This is Bruce Friedman of Adult Site Broker and welcome to Adult Site Broker Talk, where each week we interview one of the movers and shakers of the adult industry and we give you a tip on buying and selling websites. This week we'll be speaking with Alex LeComte of 7Veils Social Media. There are some upcoming events we'll be attending. December 3rd and 4th, I'll be at Affiliate World Conference in Bangkok. December 7th through the 9th, I'll be sponsoring AW Summit Elite in Koh Chang, Thailand. And to start the year right, I'll be in Hollywood for XBiz LA. I hope to see many of you at these events. If you'd like to sit down and discuss business at any of these shows, contact us at adultsitebroker.com. We're proud to announce our latest project, thewaronporn.com. You'll find articles on age verification laws and other attacks on our industry. It's to raise awareness of our industry's plight in the war on porn. You'll find all that and more at thewaronporn.com. Now time for our properties of the week at Adult Site Broker. We have a network of BDSM subreddits that has over 1.49 million users, over 3.8 million posts, and almost 45,000 comments. The three subreddits feature rough anal, rough sex, and BDSM. We have a premium AI companion platform focused on emotional realism and deep memory. Users interact with lifelike companions that remember every detail, responding with real emotion. They've just added advanced video capabilities. There's a porn picture site with both a Web2 and a Web3 domain. The keyword of the domains is one of the most globally recognized in search terms, porn. A single word domain ensures strong brand positioning, SEO advantage, and credibility. We have a buyer who's looking for dating and lifestyle sites in Europe. They'd also consider other geos. They currently operate some very successful sites. We have a network of interracial reality hardcore sites. The main site has reality hardcore porn with amateur girls as well as some porn stars. There's a unique platform that bridges the gap between mainstream social link services like Linktree and adult content creators on platforms like OnlyFans. They combine a bio link with the ability to sell virtual gifts. We're offering a growing free porn gaming site with adult sex games. The site is owned by one of the top entrepreneurs in our industry. And there's a highly active, organically grown Reddit community centered around the stocking and foot fetish niches. It's one of the leading spaces for adult fetish content. For more information, go to our listings page at adultsitebroker.com. Now time for this week's interview. My guest today on Adult Site Broker Talk is Alex LeConte of Seven Veils Social Media. Alex, thanks for being back with us on Adult Site Broker Talk. Thank you very much for having me back. That's a hundred. Thank you so much. Three times, man. You're brave. So Alex is an industry veteran and lifelong scholar. He's also an ex-biz community hall of famer and has won multiple awards. Alex comes from a multicultural background situated at the crossroads of Europe, South America, and North America. He holds several degrees. After gaining significant work experience in mainstream advertising and public relations, Alex has served many companies in the adult industry. Ex-biz, AVN, and Why Not have published several of his articles. Alex is the CEO and co-owner of Seven Veils Social Media, an adult industry agency specializing in social media strategies. Seven Veils is the premier social media marketing agency for the adult industry. I can vouch for that. I am one of their clients, and they do a great job. Their international award-winning team manages social media accounts for companies and individuals. They operate on all major social media platforms. The purpose of their agency is to use social media to provide additional business angles for adult brands. Did I say social media enough times? I think I did, Alex. So please catch us up on what's changed in social media marketing since the last time we spoke. Absolutely. First of all, I'd like to tell you how happy I am for you. Congratulations. It seems that the podcast is really going really well over the years. and I'm really happy for you. That's crazy. You have really interesting people in the podcast and I'm so happy to see how great it is. We're ticking towards 300 episodes, man. You were one of our first guests. But yeah, that was the testing phase. No, but it's 300 episodes, but I am really glad to see the great quality of this podcast. So I'm really happy for you. I'm really proud of you. Congratulations. It's a great project that you've built. That's awesome. That's awesome. yeah to answer your question about social media what has changed you know it's basically what we it was predictable the only thing that was predictable is that it reflects society and I feel like I'm repeating myself from the time we talked right after the pandemic because it's really interesting and kind of fascinating for me to see how social media reflects our daily lives our behaviors even sometimes some behaviors that are a little bit unconscious so for me that's what has changed because our society has changed so obviously the thing that everybody can feel and see is that how our society now is very polarized or i don't know how you say that but you know especially in terms of politics and everything all this new generation of course it has a significant impact on technology and social media consumption and content creation but it's it's interesting and kind of i mean to be honest kind of scary because i feel old now but fine with that. It's just that I see how in society now, it's really about you hate it or you love it. There is no in-between anymore. And it's really, really strong on social media. So for companies, it's really complicated because sometimes if someone is not happy with the product, they will just tell you that they completely hate it. And sometimes it's just something a little bit more nuanced when they would say, you know, I wouldn't buy it again or something. But now it's really strong, the feelings and the really harsh. So I think for me, we stepped up. Unfortunately, we got a little bit heavier on that, that the animosity is a little bit more present. The pressure is really strong. But people at the same time are getting more and more educated. So the conception has changed. We see that it's really crowded. We have a lot of users on all the platforms, but people are more educated. Just like when people used to browse on YouTube sites