I just got back from FL yesterday – the humidity there is something else! I appreciate the air conditioning in LA, but in FL it’s not just to keep things cool, it’s to keep things dry! Such a great time though, both work-related and not.
Something that I realized both during and after my seminar was the fact that most people in the industry know that social media is important, but didn’t know why. It was simply awesome seeing the light bulb going off when they realized that social media is not just another place to put an ad, but a place to work on their brand. Social networking is a perfect place to work on making yourself a veritable celebrity. If you work the system correctly, you, your company, and your brand will be the best known entity for whatever it is that you’re providing or selling.
Social media marketing will eventually net a higher ROI, but it does take a little time. It’s not something you can get by pounding your links day after day, post after post. It simply doesn’t work that way in social media — in fact, if you do it that way (and trust me, most industry people do), followers will unfollow, block and/or ignore you. Why spend your already-precious time on social media sites if people are just going to ignore you? Such a waste of time.
A lot of the questions during the seminar were about how exactly to use the social media sites. No one site works just like the others — if that were the case, there would be one giant and a bunch of copycat sites. Twitter is not Facebook is not MySpace is not YouTube is not AdultSpace is not XPeeps…you get the picture. You need to figure out how each one works, and what each one excels best in, and then work the “game” of each site so it works best for your branding strategy.
And maybe that’s the thing. Maybe the thing is that most people are talking about social media marketing strategies, when they should be talking about social media branding strategies. If the word “marketing” is taken out of the picture, the real merit and worth of social media sites becomes clearer.
Marketing is secondary in social media. You have to remember that, hammer that into your head, and remind yourself at every chance you get. Branding is the priority here. It’s not about putting up a banner ad or a clickable link at every post. It’s about making sure people know who you are. The more people know who you are, the more people you’re likely to imprint your personality. The more people remember who you are and learn to trust you to provide something of value other than “buymebuymebuyme”, the more likely they are to trust you in the odd occassion you post a link. It’s consumer psychology and ego and fame and trust all rolled into one.
Think of it this way. Would you rather buy a can of Coke/Pepsi, or a can of the generic store brand cola? I know that finances drive buying decisions, but more often than not it’s also a trust issue. Buyers know the brand, trust the quality, and associate a certain emotion with buying that brand. It’s got the same ingredients as the generic brand – in fact, if you covered up the label, it might be hard to pick one over the other. I say “might,” because Coke and Pepsi enthusiasts might beg to differ — and again, a lot of that comes from brand loyalty.
When you understood that, it becomes easier to see the value of social media sites. I was really surprised by the number of people who attended the seminar — it was, after all, the first one on a Saturday morning when I knew that a lot of people probably stumbled back to the hotel just hours before LOL. But the room was pretty full, and lots of questions were asked — which makes me hopeful that we’ll start seeing some really good interactions between the industry and non-industry people!
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I used to go to Internext back in the day (I live in south florida). My opinion of the pr0n industry has changed over the years. The old conception was that the porn industry set a lot of trends on the internet. They were early-adopters and innovators.
Honestly, that’s not true anymore. If you troll GFY.com, you know that 99% of the webmasters are idiots. These are people that set up TGPs and MGPs, tube sites, download scripts, run spam blogs and live in their parents’ basement. There’s a very very small percentage that create great work on great technology.
Unfortunately, the basement kids have become the scene standard for the internet adult webmaster crowd.
However, Internext was generally a good time with the right people.
—@Vocino
Travis´s last blog ..I’d Ride It
I do think that the industry has fallen behind a little. Adult’s always been quick to adopt new technologies, but this is a case of relearning new marketing strategies.
Not sure about the “idiots living in basements” comment – but there certainly seems to be a proliferation of amateur webmasters trying to jump onto the pr0n bandwagon since everyone talks about how lucrative it is. Unfortunately, oversaturation means that the wealth is divided up amongst more people – so no one’s making a profit any more. Time to start separating the wheat from the chaff, I’d say.
Webmasters are still using ICQ to network with each other – no one else really does any more. I think it’s a huge reminder that the industry, although ready to be at the forefront of new tech, is slow to change the marketing model.
You could say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” but it’s clearly broken. Maybe the ones the survive will be the ones that understand new marketing tactics and the power of branding.
I think you made two critical points.
One, that most industry people know that social media is important, they just have no idea why. You would have to be a metaphorical “under a rock” dweller not to see how Twitter, Facebook, etc have changed the face of business today. Even news agencies are reporting creditable stories that were first mentioned on social media sites.
Secondly, and you made this in your comment to Travis, over saturation is a huge problem in the industry now. Which is odd because it is the exact opposite problem than say, ten years ago when there were ten or twelve webmasters running hundreds of sites apiece.
With people like yourself at the helm of this, I am sure that the importance of social media will be easily taught to others, more importantly, I feel that you will lead the way in helping people implement these things and make for a more productive and interactive industry.
James´s last blog ..Labels? I Don’t Need No Stinking Label
When discussing the success or failures of social media sites, I feel the result either way depends on the marketing and manipulation of the element of “control”. By control I mean the users arena of control in personalizing, engaging and contributing to the social media site they are involved in. The control can be real or perceived but the presence of it influences the users like and association as well as the involvement. The goal of marketing on-self weather it adult oriented or sport or social or business, is to maximize that dynamic of “control”. Within the see-saw structure of use/control, you need to input your product and yield the return.