Guide to Promote Yourself [Archive] - Oprano Adult Industry Forums

gonzo

05-18-2006, 10:06 AM

Reposted courtesy of FusionX
Promoting your biz with xPeeps, part one
xPeeps was built so you can promote yourself or your biz, or both. Let's look at a few ways different types of members can use xPeeps.

Stars, Directors, Studios:

Upon registering, these memebrs should get their AEBN ID into their profile. This will put your movies into your public profile. To find it, click Movies in the menu bar, and search for your name. Click on one of the resulting movies, then hold your mouse over your name - the StarID, DirectorID or StudioID in the URL is what you are looking for. Take that number and enter it into the corresponding field in your Edit Profile area. If you don't have the correct field available, make sure you signed up as a star, director or studio, respectively. If you need that changed, contact an AEBN rep.

The next step is obvious - put up your pictures! Pick a super hot pic, preferably with a clear view of your face, and make it your main profile pic. Faces draw more attention that anything else. Feel free to post whatever you want in your gallery.

Studios should capitalize on their branding and use their logos. Studios should also feel free to create secondary profiles for their more high-profile movies.
Link up with other stars and directors! More stars = more page views. The same goes with directors, studios and other high profile members. If you know stars who aren't yet on xPeeps.com, let them know about it! Add them as friends when they arrive. Help them get started - it will help everyone who works together.

Cash Companies and Affiliate Programs:

Create a primary profile for your company.
Create profiles for your models and web sites. For solo girl sponsors, I highly suggest you create a profile for the model, and one for the site. This way, the model can interact on a personal level, and push traffic over to the web site profile for sales. Use personalized pics in the model's profile, and content from the professional shoots in the site profiles.

Have all of your models add each other as friends. Add each other's sites as well. Add all of these to your company profile and set it in each model and site profile in the top 8 friends.

Get blogging! In your primary company profile, pitch your program's benefits. Models should be personal. Site profiles should push the site benefits. Blogs can use HTML so promote yourself like you would on a web page.

Everyone:

Use the forums! Interact with other members and fans in the forums. Don't be spammy - it will turn potential customers off. Interact as people, and you'll get added to more and more profiles. More profiles = more exposure and more exposure = more sales.

Link to your profile(s) from other sites including livejournal, blogspot, myspace, anywhere and everywhere. Agan, more page views, etc..
Do cross promotions with other models, stars, studios, etc.

Interact with the fans and other biz people. The more you interact, the more page views you get.
Customize your profiles. Have someone who understands CSS and HTML modify your profiles to reflect your personality or branding.

Work with AEBN and xPeeps.com

Studios and Directors - if your movies are not in AEBN's database contact a rep and create a partnership. You can find contact info here: http://www.aebn.net/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.contact (http://www.aebn.net/index.cfm?fuseaction=main.contact)

Stars - can't find yourself or your movies in the system? Contact the studios and work with them to get them added - the only way to get into the system is for the studio or distributor to partner with AEBN.

Consider advertising on xPeeps.com. We have banner spots and internal links available for our partners. Use the contact page link above.

gonzo

05-18-2006, 10:07 AM

Reposted courtesy of FusionX
Promoting your biz with xPeeps, part two
A lot has changed at xPeeps.com since I posted Promoting your biz on xPeeps.com, part one (http://www.xpeeps.com/journal.php?do=showjournal&j=15). So much, in fact, that it's time for an update.

Before I talk about site features, lets cover a few things I've learned about xPeeps in the last month or two.

Work your profile

Networking is the number one way to get more exposure, second only to being a super hot chick. If you are a super hot chick, you still need to network to get ahead of the other super hot chicks. There are profiles on xPeeps that haven't been seen since their inception. Why? Because, like many webmasters, they believe that if you build it, they will come. That's not true in the real world (movies aren't real world, are they?) and it's not true on xPeeps. Just like with a stand-alone web site, no matter how hot, or cool, or phat, or even pertinent the site is (or blog post, or new picture in your profile), you must let people know it's there.
xPeeps has a host of tools you can use to promote yourself.

First, a little careful thought is needed before using the Forums or Bulletins. Remember the story of the boy who cried wolf? The same thing applies here. I see people doing this on MySpace all the time. You know - the endless bulletins and messages of shameless self promotion, or topics in the news that we've already seen, or outright spam. When people see the someone post umpteen crappy useless bulletins they tend to ignore the poster. Don't spam people - the first two spams might get some attention, but you'll see people dropping off your friends list, and you'll probably start getting negative messages.

Start with the Forums. Get in there and just interact! Read a little bit, and if something catches your interest, post a quick reply. Avoid one-liners - they make you look like a post whore. Simply post a nice comment or a dissenting view. Add to the current conversation; if the post if missing pertinent information, fill it in.

If nothing catches your interest, start a new post!

Your post can be about anything - just make sure you put it in an applicable forum. If you are truly stumped, which happens a lot when you are new to a particular forum, simply introduce yourself. Tell people who you are, what you do, why you are on xPeeps, and what you hope xPeeps can do for you. Get personal to the limits of your comfort zone. People love to know who you are.