and got educated with ad blockers and everything. Now people are automatically filtering the bullshit in a way that all the influencers and everything, we are getting back to something a little bit more authentic, which is great. But for me, that's the main changes we've seen. Yeah, I mean, you talk about the animosity and you talk about the polarization, not only in the US, but all over the world, certainly in your country, in Brazil, and Oh, God, everywhere. And it does reflect very much so on social media. In a lot of ways, it's just become a very mean society. And that's reflected in social media, right? Absolutely. And you remember when we met, the forums were like about 15 years ago or so, and the forums were really powerful. But that's where I discovered the trolling on the forum. Back then, people liked to troll. And it was annoying, but it wasn't that harmful. It was just time consuming and a little bit stupid sometimes. We're talking about GFY now. But it was fun somehow. But now the thing is on social media, it's really scary because people are really putting their emotions into it. I'm very impressed by how there is a lot of layers in this conversation. But the fact that we take social media so personally now, and we see that even from the companies, you know, company owners, they are really attached to their messages. Not the same way they would be attached to a media campaign on a net server, for example. So now they're really taking things personally. If someone is saying, I hate your production, or I think your models are ugly, etc., people are really, really offended. Because, of course, it's not something nice to say or to read. But at the same time, it's just reminding me of all the trolling back then. It's just that now we've leveled up in the animosity. That's unfortunate. And therefore, as a main consequence, what we can see now is that something that makes me feel kind of sad. because I was very happy with platforms like Twitter. Twitter is my main focus, even though we work on all the platforms. But I'm very, yeah, I'm really sad to see how we've lost Twitter. It still works fine for business and some exchanges, et cetera, especially for the adults that's perfect. It's just that before I had this hope that we could all communicate and use the platforms to exchange. But now it's really hard because all people don't have anything to say or they are scared to speak and to be judged, Even if it's not something political, they are just scared to get some attacks from anyone. But now it feels that everyone is just, I don't know what's the expression in English, but is it like walking on eggshell? So it feels like that. Well, nobody wants to get cancelled. Exactly. And that's helpful because sparking conversation within a team or everywhere, if you have someone that doesn't think like you, it's really how you become sharper. It's a rich thing to have someone to exchange and we cannot agree with everyone. But back then, we used to get this confrontation with these dialogues. And now social media is really polished because of the algorithm, but also because of the cancel culture. So for business, it's fine. But it's just that I wish that we could use the platforms to communicate more and exchange more, especially because of the whole political context. It's something that eight years ago I would never have spoken so much about politics. We used to say from the very beginning, stay out of politics and religion, but now it took so much space. So ideally it could be good if people were more into politics to work towards a better world. The problem is that people are not thinking great, so it's complicated. No kidding. As a brand, do I need to be on every platform and why? my answer i don't like my answer because i'm going to say yes and no and i hate people say that because it's like no it can be oh it can't be yes and no but i will explain why i'm telling you this yes in a way that if we think about social media as we think as society as a village for example you you will probably want people in your village to know who you are especially if you're a brand so you probably have something to share with them a service a product or even an ideology. So you want them to understand, okay, this is this person. Maybe they don't want to talk to you. Maybe they don't have anything to do with your business, but at least they know who you are. So I would recommend all the brands to be on all the platforms, even mainstream platforms, because just to get their username. I'm always very surprised, for example, to see how phone companies are not getting their username on their website. So it's always interesting to have your username saved so your identity your digital identity even though the platforms are private on their own it's interesting to have a name but i don't think and i never recommend to our client even if it would be great for us because we would be uh really successful to operate on all the platforms you don't need to invest uh money and time on all the platforms because the target is not the same typically tiktok tiktok is i it's i understand how people are crazy about tiktok and it. But sometimes the message you have as a brand, the way you codify your message, you express yourself, the way you deliver the message to your audience, it's not on the proper channel. So TikTok typically the audience is really, really young. So I wonder if it's really interesting. Plus, to create content that fits in TikTok world, it's really, really hard because if you're a brand production, for example, which is the most visual service we have product in the adult industry, You would have your models. You need your models to do something very specific that fits in this segment, in this communication channel. So, lip syncing or some videos and stuff. So, it takes time from your models. I don't know if they are going to be paid for that. And it requires creativity. And also, it requires a lot of time. And people don't want to invest so much time just for a clip that is going to be seen many times, but not bringing any direct return on investment financially. So that's why TikTok is complicated because it's something that the younger audience really love, but it's because they love to broadcast themselves and to put themselves in situations, making fun, etc. And for our industry, since we are very limited, it's hard for us to show the fun we have because we are really funny, but people don't like to see our fun in the bus, for example. So it's complicated, yeah. That's