autotweets are your friend. Ok, yes, it’s time consuming to get them set up, but the pay off is amazing. The rule of marketing is that people have to see an ad at LEAST 3 times before they consider it. Ideally, you want someone to see the ad 7-12 times. Nobody has that kind of time to sit and update Twitter with the same post over and over and over again. If you do, I highly recommend spending time hustling elsewhere. Sign up for a service like HootSuite which lets you schedule tweets in advance, and don’t be stingy with your tweets. Schedule each tweet to post at least twice a day, during peak business hours (look at your sales or sign ups, what time do they happen most frequently? Use that as a guide for when to schedule tweets). HootSuite is free, although they have a paid version which lets you upload Excel files to make scheduling even easier. Spend an hour a week scheduling tweets for the week advertising your site, your blog, your upcoming travel, any exciting new videos/photosets on your site or store, etc.

4. Don’t retweet everything everyone @’s you. Seriously. We get it. You’re hot. You’ve got a great ass. That dude wants to be your slave. That other dude wants to bury his manjunk so far up inside of you that you feel it deep in your belly. Retweet the genuinely awesome ones, such as a producer advertising you on their sites or getting a rave review from someone you just worked with.  Being popular is great, but again with the ego. Don’t go waving it around in everyone’s face. They can just search @[your twitter handle] and see what everyone is saying without it clogging up their timeline.

5. Be careful who you do business with on Twitter, especially escorts and anyone else who privately sessions. Don’t tweet about your location, don’t tweet about making money with a client, don’t conduct business with anyone who refuses to take the conversation off twitter and fill out your screening services questionnaire. I don’t have statistics about whether police use Twitter to do crackdowns, but I imagine it’d be a pretty easy place to get info. Who is this person you’re talking to that’s only had a Twitter profile for 2 days and is only following you? Probably not somebody you actually want to be talking to and scheduling private sessions with.

6. Use photos to drive more traffic to wherever. Advertising a new clip? Use a still photo from the clip (with your watermark and store/site info on it) in the tweet! People like teasers, so get a really great still photo and use it. This is also helpful when you’re scheduling your autotweets! Nothing says “come buy what I’m selling” quite like an enticing photo. (edit note: be careful about nudes, read the TOS for picture hosting sites many don’t allow them)

7. Hashtags aren’t always necessary. Nobody cares if you hashtag #thingsIforgottodolastnight, but look at popular hashtags and use them! They’re popular for a reason! #fml #whitegirlproblems #toetuesday are all short and simple, and popularly used. Posting a photo of something specific? Use hashtags to describe it (#feet #XXX #ass). This is also a great tool with both autotweets and photos.

8. Don’t carry on lengthy conversations on Twitter. Take the conversation elsewhere, be it Skype or email, 140 characters is annoying and you rarely get the full message across. Don’t be rude about asking someone to email you though—explain that Twitter makes it difficult to follow conversations and that email is your preferred method of ongoing contact.

9. Your tweets don’t show in Google search, but your profile does. Use keywords to describe yourself! Are you a pornstar based in NYC? Put that in your profile! Do you have a website? Put that in your profile (there’s even a place for that!!). What defines your job? List that!

10. Don’t air out your dirty laundry on Twitter. I cannot stress this enough. If you have bad blood on Twitter, be the bigger person and don’t mention it, don’t tweet about it, don’t respond to it. People read your tweets, and if they see that your timeline is full of drama, shit talking, or nasty subtweets, they’re going to move on even if it isn’t about them. Yes, we all have bad days and drama, but keep it off Twitter unless it’s a must. This also applies to your own dirty laundry: if you’re depressed or angry or desperate, it shows on Twitter and can scare off potential companies to see that your life isn’t together.

11. You’ll eventually get tired of me saying this, but do your research!! If it is a new producer, ask them for references. If it’s a potential client, make sure they are properly screened. Make sure the company you are working for is legitimate. Do they have a website listed? Do they interact with others in the industry (both colleagues and people that they hire)?

