In mid-September, the beautiful Melissa Gira, wrote a piece about me in Valley Wag. It was called “Porn Marketer teaches you how to use Twitter”. I laughed at myself. Porn marketer I didn’t know I could get that title.  Thanks Melissa, I love it.

Since then, Melissa’s column was cut and I wanted to vocalize my dismay, it is really a shame. I only read Valley Wag because of Melissa. It drew me in to exploring the rest of the website. My link to her column will remain in my “Fix List”.

Many publications cut their sex columnists - supposedly because of the economic state and needing to tighten budgets, cut the fat.

My initial reaction was “Big Mistake”.

Sex is just as comforting, distracting and fulfilling as the macroni and cheese, good books or  reading the latest “stay positive” article. Mainstream Sex, ALT sex and even Kink Sex are just as relevant as anything else that could be published.

You had brilliant minds working hard to add value to their media outlets (Audacia Ray, Regina Lynn, Tristan Taoromino).

My Questions: Do they feel it was an easy line item to help their bottom line or did they did it to change public perception of brand in the midst of the economic crisis and political changes?

I would interested to see if there are positive effects after excluding the sexual voices that provided knowledge and education to their mainstream audiences; I think Valley Wag, Village Voice and Wired will find many drawbacks to hasty decisions.

I am addicted to Florian Meimberg and her blog mAdvertsing (built on Wordpress of course). Pictures are worth a thousand words. This beautiful, fashion/lingerie campaign start. Beautiful Florian, and congrats on the arrival of Jonas.

I was working on my Tumblr a few weeks and came across this post from Melissa Gira. I chuckled a bit, I have been thinking about public perception <of me> as a writer/blogger/character and I read this:

This is not a compliment.

On that same thread: I’m tangling hard with this notion of public persona. That for whatever reason, writing about sex gives some people the idea that you are available sexually to them (this is not new, this is something I’ve noticed a long time ago). But this being commonly understood as a consumable girl is hitting a breaking point for me. Does it mean I can’t flirt-for-real in public spaces without being perceived as buying into a role, without agreeing with that being pegged as The Sex Girl?

I was never that girl. I never played against my own intelligence to make men comfortable around me. I come on strong by being open, not teasing. I don’t look for strength in men’s eyes that way. As temporarily delightful as cocktail conversation may be — until our cabs come — I get my real and lasting courage from my own vulnerability. I can only trust my sense of worth to be safe with those unafraid to love me, not someone who finds me amusing five minutes at a time.

This is the year of being smart about being seen.

Thank you Melissa. You said what I was looking for.

I don’t know why men (yes, it is men only - never women) think because we write about sex, marketing sex, sex & society et al., that we are available. I was astonished to find how many mainstream, social media/SEO men would contact me via Twitter or Facebook to see if we could have “drinks”. I was excited at first, “Wow - mainstream people take note of my work and wanting to meet!”

Uh, I realized that “coffee” was not their intention, it was can I get a free piece of ass and someone to support me. This progressed into another interesting phenomena: When I would attend webinar  as “Callie” that I would receive emails from employees of the companies that hosted the webinar. Again, I thought it was about the company itself, but it wasn’t. The only thing it was about was their employee’s side adult businesses, or should I say - wanna be businesses. It prompted the series I wrote on being an ethical marketer. I’ve learned some valuable lessons.

So now I can say - No, you will not fuck me and no, I am not gonna teach you to be an adult marketer for free. You will PAY ME - for marketing consulting, not for sex that is.

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks rethinking our business model and direction based Melissa’s comment about being smart about being seen. So you will see me again, just in different directions and areas. Looking forward to engaging conversations again.

Callie

New Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/AdultMarketing

• @EvilLynn Croissants? Coffee? #
• @jeffmccord Hello Mr. McCord! #
• @NookieNotes Yes, I will send you a preview #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

Adult clients/business are embracing social media (hopefully I have something to do with that) and are finding creative ways to engage with their customers through Facebook and Twitter. They are also starting to use LinkedIn to expand their professional networks in lateral and vertical markets. And that is exciting. This month alone, my professional LinkedIn has grown by 25 contacts!