true. What platforms do you most recommend for adult businesses and performers? So it hasn't changed. I think the few times that we've talked in the podcast about that, it's always Twitter. You won't say X, will you? Oh, yeah, X. I am so pissed with this X thing. Yeah, well, tell Elon. You know, when I search for something on the computer, in the data or whatever, Every time that I'm looking for X, it's like, come on, this is impossible. That's in the middle of a lot of things. Especially when you work with sex. So X is a letter that we use a lot. Yeah, so absolutely. Twitter, X. Oh my God, yeah, completely forgot. But yeah, Twitter, X. That's the platform that we recommend for a very obvious reason. First of all, they are very adult friendly. So Instagram is very trendy and it's very appealing, of course, because everybody's on Instagram. So we want to go where everyone's going. The problem is Instagram is really not adult friendly. The content, even the wording, for me, that's the worst. Even the wording, there is a huge censor on Instagram. It seems that people can talk about sex, they can talk about sexual health in a very safe way. Every time we do it, we know that there is a risk of losing the account. So that's not cool because it puts, again, back sex and sexuality in general in a taboo zone. So I think it's stupid. But so business-wise, yeah, absolutely. X and Twitter is the best platform because they allow this content. So, of course, we prefer to work first on platforms that want Andy users. And the linking is really interesting because in each post, if you want, you can have a direct clickable link. You know, people talk a lot about Instagram, but the thing is on Instagram, you can't really, So if you have, I don't know, whatever, a point production, let's say, to be the more global possible or webcam company, you can't have the link in the Instagram bio. And there is only the bio. So when you catch your audience from the timeline, they will see your post, but they can't necessarily click and go directly to visit your page. And we know how immediate this generation is. They want to see the link to click and to go directly. So if they have to go on your homepage and search for the link, but then you don't have the link because it's porn. So that's not easy at all. And of course, Reddit. Reddit is great. We have a huge amount of, there is a huge increase in demand for Reddit. It was very popular already five years ago. But now, that's why people, every time we have a new lead, the first thing they ask is for Reddit. But Reddit is dynamic. It's really risky because it's great. it works when it works but you can self-promote yourself it's something we've been explaining for a long time now it's really hard because if you are not subtle about your business you will be kicked out because they want something organic so if you just want to broadcast your model to feature your model if you want to feature your new scene etc at some point they will find out that you are selling your product even if you're already proud of it even if it's a great product they don't care They just don't want you to push it too hard. So, of course, it's hard for me to recommend to use a platform, invest time, money to work every day on a strategy on Reddit, and you can push it so far. So, they're looking more for organic conversations, right? Yes. Okay. Then you have to craft your message that way. Exactly. But that's the balance. And that's why I love the challenge of social media. Yeah, that's why I started with Seven Bells because for me, it's all a great sale. And you're a salesperson, you're a business person with a lot of experience. So you know, even much more than many of us that the balance is the key for you to, if you want to sell something, you have to be a salesperson, but you also have to put it in a package in a nice way to explain people why they need it and stuff. Now, the problem is we are companies. We are not there just to, when someone is hiring us, or even if you do it on your personal time for your company, you expect a return on that on your time. Even though there is no money involved, you invested your time, so you expect some return for your company. So it's a business situation all the time. Even if you want to keep it casual or funny or friendly or human, the base of it, the root of it is commerce itself. So there is just a certain point to how we can do it on Reddit because at some point we want to turn on the commercial speech. So it's really hard because even though you're subtle and you craft your messages in a certain way that it's subtle, we do it, of course. It's just that we can't do it too fast, too violent, you know, just as much as we can do it on Twitter. On Twitter, you can go every day and tell everyone to check your website. Then people might find your spam or it depends on the way you do it, but it's not going to be a problem for your account. On Reddit, it is a problem. So if you're really, really subtle, at some point, people are going to miss the point that you're actually selling something. Yeah. I want to get your take on something else that's obviously a hot topic, age verification. And it's not only a hot topic in adult. It's also the case now with social media. Is that social media companies are subject in some states and some countries to age verification. And that's not the only attack on the adult industry. There are others. There are laws that are pending and the like. And there's talk of them totally redoing the obscenity laws. And I had a conversation yesterday with the prominent attorney, Larry Walters, that will be airing just before yours does. And it's kind of crazy what's going on out there. Well, I mean, what's your take on all that? It is. And it doesn't happen much in my life before once. I really feel French on that. But even though I'd see that the French government is really all into their protection or whatever they want to say, but I feel really liberal that in a way that I'm really shocked by where we arrived with all this situation because we keep talking about age verification and verification. But for me, maybe I'm just being innocent or maybe it's because I don't have kids. So maybe it's easier, probably. It's just that I don't understand why parents don't want to talk to their kids about sex and sexuality. And if they don't want to do so, or if they want to, for whatever reason, there is still the parental control. I'm really surprised to see that every time that I talk to a parent about age verification, they're