The Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP) has released Best Practices for Social Media. ASACP’s Best Practices were developed to help businesses maximize their ability to stop online child pornography and to help parents prevent their children from unknowingly viewing age-restricted content on the world-wide web.

According to Pew Internet Research, nearly three quarters (73%) of online teens and an equal number (72%) of young adults use social network sites. You can see the research here.

“Since children’s use of social media network sites are continuing to increase and the adult industry continues to lead in the use of technology, it is important for ASACP to consistently update its Best Practices” stated ASACP CEO Joan Irvine. “Granted there are no perfect solutions, but ASACP’s Best Practices are the best tools available to protect children and your company. We encourage everyone, whether they are an ASACP member or not, to review them regularly at the website.”

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 ecommerce tools, to videos, fan pages, apps and widgets are labeled with the Restricted to Adults – RTA website label.

Irvine added “As a result, if parents or guardians have activated one of the many parental filters including those in the Apple and Microsoft operating systems, minors will be blocked from access to and prevented from the ability to purchase age-restricted material and products.”

Founded in 1996, ASACP is a non-profit organization dedicated to online child protection. ASACP comprises of two separate corporate entities, the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection and the ASACP Foundation. The Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP) is a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. ASACP manages a membership program that provides resources to companies in order to help them protect children online. The ASACP Foundation is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. The ASACP Foundation battles child pornography through its CP Reporting Hotline and helps parents prevent children from viewing age-restricted material online with its Restricted To Adults – RTA Website Label. ASACP is the only association in the world that coordinates the adult entertainment industry’s efforts to protect children online. It has spent over 14 years creating progressive programs to protect children. ASACP’s relat ionship in assisting the adult industry’s child protection efforts is unparalleled. Companies and individuals interested in supporting ASACP may go to www.asacp.org for more information on how to get involved.

The ASACP is a great organization that helps protect children. I truly feel that as those in the business of entertaining adults, we have to keep in mind that our entertainment is not meant for children – and we should participate in making sure that our entertainment is kept only for adults. As a non-profit entity, the ASACP depends on donations and participation to keep itself running. Please, if you have an adult site, use the RTA label. To donate, please go here.

Adult performers primarily operate on ego – and male performers seem to operate on that more than female performers. It’s an industry that operates on physical attractiveness, a measure of youthfulness, and ability to perform on cue. It’s a hard (pardon the pun) industry for men – their performance is clearly visible. Female performers can get away with, well, performance — in the acting sense of the word. There are only a few performers that work without having met all of the superficial criteria laid out above (for instance, Ron Jeremy) — but those performers are rare, are still able to perform, and come with an established history in the business. I have a lot of respect for male performers because if I were a guy, I probably wouldn’t be able to perform on cue like they do.

I’m not sure which “industry veteran” with whom you spoke, but I do know that performers in general have been feeling the pinch of the decline of the adult industry. Fewer bookings means less money, and less money means the inability to do those things that came so easily (again, pardon the pun) when money was flowing. More performers competing for fewer shoots means that everyone’s frustrated — financially as well as sexually, even in an industry that is built on sex.

Personally, I think it’s hypocritical to be a performer in the adult industry and then expect their life partner to not “give away anything so important and valuable.” Saying “I’m off to shoot a scene with a hot xxx performer, but you can’t do the same because for me it’s work, for you it means you’re cheating,” implies a double standard, which often results in industry relationships falling apart.

Is there drug use in the industry? Alcohol abuse? Of course. Is it more or less than drug and alcohol abuse in other business sectors? I’m not sure. I know of enough lawyers and stockbrokers who are on cocaine to stay awake to do their jobs, and enough blue-collar workers who abuse alcohol, and varying degrees of that scattered in between. It’s an escapist methodology that doesn’t stay restricted to the adult industry – and to say that it is limited to that line of work is narrow-minded and shallow.

What about the statistics surrounding STDs and the adult industry? Anyone who says that STDs do not occur outside of XXX, and that XXX is responsible for the spread of STDs is, again, narrow-minded. Blaming any industry that an outsider doesn’t understand is nothing new — it happens in religion, politics, and mainstream business all the time. The adult industry requires testing of its performers — something that isn’t required by most men and women in the dating scene. There is no desire in common society for a couple who is just starting to be intimate to check each other’s sexual health history. The implication is that it’s rude to ask, and presumptuous to assume that the other person might have an STD. As a result, people get infected on a regular basis outside the industry. At least we’re regulated in that regard.