People always ask me how to really work a forum. Here's a few tips.

When you first enter the Forums, look at the titles of the individual forums. Find one that's close to your purpose. If you don't have a purpose, now would be a good time to develop one. Enter that forum and look at the titles. Look at the number of replies and the number of views each thread has. See what people are clicking on and what threads are actually engaging people.
Avoid the drama threads - they only make you look bad in the long run. Now, with your purpose set and a little knowledge about the forums and the people who use them, decide on an appropriate topic, and create your post.

I recommend you use a text editor to write posts of any significant length or complexity. While the online editor is a good tool, it's hard to replace the tools that come with a real editor. Speaking of tools, always make heavy use of spell check. I can't say that enough. Always make heavy use of spell check. People will not want to do business with you if you write like an idiot. If you can't post a comprehensible message board post, maybe you'll screw up when filling out their check, or their insertion order, or a modeling contract.

Once you have your post written and spell checked, format the text a little to make it easier to read. Don't overdo it; some headings as appropriate, a little bold or italics, and good paragraph spacing go a long way towards making your post enjoyable to read. Always create real hyperlinks. While the editor will auto-link a properly formatted URL, no one likes seeing a typed out URL that's 150 characters long. Just use BBCode - it's really easy.

Now, leave the post in your editor and go have a beer, wash the dishes or knock one out with the significant other. Come back and reread your post. Always do this on a critical post like a press release, and especially do this if you are involved in any kind of drama (which you should be avoiding anyway).

Make any needed changes and post your message. If you have a real need to control the conversation, check back often. People will hijack threads, or someone might take your post (or usually one sentence fragment) out of context and take the thread in the wrong direction. Otherwise, just check for replies once in a while. Above all, do reply. No matter what someone says, let them know their participation is welcome through a simple reply. No matter whether you agree with them, disagree with a part of their reply, or need to make a factual correction, post something in reply to every response you get. If you leave people hanging they'll look at your post as spam, and you can kiss your forum posting career goodbye.

Tired of posting messages yet? Use the bulletins! Bulletins only go to people on your friends list, so they're a little limited in their reach. However, if you really have something important to say, your friends can repost the bulletin to everyone on their lists. And so on and so on.

The same basic rules apply to bulletins as to message board posts. Write well, format a little, spell check a lot, and make sure it's not spammy. When people reply to your bulletin, engage them in conversation. Start a dialogue and make a new friend (or biz connection, or fuckbuddy, or whatever).

New Site Features

Now let's get into the new ways to promote yourself on xPeeps.

Groups

Groups are a very powerful way to market yourself or your business. Groups are easily defined as a collection of people interacting around a central topic. Each group has an owner (maybe you), one or more moderators (the owner and optionally others), a picture gallery, a comments area (just like on your profile), and a dedicated message forum. Groups also have a Group picture and a description.

We have a pretty powerful search system in place for finding Groups of interest. Start with the categories and just browse around. When you find a group you think you might like, browse through the message forum and check out the other members. If you like it, join it. If not, move on.
You can also perform a search based on keywords in the group's title and description. This is a standard search system like you see on any site. Play with it a bit and you'll get the hang of it.

Some groups are Public, meaning anyone can join at will, and some are private, meaning a moderator must approve your "application" before you gain access to read and post.
Interacting in Groups is just like using the Forums or Bulletins. Think a little, write good posts, reply to people and stay active, and you'll draw a lot of traffic to your profile. As always, be relevant in your posts.
Can't find a group that meets your needs? Start one! Just plan it a little bit first. Write out a few group names, write a good description, find a good picture, determine whether it should be Public or Private, then do the Add Group thingy.
A Group is really just a specially enhanced profile, and like a profile, you can market the group in the same ways. Just don't spam it too much!

Business Directory

The Business Directory is also very powerful. While not interactive like Groups or the Forums, people use the Business Directory as a resource, and in this industry, getting exposure for your business is critical. It's also important to know and to remember that Business Directory listings link to your profile!

While you can add a link to your site or service in the listing itself, it's far better to use your profile as your main marketing platform, and link from there. Think of your profile as a pre-sales marketing tool and modify it appropriately.

Only people with an Industry profile can create Business Directory listings. We don't allow simple "look at my profile pic" entries. The Directory is moderated; each submission is manually reviewed. Please don't spam it - you'll not get in, and might get your profile deleted.

Before creating your listing, plan your marketing approach. You'll have a description to write, a photo or logo to upload, and categories to choose. To review the current category selections, just browse the groups.

Finally, remember that you can have as many profiles as you need. Create one for personal use, one for each business you run, or even one for the major functional aspects of your business. For example, if you run a cash company with solo girl web sites, create a profile for the cash company itself, one for each model, and one for each web site. Now, create a business directory listing for each profile.

As discussed in the first part of this article, link up the different profiles in your friends lists.