like, no, I trust my kids. Then why do you want, absolutely, to play some low to pro? I mean, I'm more than happy and willing to help in everything that can protect the young audience against things that they shouldn't see or against things that should, that would be a plan for their personal development and perception of life. But it's exactly the same just when with porn productions and porn companies and people from the industry, when we talk to college and we want to have some public speaking or whatever interactions, if someone has a question with porn stars about sexual health or sexual practices and everything, it's impressive how people always shut down. They're like, no, porn, that's disgusting. That's a taboo. Well, that's not how we create a healthy society. And it's obvious, you know, I'm not very adventurous myself. I'm very regular, almost vanilla. But it's so obvious that the more we hide something, the more people are going to look for it in a certain way. Obviously, age verification is definitely not to prevent kids to search for porn. Just like when we were kids and we wanted to see what a woman's body looked like. And we all went to buy some porn. However, whatever we used, fake ID or whatever to get it. I had one of those. Well, I didn't because I always looked old. So even though I was 15, I looked really old. Well, you had your beard when you were 12, is that it? Yeah, I'm from the Alam's family. No, the gray hair. It was the gray hair. I had gray hair, really young, and people never asked for my age. But no, so yeah, this age verification thing is so, it's really lame. It's really annoying. And I understand they want to protect the young audience, and I'm all in for that. It's just that the first step would be parental control, which is so obvious. Exactly. And that isn't their goal. They're using the kids as an excuse. Let's face it, okay? No, I swear to you, I don't understand. I don't understand the goal or the idea behind that. Because even if it's not porn, if you have a teenager of 14 years old and you're letting him browse your mind without checking what he's doing or what he's talking about, there is a problem. Everybody was talking about this TV show on Netflix, teenager, adolescent, I don't know in English the original title. And parents were like, I'm so shocked. I didn't know how kids were like that. Well, where have you been? Because I don't have kids and I knew it was like that. Because when we work in porn, we are seeing how people are behaving online. It's not right. Well, it's kind of like just telling, you know, having your kids be out and about all hours of the night, right? You don't know where they are. You don't know what they're doing. Parents wouldn't do that. Okay. At least responsible parents wouldn't. So I think parental controls are the same thing. Those should be enabled on all devices for anyone who is underage. And if they're not, it's not for us to police them. It's for the parents to police them. That's the same with teachers. We see that parents have, and I'm sorry, I'm not a parent, but it's because that's also why I'm not a parent. Because I know it's a lot of work. And when we see that people don't want to educate or have some, I know it's not pleasant. When my cousins, because I work in porn, people are really comfortable talking about their sexual lives with me. And I'm not comfortable when one of my cousins is coming at 17 years old, asking me all about this sex life. I'm sorry, it's weird. Don't you want to call your mom first? I mean, the great thing about being friends is that. But it's really weird how people expect their kids not to get someone pregnant, but at the same time, they don't want to talk about sex. Well, that's complicated. That's very strange, you know. I don't get it. Yeah. I don't either, but I kind of do because parents these days are very, very irresponsible, and it's not like our parents were. Parents today just, they let the internet be the nanny, and that's really bad. But you know, I know it's easy for us to say that because of several factors, but I understand that when the parents now, when they were kids, it was different because there was an internet episode. The time has changed, and it's hard to get along. I understand my grandparents must have thought back then that I was completely crazy because all the generation thing, every time is the same. It's just that it's weird because if you send your kids to school expecting school to talk about sex, well, that's weird. A completely different person out of your family talking to your kids about sexuality, maybe your parents should talk about it. So it's very strange to expect teachers to raise your kids when the teachers are just people that are there to teach their subject. But it's a big problem. It's just that now the impact on our business, it's just to bother us because it won't fix the problem they're trying to fix, supposedly. And it's just something that we have to adapt to. Kids are way too smart. They can get around it. They know what a VPN is, but much more than adults do. What does good performance on social media look like? What kind of stats should I be aiming for? First, I will set the context for that. When I moved from traditional digital marketing and advertising, then to ad networks, then social media, The thing that was the biggest change for me was to understand the graphs, the stats, because it was scary. It wasn't fun. The first time that I started to analyze the social media metrics and analytics, I was very shocked to see some waves ups and downs. One month, you're getting a lot of likes and impressions, and after it gets a little bit lower or sometimes very low, then it gets back up. So this is something that was stressing me a lot because on an admin server or whatever digital campaign you were running before, you're aiming for a constant growth. You know, you associate that directly with the money. But on social media, it's not exactly a money, a return on investment, only financial. So it's really strange because the stats on social media always look like web and it's actually something good. Of course, we all want these waves to go up, but it's very normal if you have a slowdown because social media reflects society and society is not always connected look i mean it feels like so but it's not the attention the retention and the the consumption is not constant growth that would be awful for for life itself so people have some rest you know when they consume less porn or where they're not when