Does the industry attract people who are “weak minded”? Perhaps, at one time. Perhaps, even now, within a certain segment of the populace. It’s an industry that showcases barely-legal performers in sexual situations, and to an extent, capitalizes on the rebellious nature of teens finally out of their parents’ rule. Yes, it attracts the desperate. High school dropouts who became single moms, who turned to stripping, who turned to porn as a means to put food on the table and a roof over their heads – you hear that all the time.

However, the industry is no longer LIMITED to those with no education and a dead end life. With the recent recession, the industry also saw older performers and college graduates enter the adult workforce as a means to ride out the economic turmoil. Of those who did come from educated (whether in life or in school) backgrounds; many performers were also sexually open, and used the industry to experiment and explore their own sexual boundaries. So the assumption that those who perform in the industry are “weak minded” no longer holds true.

My response to Chris Hedges would be this: he assumes there is no socially redeeming value to adult entertainment because he already has preconceived notions about the industry (and other aspects of society) prior to his writing. Everyone is different. Everyone has a different kink. Having, as you noted, twenty-five guys masturbate all over a girl may be a sexual turn-on for some, not limited to the viewer but to the performer as well. For some, it’s not. It’s all about perspective. No one is forcing the girl to sit and take that sort of treatment (unless she has a pimp, which is another conversation altogether). The girl CHOSE to be in that position, and these days, it’s not only because she is being lured by a paycheck (with the decline of the industry, pay for scenes isn’t what it used to be) or being forced to by a pimp. If that isn’t empowering, I’m not sure what is. Assuming that something that YOU find perverse or a turn-off would be the same for the rest of the world is, as I said before, narrow-minded, shallow, and self-centered. Do all women have to conform to only being allowed to enjoy sex in the missionary position with a certain number of strokes before the man ejaculates? Is it bad that a man/woman actually enjoys him/herself in the throes of rough sex? Anal play? Bondage? Does that make him/her evil? Or does that allow people to accept their own private proclivities without feeling as if they themselves are a social outcast? Does it allow people to wonder if something really is enjoyable, and explore their own sexuality with themselves or with a partner? Does it ultimately help us accept and be more tolerant of each other’s differences?

Personally, I feel that your time on this planet, regardless of industry, is what you make of it. I entered the business as part of an emotional sabbatical after a traumatic breakup — I CHOSE to work with tested talent in scenes that I agreed to because, in all honesty, I felt it was safer than going to a nightclub or a bar, or even answering a personals ad. I’d had enough bad experiences with civilian people that I thought were honest with me, who turned out not to be. If there is anything that could be said about the adult industry, it is that at least the parameters were roughly, bluntly, shamelessly laid out. You and your scene partner are paid to perform in front of a camera in a sexual situation. Sometimes there is chemistry, sometimes there is not. You agree to the scene, positions, and dialogue in the scene prior to performance. When the scene is done, people are paid — and you may never hear from them again. You may not see them for months, until you are both hired again to be in another scene. The cycle repeats. There’s no deceit nor pretense as to whether or not the scene is truly romantic. It’s a job.

Getting into the adult industry may have been the single-most boost to my self-esteem in my life. I’m a larger girl, categorized in the industry as a BBW (big beautiful woman). Like most bigger girls, I was teased through most of my childhood. Society doesn’t portray bigger people as sexy or beautiful — we’re supposed to be funny. Comedic. Acceptable to be made fun of. As an adult performer, I not only had a hair/makeup person tending to me, but fans who would take the time to tell you how beautiful, sexy, attractive, desired you were. My experience may be different from other performers, but for me, it was uplifting.

My time in the industry was not a career choice; it was a sabbatical. Perhaps that may be the difference between performers who are bitter and those who are not; I never intended for my time in this industry to be a life-long career. I got in while I was in my mid-thirties, not when I was “barely legal”. I picked what scenes I wanted to do and turned down projects that didn’t appeal to me. Over time, performances have slowed (as they do for most performers, as new girls constantly come in to take your place), and I found that I no longer want to perform as much as before. Perhaps my “sowing of my oats” period had come to an end, but I was ready to date again, and was lucky enough to find someone in the industry who I adore spending my time with. There’s no judgment; trying to date someone outside the business comes with its own set of problems due to social norms and assumptions of whorish behavior, and I don’t have to deal with those issues with my partner.

In time, I know I will stop performing altogether. Understanding that youth and beauty fade, and with that, the amount of work diminishes, is something that those who enjoy their time in this industry understand. I’ve already started to take the steps to have a career that doesn’t rely on performance — and I’ll be able to look back at my time in the adult industry as something that was exciting, titillating, and an interesting life experience.

