Overview
This panel in the Cybernet expo was the first in the series and covered how to sell things online in adult using social networking tools.

Social Networking Tools and Techniques that work
Evil Chris from studiohd had some notes that the first tool he used was icq. That was the base tool to first socialize and stay in touch online. He made as many appearances as possible to reinforce his social networking efforts. He says that gradually building up relationships is the way to really leverage these tools. They are ways to generate real business relationships.

Vegas Ken from TheBestPorn.com mentioned the adult whos who and industry sites before using the general non-adult focused tools. He said that the success through social networking is a secondary point to get sales. He said that it is a good way to meet people that you could possibly do business with. He said that it is very hard to monetize, but it is a great tool to get your name out there and generate branding benifit.

Kelly Shibari from hourglass8.com said that webmaster industry resources are noto god sources for customers and she has met many people at the conference using twitter. Sales are built around a trust / relationship type model rather than direct solicitation. This method generates more loyalty.  Hammering sales is not effective because it loses trust. She said that she doesn’t believe in target marketing, because they are all the same people between groups and special interest groups. Twitter for example is not adult / non-adult or industry specific.  Take google searches and type in your questions to twitter. Engage your audience to see what their opinions are. She recommended not targeting people specifically due to keywords. She advocated just being an interesting personality and form conversations.

KevinG from web 3.0 consulting mentioned that we are not selling using social networking sites. People do things and buy things from people tha they like.  In the social networking arena you have the opportunity to let your personlity come out. You have the opportunity to build relationships.  He encouraged using twitter as a tool to create a dialogue and ask questions.  He mentioned Google News alerts. Write down some blog alerts and news alerts to get potential writing areas. One female personality site he works with gets 750 uniques a day and shows a 1/150 conversion rate from twitter traffic. Another one showed a 1/900 conversion rate came from another client.

Jay Kopita from ynot.com talked alot about thinking about who you are selling to. He mentioned that the majority of people on twitter are selling something. For example, Jay recommended getting on the phone as quickly as possible because this is a skill of his.  He said don’t make the only time that you contact people when you are selling / spamming / or trying to get them to look at something. Build up friendships.

Erin Ann Myer from MyHoneySuckle.com talked about doing a customer avatar exercise such as speaking specifically to one client. By pretending to speak to a potential customer and thinking about what daily issues they are facing you may be able to get some good feedback. Twitter is better used for interesting tweets answering the question: “what has my attention right now”.  This is more engaging and has more potential to create a conversation.

Dirty D from HowIGotRich.com talked about special interest groups and how you need to reach lots and lots of people to be sucessful and have some effect. He said that the one on one stuff is good for branding your personality. Some examples of special interest groups would be myspace groups.

An audience member mentioned that specific performers are seeing some great results from myspace marketing and personally marketing to fans.

Adult Webmaster Boards

There are hundreds of adult webmaster boards that are inside the industry. Some examples that were mentioned are:
gofuckyourself.com
xnations.com
justblowme.com
mediumpimpin.com
ynot.com
boardtracker.com can help to see different boards.