Many of them have asked me, “How do I integrate my social media into my current site/blog? I don’t want to just LINK to my profile, I want to make it all interactive.” Especially as it relates to Facebook.

Note: More and more adult bloggers & business owners are moving to Wordpress for their blogging platform because of simplicity it provides as a content management system.

So I am doing my usual wordpress hunting for better than semi-sweet articles on the latest and greatest wordpress “addie thingies,” aka plugins/widgets, and I found The Fatty Talks by Adam Hirsch. Okay, the name alone cracks me up. I like what Mr. Hirsch posted as the best plugins/widgets for embedding facebook to your wordpress blog.

WORDPRESS.COM ON FACEBOOK:

WordPress - Create a Wordpress.com account AND access your account from directly in Facebook. Publishes from Wordpress.com accounts into Facebook News Feeds, Mini-Feeds and adds a box in your profile that is customizable.

• Sorry, I hate it, not a very good thing, only works for like 12% of people.

WORDPRESS.ORG ON FACEBOOK:

WordBook - This plugin essentially allows you to cross-post to your Facebook account directly from your WordPress blog.

• It’s nifty and works really well. You can just import the RSS Feed from your Wordpress blog to Facebook though.

FACEBOOK ON WORDPRESS.ORG

Facebook Photos for Wordpress Plugin - by TanTan Noodles  - “This WordPress

plugin provides easy access to your Facebook photos by allowing you to easily post them to your blog. After you have linked the plugin to your Facebook account, photos you upload to Facebook will automatically show up in a convenient ‘Photos’ tab in your WordPress powered blog (see screenshot below). You can choose to use either small, medium, or large sized versions of your photos.”

• It really cool if you are anti-Flickr. But Flickr has an automatic integration widget for the free .Wordpress.com blogs. Get the Flickr on, even if it is Yahoo. Yahoo is anti-adult as most of  us know, but we will still use Flickr and Upcoming because they are cool.

WordPress Fotobook - Fotobook is a WordPress plugin that will link to your Facebook account and import all of your photo albums into a page on your Wordpress installation.

• Works very well, especial for the new user. Nothing all that special, see notes above.

Display in Facebook Live Users and and Latest Posts -  Lester Chan created his own plugin for his Gamerz blog, however, he is offering the source code.

• It’s really cool. If you have the skills, get this.

StatusPress - Plugin that takes your Facebook status updates and puts them onto your WordPress blog

• Another one the works out of the box, but is very twitter like. Use Twitter Tools if you are into micro-blogging. And use the first version, all the later versions give me issues of one kind or another. They are fixable, but problematic.

Add To Facebook Plugin - Adds to the bottom of every post an “add to Facebook” link

• Ummm, just use ShareThis, or Social Bookmarking, unless you ONLY want the Facebook add button. But why would you do that?

Thanks Mr. Hirsch for the outline. Loving it.

Adult Marketing Takes To the Airwaves of BlogTalk Radio

Well, it’s been a bit of time since I have written kiddies; but we all know how that goes. Over the next few weeks, you are going to see the Adult Marketing blog get meatier and the marketing ideas flow. I encourage you to try the ideas and come back and dialogue with me about the tactics and strategies. To kick off the new focus, I will be dialoging with Gracie Passette on Interactive Adult Marketing Strategy on XXBN radio. I am all excited, Gracie (aka The Marketing Whore) and I have spent many hours on the phone the past few weeks discussing adult marketing strategy and why certain things like affiliate programs, pay sites, et al. no longer work as they used, what are some of the new solutions/alternatives for adult marketing and how social media is/isn’t relevant to adult content today. The show is gonna be good and chalked full of advice. So listen in! Don’t worry, there will 12 minutes dedicated to Sarah Palin too.

About XXBN

XXBN is a collection of progressive, subversive, sex positive, indie talk shows produced by sex workers, past and present.

Discussing topics relating to politics, culture, & society; sex work; sexuality; human, civil, & labor rights; feminist & gender issues; and media issues.

Along with interviews with sex workers & experts in scholarly pursuit of issues regarding human sexuality and the societies humans live in, XXBN provides interviews and interactions with authors, activists, artists, & entertainers in music, film/TV.