they are not in the mood to engage with your brain sometimes even though they like the the scene or the model that are online and maybe they don't feel like sexual at that moment, which happens sometimes. So there are some slowdowns. And then you have also the life happening, like holidays and stuff, etc. But it's also very healthy to have some waves because the social platforms, they are always looking for robots and fake accounts and everything that is just like, like, like. Because now with AI and stuff, it makes it even easier. So everything that shows that there is a real person behind, it's very healthy because it works also on the platform algorithm, but also on the trust factor. If you see an account that is tweeting, but in a very human way, then you can trust this message much more than if it's just a spam of growth. Then to answer your question a little bit more precisely, so yeah, basically what we are looking at right now is because it has changed, for example, the things that are important, the followers. We've been saying that from the beginning, but now it has changed a little bit, but the idea is still the same. The followers is not a KPI. It's just a metric that we are monitoring and hoping for growth, of course. But it can't be the main criteria, the key performing indication of your campaigns, of your efforts. Because you can buy a lot of fake followers from a country you can't charge. Exactly. That's what I was about to say. Right. But you know, that's the problem with social media, that we are dealing with human emotions from the companies. So that's where it's very twisted, because we're talking about companies, so entities that don't have any emotions, just company rights or structure, business structure. But we are giving emotions to that. And these companies, the owners, they want a lot of followers, because they want to be cool, they want to be light, they want to be worshipped, they are the best, etc., etc. I understand that, but it's not possible. Because if you don't have so many people that are interested in your product, then sometimes we lose track of it. Like 2,000 people, for example, 2,000 followers, that's a lot of people. It's just that sometimes we see an account with so many followers, a million and so on. Okay, but are they all paying? Are they all seeing your message? So the followers is not the most important. To keep it short, I will move to the second point. The second point is the impressions and the engagement are the most important. The clicks are the most important. The traffic you're generating from that and to see if the audience is really engaged with your messages, your voice, your tone, your product and service. Because if you just focus on the likes, again, we can buy fake likes. And if someone likes you, it doesn't mean that this person wants to do business with you or to buy your product. So now we see that this fake followers thing, it also brought a lot of fake clicks, fake likes. And the problem with that is that you can see some accounts with a lot of likes, a lot of followers and don't have any sales or there is no exchange. So that's why it's really complicated because when you ask them for the next production or for the next model feature, would you like someone with dark hair or which features would you like? People don't answer because they don't exist. So the companies spend their time feeding something invisible that is actually not existing and it's just noise. It's not anymore something, a real situation of sales or business. It's just noise and we are viewing all the noise and basing ourselves and our strategy on that so it doesn't make sense, you know. So that's what the strategy is about on social media. The engagement, authenticity, the exchange with your audience, the essence of it. Okay. Talk about shadow banning. That's obviously a problem. The war on porn Twitter account, X account, is shadow banned. It's obviously shadow banned. My other account, you can't even see it. So it's like, I mean, it's crazy. So is there a way to get around shadow banning? So I love that you're using this word, crazy, because it is exactly what it is. Sometimes we say that without measuring the impact of this word. It is completely crazy because we are talking about something that is like Bigfoot or whatever monster. It's really hard to prove because many people will swear that they've seen it or whatever. It is just that we are all aware about shadow banning and what it means or does it exist or not because the company is themselves, the owner of the platform, they don't recognize it. So that's a huge problem because how do you want to deal with something if they don't even acknowledge it, but we know that something is happening, but they don't want to say anything. So then, as you said, it's crazy because what should we do? So the only solution is to follow the rules and hope that the companies won't, you know, out of nowhere decide to shadow ban your account. so before at some point there was some techniques that we were using to reverse the situation but since there is no that's the point we said in there we always run tests uh that's what we do and that's why at the beginning our business was very different from the rest because uh Lauren is very smart person and she's really data driven so we were running tests so at some point we could say okay look if you do this if you stop tweeting and then you retweet again and then you only you remove all the accounts that are linked to yours there were so many things that we were testing and And it seemed to work for maximum six months. And then, of course, the companies have changed all the algorithm, etc. The RISTPs. It's just like Google. It changes on a regular basis. Absolutely. And it's good somehow because they want to improve their platforms. It's just that we need to understand that these platforms are turning us out to clients because it's free, also the time, or premium at least. And their goal, their business, what they invest is for them to make money. So they don't do that just for us to be happy and have somewhere to talk. So to answer your question more clearly about shadow banning, it's like a urban legend. We don't know exactly what it is made of. The only thing we recommend to our clients is to follow the rules and the guidelines, even though we know that it's not going to protect them from all the really vicious attacks from the owners if they disagree with your business or your lifestyle or your opinions. So, yeah, the only thing we can prevent