If you are a webcam model who thinks sitting in a studio room while waiting for a platform to bring traffic to your shows is the best way to go ... think again! These days models are advocating for themselves and using massive social media campaigns to establish their own personal brand with potential customers.
How do you get started with that kind of work and which platforms are the most likely to earn you significant revenue? Listen to people who have been building an audience for years and learn what works best for turning your personality into a very successful social-media-marketing tool.
Camming is a very competitive market. Many of the cam platforms have auto tweets built into their system to tweet out when a model goes online. -Lauren MacEwen, 7 Veils Social Media
“Camming is a very competitive market. Many of the cam platforms have auto tweets built into their system to tweet out when a model goes online,” social media strategist Lauren MacEwen, CEO of 7Veils Social Media, told XBIZ.
“To separate yourself from the crowd of generic tweets you need to personalize your message and really capitalize on the hashtags that make you unique. Whether you are kinky, BBW, foot fetish, MILF or whatever else — make sure to use the hashtags that identify you as such. This will help your target audience find you easier. Additionally if you post about your show before you go online, you can help get more people to your show by alerting them in advance.
“You can build anticipation, by putting out teaser tweets with pics, and generally get your audience excited for your upcoming event. Essentially, you need to do more than the basic auto tweet if you want real results.”
Some software systems like Webstream are entirely removing the need for a webcam platform for models that are capable of building their own traffic.
“Anyone can now be a professional webcam model without going through a directory,” Ben Clark, principle of Webtream.co.uk, told XBIZ. “It’s all about marketing yourself and thanks to Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites it’s become increasingly easier to get your name out there to thousands of potential clients.
“Use social media to engage followers. Upload images of yourself and invite your followers into your world. Share intimate feelings, share your daily activities and lead your clients to your website in order to offer a webcam show.”
Mark R., the CTO of Vuier.com, agreed.
“Social media is huge for cam models, performers, etc.,” he said. “This is how models are ‘humanized’ and how they can gain incredible exposure via engagement. Another reason Vuier is easily embedded into Twitter, links can be put on Instagram, and so forth.”
In fact, new technologies like Vuier, Periscope, Meerkat and others are intended to bring your cam show to social media so you don’t need to work as hard bringing people from social media to your cam shows.
Even among the largest cam platforms, where models have the benefit of built-in traffic sources, the benefits of social media creating a focused stream of new customers on a per model basis is obvious.
“Social networking has become a huge way that models are building their brand and persona as well as adding upsells,” Jamie Rodriguez of Flirt4Free.com told XBIZ. “Social has become the place where models continually are promoting themselves and strengthening relationships.
“These new channels have also given models a ton more visibility into what models across all networks are doing to gain users and it is often where you can go to see what’s trending in each community.”
At the end of the day, it is crucial for performers to understand they are business owners selling their own individual brand and “just as business owners use social media to leverage their brand, a strong social media presence is so important if you want to be successful in the webcam arena,” according to leading cam site designer and former cam girl Sarah of ZuzanaDesigns.com.
“When webcam sites first surfaced, you were at the mercy of whatever traffic came through the webcam site you worked for and the affiliate traffic that pushed them,” she told XBIZ. “Today, you have access to such a broader scope of potential customers. If you aren’t using social media to promote yourself, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to increase your fan base and subsequently, your paycheck. If you need help, hire someone. It’s an investment that will pay off substantially if you put in the effort on camera once your audience arrives.”
Even when more generic traffic is flooding your live shows on freemium networks, going more granular is essential to the overall success of any cam performer.
Shirley Lara, COO of Chaturbate, raised the idea that “developing your own fan base from social media creates more targeted interest and a higher chance of the audience purchasing tokens and tipping the broadcaster. In addition they’re great tools to retain an existing fan base.”
“Websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat are all free and it gives fans the ability to see more into a broadcasters personal life beyond sex, like, what you had for dinner, your pets, or a typical night out,” she told XBIZ. “With Chaturbate each broadcaster is also an affiliate and in their admin there’s a tab labeled ‘Share and Earn’ with links to their chat room embedded with their affiliate ID.
“Broadcasters use these links on social media to announce when they’re coming online and if any users sign up the broadcaster gets credit for the new registration/ sales.”
Much like any other entrepreneur in any other business, cam performers ought to embrace all of the tools available to them.
“Webcamming is another tool in the branding toolbox for models,” Nancy Roberts, vice president of marketing for FriendFinder Networks Inc., told XBIZ. “Social media and the sense of ‘knowing’ your favorite model will continue to drive your webcamming business trajectory upward.
“Models who are used to traditional print/photography will be using webcamming to help them build a stronger brand name for themselves but social media will also help their fans have a stronger relationship with them. Models can stay close to their fans through twitter and Instagram while promoting his/herself to bring the audience to their camming show.”
Due to the two-way nature of social media, having a strong presence means building the kind of push-pull engagement that goes both ways.
The best social media strategies are the ones that can lure potential clients to your webcam shows while simultaneously luring the audience from your webcam shows to other offers in your sales funnel.
When you build brand loyalty, and you are the brand, the limitations on your global success fade away and all that is left is you, your audience and the online relationships that feed your mutual satisfaction.
