Each month, industry news media organization XBIZ spotlights the career accomplishments and outstanding contributions of Women in Adult. WIA profiles offer an intimate look at the professional lives of the industry's most influential female executives.
Liz Rekevics’ marketing machinery floods Streamate with a roaring river of quality traffic, stellar recruits and happy cam models.
We have an amazing team across all departments working to always improve the platform, responding to changes in both technical and industry requirements quickly and continuously watching trends, referencing data and testing everything until we are certain every change will benefit as many as possible.
After all, in her nearly 20 years with the company, the director of marketing has proven very capable of leveraging wisdom and experience with cutting-edge sophistication, spinning pure magic.
And few hats look out of place on Rekevics, because she has worn a great many in her time at Streamate, ranging from hustling as an affiliate rep to creating a marketing department from scratch.
Offering prospective cam models the guarantee of success, safety and support, she believes that an easy-to-use platform and the right tools can empower them most exquisitely.
Ever searching the horizon for new opportunities, Rekevics is proud of Streamate’s recent video sales system, encouraging cam models to take advantage of the increasingly popular feature.
To follow these currents swirling through Streamate, XBIZ hopped aboard the Rekevics battleship for an exclusive look at what’s on the radar.
XBIZ: What led you to join Streamate back in 1999?
Rekevics: Wow, long story, but in a nutshell, I had recently finished grad school and was running a marketing team in the architecture world. I had reached a point where I needed a change and began looking for local tech companies where I might find a new home. Ironically, my new home with Streamate was only across the street. So what led me there was literally a crosswalk and desire to try something new and be a part of something influential and significant. I chose wisely.
XBIZ: How have your professional duties evolved since those early days, to your current role as director of marketing for Streamate?
Rekevics: In the beginning, everyone in our office wore lots of hats — there weren’t enough of us to be segmented. We all did what we had to do, no questions asked and we did it as a team. As we’ve grown, we have been fortunate to focus our skill sets in the right places and have expanded our teams and departments to build a larger family, which still supports one another.
I joined the company before Streamate existed, back when the industry was built on member sites, TGPs, affiliate programs, hosting and statistical counters. I spent much of my time learning and eventually became the affiliate rep and migrated into marketing, creating a marketing department in the early 2000s when we started Streamate.com.
On a personal level, my responsibilities have included PR, affiliate management, marketing campaigns, building out the model system for Streamate, recruiting, account management and now the director of marketing for Streamate/Streamate Models.
XBIZ: Considering the importance of self-branding and social media, how do you partner with cam models to elevate their marketing?
Rekevics: I’ve been really pleased with our efforts to work with models through social media to help promote them and create a supportive and profitable environment for them at Streamate. While we don’t really integrate social media into our platform, we do know it’s important to models. Our social media team works closely with models to help them grow their traffic and encourages the promotion of themselves and their shows on our platform.
Coupled with a great model and user experience on Streamate, social media is a very powerful tool. We’ve introduced interviews, takeovers and engage in regularly supporting any model’s social media efforts in relation to our system. The industry has shifted in a great way — models are focusing on their identities, building brand awareness around their personas and their shows. We definitely want to encourage models’ individual growth and popularity through self-branding and social media.
XBIZ: Describe your strategy for attracting new users and cam models to the Streamate platform.
Rekevics: Our strategy for models has always been – offer the best platform, highest performing traffic and the most safe and supportive environment, and they will come! We definitely spend a lot of time and energy doing just that.
We have an amazing team across all departments working to always improve the platform, responding to changes in both technical and industry requirements quickly and continuously watching trends, referencing data and testing everything until we are certain every change will benefit as many as possible.
From the user end, we focus on the right traffic sources and offer one of the top affiliate platforms out there, Cambuilder. With Cambuilder, anyone can create their own white label on their own domain, turning their traffic into revenue.
XBIZ: How does Streamate optimize the user experience across various devices?
Rekevics: Testing, testing and more testing. We are seeing definite growth in devices other than desktops. Users definitely want their cams on the go or just wherever they are! We are constantly testing and optimizing to stay ahead of the curve.
It’s no secret that all devices have ultimately become “mobile,” so optimizing that experience for users is crucial. We’ve made efforts such as partnering with programs like Binge On, which allows Streamate customers on qualifying plans to have unlimited use of Streamate’s free live services without impacting their data.
XBIZ: Tell us about Streamate’s partnerships with other major players in the biz, like streaming Cherry Pimps’ WildOnCam shows?
Rekevics: We gladly partner with true players in the biz. We are excited to work with those eager to succeed and want to offer users (ours and theirs) a great experience. We do stream shows with some of the major stars in the industry, not only to bring users a great show, but also to support their efforts.
Our system is equipped to offer member shows to any model, and we continue to optimize new ways that allow stars to broadcast to a wider audience. Additionally, we use Cambuilder as a tool to integrate with many of the largest industry partners on a customizable level.
XBIZ: How often do you seek out porn stars, like Natasha Nice, to join the Streamate platform?
Rekevics: Interesting question, I’d say we seek them out as often as possible, but in many cases they’ve sought us out based on others’ success. I believe our platform gives porn stars as well as amateurs numerous options to succeed. One thing most adult stars want is the ability to offer member shows to their fans, for which we have a great system in place. We give stars visibility in the cam world, while catering to their fans and a potentially new audience entirely.
XBIZ: If any cam models are looking for a new home, why should they join Streamate?
Rekevics: I’m proud to say that the top three reasons to join Streamate are success, safety and support. In that order, in fact. We’ve really put a lot of effort into building and improving a platform that a model with the right components is set up for success from the get-go. Additionally, we offer every model a way to control their own destiny and privacy. With tools like geo restrictions, blocking and banning abusive users, models have complete control over their experiences. With all of this, we create a supportive environment and strive to support our model in any way possible. We encourage all models to be supportive of each other and where they work.
We have increased our model communications, inviting models to help us test new features, offer feedback and we listen. Sure, there are rules and we enforce them, but anyone who wants to be encouraged for growth and build on a great opportunity in a supportive environment, we welcome you!
XBIZ: What new features has Streamate recently introduced and what’s on the horizon?
Rekevics: We’ve recently introduced a new video sales system — allowing models to upload and sell videos for a 50 percent cut on any sale. We also give models a great way to “give videos” to users in their chats. We noticed models love to use their content to encourage members to come back, so it makes sense for us to build a system allowing them to do this. What’s on the horizon? Plenty of great things, but you’ll just have to wait and see. And I look forward to what lies ahead!