is to follow the rules and try to stick the most to the guy. Well, and what blows me away about X is they're very permissive when it comes to adult, yet they shadow ban. I mean, it boggles the mind. It completely boggles the mind. So, you know, on one hand, yeah, I can go to my feed and I can see porn. But on the other hand, they're shadow banning people. This is exactly what I mean when I say that social media is a reflection of society. It's like, okay, they are judging the sex worker because the person is honestly working. But they won't judge a wife that doesn't like the husband, that is married to a guy just for the money. This is exactly what it is about. It's like, oh, there is sexual activity. We know that. No, we can't show you, but you can see it. Okay, it's really hypocritical. But they're not shadow banning all of them because I'm seeing porn scenes on there. I don't know. I think it's rather hit and miss, to be completely honest with you. But I think if they think it's porn, they're going to probably shadow ban you. And just the war on porn, they shadow ban me. It's like, come on, motherfuckers. They're news articles. Anyway, how safe is it for people in the adult industry to even be on social media? It depends if we're talking about it. I understand that. We're talking about safe for the business, right? So there is nothing bad for a porn company to be on social media. Just because you are selling sex toys or whatever, you can be on social media. If you have something to say and you want to be there, it's safe. Yes, the problem is when we talk about safety, it's about losing your account, which it can happen because it's not your website. You don't own it. You don't own your account. You're just there in a digital population village and you're just sharing it. Absolutely. But it is safe. I would recommend, honestly, the porn industry in general to be on social media and to value their voice. I don't know if it's because maybe you and I, we are communicants. We have our journalism studies and everything. So we have things to say. We like to say. We like to communicate. We like to exchange ideas and stuff. Maybe some people don't. Well, in that case, I don't understand if really they want to be on social media because if they want to use that as a business platform, Maybe they should consider maybe some ad buying, traffic buying and stuff. Otherwise, it's to hire someone to handle their social media for them. Do you have anybody in mind in particular? I've heard about seven of them. Oh, yeah. Yeah, me too. But it's fine. I mean, a lot of people can operate on social media. We'll have our different style. I'm not afraid of other companies or anything. It's all about the way we deal with it. We have our own company culture and style. For us, for example, it's very safe, yes, to be a porn company and to be on social media. It's just that you need to check what you want to talk about. For example, all the productions about, let's take this example. I don't want to lose your time or your attention on that. If we talk about a porn company that is dealing with all the fetish that are not usual, but they are roles. The actors are not actually from the same family. They are not stepmother. They are actors playing a role. I understand that on social media, it makes it really hard. That's why the company, even though they want to sell their products, maybe it can be interesting as a social media writer or a content manager to explain a little bit more about this fantasy and explain that it's a company, a production, just like movie, etc. And that's where your company can really be effective as a brand on social media. Because otherwise, if you just put your production, of course, it's going to be... I still think it's safe, but people are going to find it weird. If you're just promoting some fetishes that are challenging the society because they don't want to talk about it. Right. What tips do you have for people and adults when they post on the different social media channels? It's the same tip that I would have since I started marketing. One of my first classes, it really marked me. It's about identifying the target. And back then, it seemed so obvious to me that I didn't pay much attention to that. And then when I started to work, so after college, I discovered how it's not natural. That's where maybe I fit in this marketing category very easily. But people need to understand and remind themselves because we tend to forget sometimes. But it's all about, do you want to say something or you want to sell something? But who are you talking to? What do you want to do? If you're a restaurant and you know that some people are allergic. So if you just want to sell peanuts and you know that you won't be able to talk to people allergic to peanuts, it's kind of obvious, but sometimes we are so into our business and so about selling that we miss this very important point. So I think that when companies and brands in our industry are on different channels, they need to understand, who am I talking to? As I said at the beginning on TikTok, what is the age of the population? What kind of things they like? Is my product fitting in this space? Is the production, the content production? all social media that I can provide, can I do something? If it's not possible, maybe there is another platform and probably there is another platform where you can talk to the right audience in the proper codification of the message you want to share. So that's definitely what I would recommend. And then the main tip ever is in addition to hire someone that understands what they're doing, it's to be authentic. You know, the main mistake, and it has been like that for 80 years in a row now, There is not one time that I don't spot this. And we talk a lot about that during the conferences. I'm here with you during the podcast in the past. The main mistake is still the same. It's about companies that are just posting their products on a human social platform, social media. And they don't put the human tone in it. They are just talking about them. They are not asking people how they are. They are not saying hello to their audience. They are not taking the time to sell someone that they are gorgeous, etc. They just want to fake it. It's very obnoxious. People don't want to share their tone and their voice, but that's exactly why social media platform exists. Exactly. Is video content overtaking photos, or is there still room for both? That's a great question. That's why I asked it. We really have this