Follow Sydney Screams on Twitter @sydneyscreams4u

Sydney Screams: Fetish Model, Clip Producer, Adult Actress, Radio Talk Show Host

Escorting, Marketing, Sex Work

How To Protect Your Brand

I’m here to deliver some bad news: if you’re an independent escort who writes her own web copy, there’s a good chance someone else is going to steal it. The higher your visibility, i.e. the more you advertise, the better odds are of this happening, and of happening more than once. (I’ve even had wannabe straight gigolos steal my content!) Short of going completely UTR and hoping no thieves find you, what options do you have to deal with plagiarism?

Make your mark, don’t steal it

First, give yourself permission to protect your work. I hate confrontation, so even though nothing makes me angrier than being ripped off, I dread that reply email from the person I’m calling out. Steel your nerves by reminding yourself that you’re a professional, you created something original—and valuable—in the service of promoting your business, and someone else stole it for their own gain. This is not okay and it’s not harmless regardless of how green or ditzy the girl (or guy) who stole from you may be. You can get moral support from friends before taking action if you’re feeling a little unsure, and if they’re fellow working girls, they’d probably appreciate a heads up anyway about who among us isn’t as ethical as she should be. (I also derive a lot of encouragement from this comprehensive Amanda Brooks post capturing all the agony of having to deal with content thieves.) http://www.texasgoldengirl.com/afterhours/escort-plagarism/#more-954

Second, give the thief an easy way out. It pains me to admit it, but this is definitely a situation where you’ll get better results by swallowing your righteous anger and trying to sound sweet regardless of how furious you feel. Few people respond with grace when they’re caught doing something so obviously wrong, so whatever you do, don’t expect an apology or admission of guilt. Clench your teeth and type out something along the lines of “Dear Tiffanie, your pictures are simply adorable and you seem like a great girl but I noticed that you’ve inadvertently repeated some of the text I wrote for my own site. Can you please have your webmaster take down the following sections?” It’s a really good idea to let your first draft sit for at least a day so you can try to smooth out any lingering bitterness that’s come through.

Go ahead and let the culprit blame the copying on a web designer or a well-meaning client or a boyfriend, or her own crazy memory that allows her to mistake entire sentences of other people’s writing for her own. She’ll save face and you get what you want—hopefully.

Some friends of mine have offered to help the offender write her own text, or flat out ghost write it for her for free, which is something I would never be able to bring myself to do. However, I respect that approach for its generosity and you may have some luck with it. One of my friends explained this approach by saying, “I knew she’d never take me up on it,” but I’m not so sure about that. Definitely don’t offer this if you aren’t willing to follow through or she’ll probably feel justified in defaulting back to using yours.

Third, make it harder for people to steal from you. If you don’t care for visibly watermarking your images, you can use a digital watermark. Have your website designer code your pages so that it’s not possible to highlight and copy text. Thieves are by definition lazy, so this will have an impact right away, though on sites like Eros and Cityvibe they will still be able to lift your words.

Fourth, stay alert. Use services like Copyscape (http://copyscape.com) or set up google alerts on some of your more distinctive phrases. DMCA is really the best place to register with because it holds the most sway with hosts, and has the best luck of getting a site taken offline or modified when your entreaties to the escort herself (or himself) have gone unrewarded. (You can learn a little more about DMCA here, http://brainz.org/dmca-takedown-101/ You can also google pieces of your text now and then—lots of girls do this—and see what turns up. As you develop a place in the community, other escorts will let you know when they see your work on someone else’s page. Respond to it! Go back and read the first rule if you start feeling fatigued by all the policing you have to do.

Fifth, recognize when it’s time for no more Ms. Nice Escort. I use a copyright consultant to keep an eye on all of my content because I believe it needs to be done but I don’t want to have to do it myself. Instead of emailing someone directly now, I usually just ask him to send a DMCA notice to their host. This costs extra money but it’s worth it to me. I don’t have any more patience or energy to spare on arguing with someone who’s stolen from me, so I just go straight to the big guns whenever possible.