On Wednesday the beautiful and all powerful Gracie be chatting with the pole dancing, sex positive feminist with a Bachelor’s degree in linguistics and a Master’s degree in internet technology ~ Amber Rhea.

Amber is also co-founder of the Georgia Podcast Network, co-host of the award-winning podcast Mostly ITP (which focuses on people and issues in Atlanta), main organizer of PodCamp Atlanta 2007, & organizer of Sex 2.0, an ‘unconference’ focused on the intersection of social media, feminism, and sexuality.

One of the things that impresses me most about Amber is that she gets sex work ~ despite never having worked ‘the game’, despite being ‘young’ and not a crone. She truly has wisdom beyond her years.

You can join the raunchy-fun and the ranty-goodness on Cult of Gracie Radio at 9 p.m. central ~ listen live, hang out in the chat room, and call in at 646.200.3136.

The girls of New Your City never cease to amaze me, Audacia Ray, Tess Danesi and Twanna Hines are just amazing women (among the others involved). Their latest project is a Sex Blogger pin-up calendar. It is absolutely stunning and gorgeous. The wesite - SexBlogger Calendar - is beautiful and just divine. Creativity, Sexiness and Savviness - ladies, I love it.

Masuimi Max Pirate Pinup - Photo by Laura Byrnes

I was reading Marketing Prof’s Daily Fix (what can’t you find on twitter?) and was surprised on how much his posting on Dirty Leaders are Good, Sometimes corresponded to the book I am currently reading (see below).

Steve Woodruff states, “There’s a price to pay for rising above the crowd and seeking to lead. You become a target. Dirt bombs and mudballs find their way into your orbit, because if you win, someone else loses. And that happens in business as well. If you are a thought leader, or a dominant player in the marketplace, or an innovative competitor creating disruption, one of the spoils of success is that you’ll be attacked. Perhaps you’ve actually earned the opprobrium of your detractors by wrong or ruthless business practices (that kind of dirty leader isn’t good!), but perhaps your character is being publicly assassinated simply because of jealousy or hatred. It’s hard to break new ground or expand into new fields without stirring up some soil. One way or another, few leaders escape getting dirtied. It comes with the territory - the territory of success!”

All I can say is, AMEN! It’s the truth! If you are trying something new or taking a different approach, don’t be afraid to do it and don’t be afraid of the mud that is going to be slung your way. What Steve is talking about are the Laws of Attraction, Forgiveness and Karma. And how positive action and non-resistance will help any individual achieve our wildest dreams and goals (read Florence Shinn if you need more).

Being ethical is what I founded my business upon. Providing my clients with solutions that people couldn’t/wouldn’t give them was my driving force. I am thankful for those I work with every day and I will continually do well by them.

In the Flesh: L.A. (the West coast version of In The Flesh founded by Rachel Kramer Bussel) is a monthly reading series held the last Thursday of every month at Hustler Hollywood, and features the city’s best journalists, authors, scriptwriters and more offering their torrid tales for your entertainment and titillation, hosted and curated by writer/editor Carly Milne (Sexography, Hooking Up, Naked Ambition).

From secret dirty confessions to unique sexual insights (and even the odd embarrassment or two), these writers get naked on the page and will make you lust after them and their words. Readers have included Willam Belli, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Maxim Jakubowski, Stan Kent, Shana Ting Lipton, Jenny Block, Regina Lynn, Rob Roberge, Eugene S. Robinson, Marty Barrett, Seth Greenland, Nina Hartley, Jeff Miller, Colleen Wainwright, Adam Grayson, Joanna Angel, Ernest Greene, Maggie Marr and BatSheva Vaknin. We’ve also been written up in Metroblogging L.A., LAist, Thrillist, Fishbowl L.A., Blue Blood and others.

Themed include Survival, Confessions, Madonna, Fears, Embarrassments and many more. Complimentary cookies and cupcakes from Schmerty’s will be offered. The event is free, but a suggested $10 door fee will be donated to the Rape and Incest National Network.

In The Flesh: L.A. debuted in May 2008. E-mail inthefleshreadingseriesla at gmail.com for booking, more information or interview requests.

The Next In The Flesh is This Thursday at Hustler: Hollywood. I will be attending, hope to see you all there!