question a lot, and it's been forever. At the conferences, they were asking if video is taking over, etc. because you know when you check the layout of the platforms and the app on the phone, they really seem to prioritize the video content. So, for example, Instagram, they like to show you a reel. They will give the priority when it comes to show the impression. Now, the thing is when we think like a robot, especially for social media algorithms, one of the parameters, of course, they don't disclose all the internal recipes, but something really obvious that we've tested. One of the main portion of the algorithm is taking in account the time people are looking at it. I suspect I'm not sure if they can do this if it's possible, but sometimes if it's possible. But I really wonder if they can see when we take a screenshot. I think it's more the time we spend on some content more than the screenshot because that would be really interesting. Like that would stop them, right? Right. But I really think that sometimes the more time we spend watching the time for us to take a screenshot, it counts in the calculation because then they will present me more content from this specific account. Yeah, it's just to explain that even though the algorithm is priorized, it seems that they are priorizing the video content, the audience still crave my best ratings. All of us, our clients, are typically, if we take the three most performing posts per week, in average, it would be probably two pictures and one video. Because this video is dragging the attention, but then the thing is, people are watching, they're using their cell phone and social media while they're doing something else. They used to say that when they're in the train, in the bathroom or whatever. Now I can't even add that sometimes they are using it when they're watching TV, which is kind of crazy. My wife, she's always on Facebook when she's, she's quote unquote, watching TV. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, here in Brazil, people, they don't even turn off the sound. No, she doesn't either. Much to my chagrin when I'm trying to watch the ballgame. Yeah, right? That's lovely. Sometimes you're watching something and you just hear your cousins, your husband, whoever around, they are watching their TikTok, Instagram. So see, people, when they watch a video, if they are not caught in the first second, they will scroll something else, etc. Now on pictures, because they are doing something different, I don't know, their attention is more focused. And sometimes they can give a like easier picture because it's faster to read. It's more impactful somehow. And so the algorithm calculates that there is more interest into that. So the pictures are actually saving the balance. We encourage people to create more and more videos because that's the way to try to get viral if we can still get viral. But the pictures are really getting in the balance and saving the day for real. Interesting. How is AI changing the game? Obviously, it's changing many things. Is it helping with social media? And what's the best way to use AI? So it is helping. It has taught me something this year. I feel that I've learned something from that this year, specific point, because AI is helping. AI is like a faster car, you know, a faster tool. But if you don't know how to drive this car, it's useless. Because we come back to what we were saying a few minutes ago. It's about being authentic. So if you are, I don't understand when people, they create a blog post, for example, just using AI. If you don't know what you want to say, why are you buying some space? I understand you want to sell something sometimes, but if you don't put a bit of yourself, how do you spark creativity or authenticity? Because at the end, we're all going to have, if we create a lot of content based on AI, there is an original idea sometimes that just sparkles everything, but since we are all going to do it, we need to see the real person behind it. Even though computers are doing a great job and everything, they are helping sometimes to save time or to fix some bugs or typos. Typically, the typos is a fight we have at Seven Dells for a long time now. Well, it certainly has worked for Trump. Many people think he does them on purpose. Okay, I will say we do it on purpose. Sometimes we let a typo slip because people understand that it's a real person behind it. And we do that. We started, I think it was five or six years ago, when we were having, just like any other company, some typos. And then we decided to run some tests. It was Lauren and Michael back then. They checked, and it was, I think it was 63% of CTR increase on the accounts. But it makes sense, because now that AI is everywhere, I hate it when I'm on my phone, on whatever platform, trying to get some help with something, and they connect me to AI and say, I want to speak to a real person because sometimes they don't solve my problem. So if I see that there is a typo, I don't know. I tend to think, of course, AI can reproduce fake typos, but I tend to think that there is a real person. Yeah, those chatbots, man. I mean, we've got one on our site now because we're not there 24-7, but they always have these cute little names for their chatbots, and it's just like, oh, God, give me a break. Eventually, you can usually get to a real person sometimes with the big companies, not always. That's exactly what it is. AI is helping. It's a good support, but it's just like a great car that nobody knows how to drive. I mean, it's important to have someone behind. I see, you know, since AI came in so much, so strong, that's funny how I gave much more value to my creativity because before I wasn't, in our team, we only had two strategists. And now we consider, you know, we can have people working on two different tasks so we can have more ideas coming in human ideas i mean because even though you ask for something to chat gpt about find me a strategy you put all the details and then he will give you some clues well that's interesting to see how we have some people that are not creative and they will just apply this strategy and others that will think different out of the box and it's always the idea out of the box or it will be different or more customizable that will get traction, you know, because people will be late. It's just a resource, you know, and it makes a lot of mistakes. Oh, yeah, well, this is another point. But of course, it's still, we're still improving it and everything. And I'm sure at some point, it