Sixth, recognize when it’s time to let it go. Some offenders will have been lucky enough to set up shop with a belligerent or lackadaisical host who won’t respond to your notices, or she may have tweaked your own paragraphs just enough to claim that it’s all a big coincidence (even if you and I and everyone else with a brain can see differently.) People who take short cuts are not destined for much success. Rest easy in the fact that they won’t be able to deliver in person what your scintillating, personalized prose promised.

Or, depending on what exactly they’ve stolen, you might take a different view entirely. A few lines I wrote about welcoming clients with disability have been stolen verbatim so many times over the years that it’s practically become standard industry practice to include it on a site or ad. And that’s okay. Those little bits related to protocol aren’t what distinguishes your personality, anyway.

Keep in mind through all of this that no matter how frustrated you may be by the plagiarism, you’ve got an ace up your sleeve that the plagiarists don’t. You can always write more unique, beguiling passages that attract the type of clients you want. If you’ve done it once, you’ve got the intelligence and creativity to do it again. Odds are, your copycats will continue to be unoriginal and opportunistic, rounding up the back of the pack while looking to people like you to try to understand what creates success. They’re simply not real threats. Of the two of you, you’re the one with the upper hand.

Avery Moore: High-End Escort, Traveling Companion

Community, Sex Work

The Real Competition Is In The Mirror

There is a prevailing attitude in the sex industry that we need to view each other as competition. This is based on the model that there is a finite amount of customers, and therefore a finite amount of money to be had*. This creates a situation that if one sex worker is making money – it’s money that could have been ours. It puts us on separate teams as it were, and isolates us in this industry even further than we already are.

I think this model is bullshit.

I firmly believe that this system benefits everyone except us as sex workers. It makes people scared to share skills or resources. It gives customers the power to pit us against one another, and that can create dangerous and unhealthy situations. Resources are not finite. Customers are not in limited quantity. And we are not each others enemies (most of the time). One sex worker’s success is not taking money out of your wallet. No one is “stealing” clients from you. Your work secrets are probably not actually secrets. And there’s a lot to be happy about in that. Most of us operate within the model that this is a business of personality. Whether the persona you are presenting is genuine, contrived, or somewhere in between, it’s YOUR persona. No one else has it, because no one else can. No one on this earth sucks cock exactly like you do. No one else on cam has your laugh. No one makes the exact same orgasm screams. No one’s hand leaves the same imprint on your client’s ass when you spank them. Whatever field of this industry you work in – there is something about YOU that your clients connect with. It puts more responsibility on us. You’re the only one who can gain your own customers. And you’re the only one who can lose your customers. Frankly, clients rarely if ever see only one sex worker throughout their lives. And that’s ok. It can be good for us. Having a community network where we share information leads to easier sharing of clients. Or at the very least access to a wider base of clients. And that means more clients for everyone! Which means more money for everyone! We can’t build that if we only see each other as competitors.

In my experience working together actually leads to more business, more opportunities, and that which we all care about, more money. It leads to cross promotion, sharing of skills, openings for parties, events, or doubles sessions, and all in all a better working environment. It’s more fun. You get to share ideas and experiences. You can laugh together about the absurdities of the industry. And you get to have positive feelings about your colleagues instead of wallowing in the negativity that this industry can breed. That said – not everyone agrees with this. And there’s some cutthroat workers out there who will not take kindly to this collective working philosophy. Don’t waste your time or energy on them.

There is only one bitch I am in constant competition with – Me. I want to one-up my production value and income every day and every month. Frankly, I don’t give a damn about comparing myself to anyone else. It’s none of my business. Literally.

*I can’t speak to work environments like brothels or strip clubs where there are in fact a certain number of clients in one night. I’ve never worked in those environments, so I don’t want to make assumptions about that side of the industry. I would love to hear from people who have about competitive atmospheres though!

 

Lauren Kiley: Webcam Girl, Fetish Performer, Fetish Clip Producer, Former Escort, Activist, Dirty Girl Next Door.