Anyhow – that was probably an incredibly long response to your email. Please feel free to ask me any questions, if you need more info on any particular part of what I have written.

Warm Regards,
Kelly

With adult performers such as Sasha Grey and Tommy Gunn appearing on mainstream shows such as Entourage (and you KNOW the drama that is upcoming because Vincent is dating a (gasp!) pornstar while up for a Stan Lee production), the perpetuation of assumptions about the industry is bound to continue.

I’m not sure to what extent my diatribe to the writer will be used, but I hope that perhaps it’ll be enough to make people question their assumptions about the people who choose to make sex their business.

Adult Biz Eyes Twitterverse
By James Edwards
July 30, 2010

The new phenomenon in computing is, of course, mobile computing. Today more potential customers of adult content are found walking around fiddling with their mobile devices than behind computer screens. Emerging out this wireless paradigm appears Twitter.com — nothing unique about Twitter, just a way to broadcast messages to multiple mobile users. Yet what is so unique about HTML and the browser? Nothing at all — aside form the fact that they have become the standard for worldwide information sharing over the Internet.

The same holds for Twitter. Twitter has become the defacto standard for social networking among mobile users. Granted, the adult webmaster can sign up customers for text messages using any API, yet it is far more likely people will sign up to Twitter — simply because Twitter is considered the safe, familiar choice.

Politicians, celebrities and religious groups are now rushing to tweet. Twitter has what all adult webmasters crave — an air of legitimacy. Adult customers can easily join your Twitter pages feeling the same assurance as they would performing a search on Google.

Kelly Shibari of HourGlass8.com has been at the forefront of designing adult marketing strategies for social networking sites. Shibari finds social networking a more attractive sell for the adult businessperson.

“The game is less about ‘cum and see me’ and more about ‘get to know me’ followed by, ‘I’d love get to know each other better’,” Shibari said.

She distinguishes this form of marketing from bold flashy content that grabs someone’s attention, “interruption marketing” — interrupting the normal flow of customer consciousness to make them notice your product.

Shibari also sees an additional benefit to social networking software that she refers to as the “people like me” phenomena. The theory goes that everyone tends to hang with people like themselves, and more importantly, take advice from people with a similar asthetic as theirs. This means that as the adult webmaster promotes content through Twitter, they gain lists of “followers” — a Twitter term. These followers will probably all browse each others’ Twitter profiles and find out what other cool content that ‘people like me’ follow.

If you have 100 people following your twitter account, all of your followers will attract new follows to your account based on who they are networked with. This not only insures a constantly expanding base of customers (as long as Twitter expands) without the need for expensive advertising; it implies new followers will be ‘people like me’ and interested in adult content.

Twitter is easy to master if you have just a little technical savvy. In most cases, you won’t want to post all your material in real-time, especially if you are shooting for a world-wide network. Great Twitter schedulers such as Twaitter.com, LaterBro.com, and Twuffer.com allow the adult webmaster to schedule weeks in advance the sending of erotic text, announcements, and most importantly, short links to tantalizing content.

Twitter is also easy to integrate with your own website, because it provides a free API that enables one the ability to login users, send messages, search, and analyze trends. You can download this API at apiwiki.twitter.com. The API comes with many libraries that interface with PHP, Java, C++, and even PL/SQL.

Not all adult content gurus are convinced of Twitter’s greatness. “I am unconvinced of Twitter’s effectiveness as a marketing tool,” said Graham Ponante of GramPonante.com, “except in its office as something that everyone is doing.”

This critique of Twitter might be reason enough for the adult webmaster to start tweeting in these tough times — simply to promote their content through the medium that everyone is doing.

While I stay in LA, Pete will be at The AVN Show in Florida this week, speaking on the Social Media panel. If you’re at the show, please hit him up! And as always you can reach me either via email, or, appropriately enough — on Twitter.

There’s actually some good information here (basically, stop Tweeting about yourself and start being more interested in other things and other people), but it’s in picture form…isn’t your brain tired right now from the loooooong week anyway? Enjoy

Yeah, kind of a no-brainer. I guess people MIGHT engage in a conversation, but … it’s probably not going to lead to anything.

I blog about Social Media all the time since that’s my job, but I don’t really Tweet about it all that much. Get busy interacting instead of talking about the process.