will make less mistakes. It's just that if people don't know what to, I mean, advertising is really a good example, mainstream or not, you know, about that. If you just put to AI to sell you something, they will. Like if I just now, the idea that I just had, if you ask AI to sell a blue pen to you, they will find you a lot of possibility. But if you use the reference of the world, of the old streets about selling this pen and everything, people can relate, you know. So it's something that is more in the common culture. It's more, it's something that really needs still a human touch to get away to it. But also for adult, anyway, for the old industry, AI is not going to be good enough for now to really substitute everyone. But of course, it can help your teams to get something maybe from a higher quality or some help with some tasks or saving time. But if you don't know how to deal with all the, as we were saying, the shadow banning and everything around the industry, well, there are some things that we can't explain to a robot like a blowjob. This is true. But there are robots that will do that for you now. So that's a beautiful thing. Any advice for someone who's just getting started with social media for their business? An advice? I would be, I don't want to be redundant, but it's, so let's say it in a different form, but it's all about stop and think. What do you want to say? Who are you talking to? And we all have something to say. Our industry is really interesting. So if you're selling sex toys, if you're a webcam platform, there are so many things to say. stop looking uh my advice would be stop looking at what the others are doing because they are doing their own they are developing their tone we are not anymore it's impossible nowadays when people you remember we talked about that you and i when people claim massively every week i have this meeting with people saying i want to build the new only fans okay only fans exist already it's popular already that's pretty funny yes yes there's so many who want to want to be that it's strange It's just like, why do you want to build something that already exists? I don't understand why you want to put your time and money into that. Build something different. They know that OnlyFans makes a lot of money. That's why. Absolutely. That's the motivation. That's exactly that. Oh, they're making money. So I will cut this. I will make money. No, because the money is already there. And it's obvious that people are getting blinded by it. Because we all want more money. I would love more money. But at some point, you need to understand, okay, what do I have to offer? What can I do? Because if something has been done already, if you really think that you can do better, that's great because sometimes it works but 99% of the time what i've seen was arrogant ideas we all have audience idea not saying that i'm better but it's like okay if it exists you really need to understand that you're going to to face a huge competition so my advice would be really to think to stop and to think okay how am i different is it going to work if it's going to fit and that's why marketing is so wonderful for that to study the market and to get some feedback so you can see a little bit before getting in such a project. And then to start testing yourself, the social media platforms, to start posting a little bit, take the time to understand what's going on, the dynamic between the users, what are they saying, if they are clicking or not, and then to keep to be really authentic. I was waiting for that, Alex, because that's definitely your mantra. It's funny, right? Because I think it has changed over the time. I don't remember. I was thinking recently, two days ago, I was thinking if I used to use that word that much authenticity at the conferences, I think I was using it a bit, but not that much, because I remember at some point I was telling the models to put some filters, you know, faking when they wake up, etc. Especially when I was still in the public relations area, I was all about faking the lifestyle, etc. to fit in, especially when Instagram started to get more popular. And now I think I've changed a little bit. But it's because, again, it has changed. You see that apart from the cardations, I don't know much about them, but people are not posting anymore that many pictures that are filtered and everything. And this generation now, they really value the real contact, the real thing. So, yeah, it was predictable because we've just saturated the market with all the filters and everything. And now people want to get back to something more real, more human. Sure. I get it. Well, Alex, I'd like to thank you for being back with us on Adult Site Broker Talk, and I hope we'll get a chance to do this again soon. Well, I'm the one thanking you for this opportunity. Thank you so much. No, thank you. It was such a pleasure to talk about that a little bit more. Thank you very much. Thank you. My broker tip today is part two of how to buy a site. Last week, we discussed first deciding the type of site you want to buy and then establishing what your budget is. Next, it's time to look for your new website. So where do you look? Well, Adult Site Broker is a great place to start. We always have a nice variety of website and non-website properties for sale, but if there's a particular type of site you want, we can also act as your buyer's broker to help you find just the right site. Other places to look are boards like xbiz.net and gfy.com, but to be completely honest, Unless what you're looking for is a really low-end property, you're probably not going to find what you're looking for there. Of course, you could contact site owners yourself, but take it from someone who does it for a living. It's a major hassle, and it can be really hard to even find out who owns a site. Almost all adult sites use Whois privacy from their domain registrar, so when you send them an email, it will be an anonymous address, and in most cases, the emails aren't returned. We have a huge database of sellers and generally know who owns what. And if it's a website of note, if we don't know who owns it, we can usually find out. We'll talk about this subject more next week. And next week we'll be speaking with Phoenix Calida of SWOP USA. And that's it for this week's Adult Site Broker Talk. I'd once again like to thank my guest, Alex LeComte of 7Veils Social Media. Talk to you again next week on Adult Site Broker Talk. I'm Bruce Friedman.
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