I dunno about this one…I do like sharing what I’m hearing at a conference, especially since some of my followers aren’t attendees for various reasons. Posting about what’s going on means if they have a question, they can ask me. I can see the logic, but I’ll probably still Tweet from conferences.

Yeah, this is pretty self-serving, right? Unless, of course, Twitter’s paying you to talk about how great they are. People pretty much get that it’s here and not going anywhere – a few tips here and there for the nOObs, maybe, but time to move on to other things.

Unless you’re a trainer or a gym owner, I would think.

Unless you own a shelter, a animal hospital, or any other sort of animal services company.

I get these from time to time, and all I can think is, “May I have some of whatever you’re having so I can understand what you’re saying?” …

Unless it serves a purpose of some kind other than narcissism – like promoting a site, or event, or sharing with the people you went to said event with. But pic after pic of just your face and your outfits, unless you’re a model or fashion designer … yeah. I kind of feel the same way about Tweeting your location – what, you WANT stalkers?

Self-destruction is sad to watch, but it’s like a train wreck…you can’t look away. It’s the American condition, unfortunately. I’m all for sharing thoughts and comments about how you feel about the world, but constant self-commentary (like RTing when people list you on a FollowFriday list instead of just thanking them, or RTing when someone says something nice about you) is pretty much masturbatory.

You have what you have. People can see how many you have if they look at your profile. Increase your followers organically, and you won’t have to tweet/ask/brag about the follower count thing.

Have a good weekend, and here’s to hoping there’s more real interaction next week!

So, what are some key things to keep in mind so that your time spent on Twitter/Facebook/Myspace/YouTube/etc doesn’t feel wasted? Here are some tips that might help you keep things streamlined and keep your online signal to noise ratio high:

1. Be caring. It’s not always about you – oftentimes, it’s about them. Share news, tips, quotes; bring up topics that you know will start conversations, even if it has nothing to do with your product. Letting the person on the other side know that you care about what’s happening in their world shows that you care about them – and they’re likely to reciprocate.
2. Be useful. You know the sound of one hand clapping? Conversations are the same way – you can’t really be successful if you’re just throwing posts up one after the other without engaging your audience. If they have questions, answer them. Even if they don’t, offer suggestions and solutions. Share what you know, and they’ll depend on you for the information/product/service.
3. Social Media has to be part of a larger multimedia strategy. It’s publicity, public relations, marketing, advertising, customer relations, research and development and operations all rolled into one. If you’re not considering it as a serious part of your business strategy, you’ll fail.
4. Establish goals. Social Media Marketing isn’t something you just fall into. If you don’t have specific goals and campaigns included in your strategy, you’ll just be a babbling noise in the background that gets tuned out. Establish goals, then establish campaigns, strategies and tactics to reach that goal.
5. Be SOCIAL. It’s “social” media, not “selling” media. Refer back to #1 and #2, but overall, be engaging. It’s about your daily life – it’s a microblog, after all. Show what you like, dislike, care about, worry about, scratch your head about, and generally find interesting to you. You’ll find that others share your feelings – or not, and will share that with you as well. Including your message in amongst the conversation is the best way to get people to listen. Engage them first.
6. Go off-campus once in a while. Social networks are online first and foremost, but you must include some IRL interaction as well to cement your place in social media. There’s a reason why TweetUps are so popular – make sure that people are still able to connect with those they’ve met online to further create that sense of camaraderie – and loyalty to your product as a result.

Just remember:

• • Social media have the capability to reach a significantly large number of audiences through the wide networks.
  • Social network can reach any part of the world where there is internet service.
  • Social networks are available to anyone at very low cost.
  • Social networks can have recent news updates with lesser time lag compared to traditional media.
  • Social media directory helps access the desired information to a pertinent subject directly.

If you’re using Social Media for your business, don’t treat it like kid’s play – because someone out there isn’t, and will make your attempts to be heard and sold futile.

A Google Page Rank score is given to every single web page online. Google goes through and looks at the entire content of the site to determine where in its ranking it wants to place a particular site. Google isn’t the only one – every single search engine operates this way. But how is the ranking determined?

Obviously, with the millions of websites out there, there isn’t a team of humans working through each site – if that were the case, nothing would ever be current. Like all other search engines, Google uses an algorithm to look at keywords, back links, traffic and content, as well as basic layout structure (especially for landing pages) – too many redirects and advertising spaces automatically signal a spam site and doesn’t rank on Google – at least not on any main ranking page.

Most of this is achieved by clever SEO tactics, which can be utilized either on your own or through an SEO expert. However, Social Media can also affect Google rankings, because one of the other factors that Google uses in its algorithm is pretty obvious – popularity and demand.

Social Networks, such as Twitter, are microblogs in nature. They chronicle the posts and interactions between an account and other accounts. Each microblog post contains content – each needing to be indexed by Google. Increasing the visibility of your company, your blog, your product via Social Media will inevitably also increase your search engine ranking – if done correctly and as part of a larger marketing plan.

I know it sounds simple. It can be – if you can create your own marketing strategy and know what keywords you want to be ranked for. If not, there are consultants that can provide strategies as well as handle your Social Media Marketing for you, in the industry that you are targeting.

If you do decide you want to head out on your own, I’ll be posting some tips on how to use social media properly tomorrow. Stay tuned…

The video on the right sidebar has been the same “Basics of Social Media” for about a year now, so it was high time I changed it with something less SocialMedia101 and more SocialMedia201. Please check that out —->

Also, one of the most common questions I get asked is “What’s the ROI of Social Media?” I presented a personal case study back in August 2009. In addition to that personal experience, I present to you this video – produced by Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics:

• Twitter now has 106 million registered users.
• 300,000 users register on Twitter everyday.
• It has 180 million unique visitors.
• Twitter apps account for 75% of traffic to Twitter.com (there is a great list of submissions for apps here)
• The total number of API request daily is close to 3 billion.
• There are total 55 million tweets posted everyday.
• The Twitter search engine gets 600 million queries a day which is expected to increase to 1 billion by next month.
• 100,000 new users registered in three days when Twitter launched the BlackBerry app.

In addition, eMarketer.com recently published a usage vs spending report on Twitter users. The graph to the right illustrates that Twitter users do use the social network to make spending decisions: the purchased amounts don’t seem like much, but if you consider that’s a per-person, per-purchase amount, it’s not bad at all.

You might also want to use the information to formulate your own price points, knowing that most people spend in the $43-$75 range on average.

So don’t discount Twitter usage in terms of purchasing decisions. So often, people tend to think that Twitter is really just for socializing; reports like this show that it’s most definitely becoming a viable hub for ecommerce.

The merger makes available a comprehensive public relations and social media marketing firm for all aspects of the adult entertainment industry not limited to companies but to individual talent as well.

“We wanted to take our strengths and make something that was available to anyone in the industry, not just the studios,” says Hourglass8 Media president Kelly Shibari. “The NaughtyTweetNetwork has a well-established place in social media for talent whereas Hourglass8’s strength has been primarily in the B2B market. With so much business being done online between companies, talent and fans, it only made sense to collaborate and offer something truly comprehensive.”

The NaughtyTweetNetwork’s family of sites include the immensely popular PornStarTweet as well as its satellite sites AltGirlTweet, WebGirlTweet and PornExecTweet, amongst others. Hourglass8 Media specializes in social media marketing consults for the adult industry; Shibari has spoken at numerous adult and mainstream conferences on the power of social media for marketing purposes.

“Social Media is serious, sophisticated business now”, cites Alyss Heart of the NaughtyTweetNetwork, “gone are the days of having some intern build a page and hope traffic rolls in — if your business isn’t investing in Social Media and related tools you will be left in the dust. Kelly has a unique perspective on the business that will prove amazing to our clients. We’re building a company that can help companies, studios, brands, established stars and would-be’s regardless of budget — more importantly we’ve got the tools, knowledge as well as consumer and industry attention to kick-start any campaign like no other company.”

The combined companies have already completed and will be launching a series of new sites in the NaughtyTweetNetwork in the near future to further enable their ability to penetrate market segments.

“For some time we have been looking for ways to extend our business, the overall impact of the NaughtyTweetNetwork, while maintaining our high level of excitement for Social Media. At the recent XBiz Summer Forum 2010 it became clear that Kelly Shibari would be the perfect addition to our team. She is the first addition; Kelly will join us in discussions with other leaders in the Adult Entertainment Social Media field as we continue to expand and offer more services in this continually challenging environment”, said Pete Housley of the NaughtyTweetNetwork. “It’s time to break old stereotypes and molds — to re-invent the Adult Entertainment business. We’re assembling the team to make that a reality for companies and individual stars alike to grow their brands and increase revenues.”

NaughtyPR has programs available for both corporate as well as individual clients and will incorporate facets previously offered by both companies in the past, as well as new marketing vehicles that utilize real-time interactions between consumers and the industry.

For more information or to contact NaughtyPR visit their website at NaughtyPR.com.