For over two decades, Elli Rudolph has been as plugged into the online adult industry as FriendFinder Networks (FFN) itself, for whom she is a travel and event manager.
From producing her own content in those earliest of years, to coordinating professional affiliate gatherings and organizing FFN’s booth at the Consumer Electronics Show, Rudolph has proven a versatile player.
Cams.com is evolving and growing all the time, and I consistently hear from models that it is their favorite. They love our personal touch and the features our platform offers.
Now, she has added social media management as yet another vibrant feather to her cap, helping to run Twitter for Cams.com — the live cam site that FFN merged with back in 2005. With her positive attitude, ambitious recruitment efforts and shrewd event planning, Rudolph has kept FFN and Cams.com humming along onwards and upwards.
To learn about her strategies for befriending so many stellar individuals, XBIZ sat down with Rudolph for this interview.
XBIZ: What led you to become part of the adult biz and how has your role at FriendFinder Networks evolved over the years?
Rudolph: I started in the online adult industry in 1998 with the launch of my own amateur website. In a strange twist of fate, I met Sean Christian and Lars Mapstead at a convention in Vegas when they first acquired Streamray. I attended a lot of the "adult web" conventions to promote my own site and to shoot content, so I grew to know many of the people and worked with a lot of them.
In 2005, Sean hired me as a representative to attend shows for Streamray and to help with affiliate and model support and recruitment. In 2010, I helped with running our Affiliate Gathering, and in 2011 I headed the team organizing our booth at CES in Las Vegas. That was quite a trial by fire! Since then, I have been FFN's travel and event manager.
Then, in May of 2018 I began to manage our official Twitter account, @camsdotcom, and to provide model support. Also, I work with Jackie B on planning and running the model contests, which is always fun! It's important to me to always keep building my skills and challenging myself, so this suits me well.
XBIZ: What's a typical day like for you at work?
Rudolph: Days are never typical at FFN! My mornings start with Twitter work, so I catch up on the overnight tweets and "retweet" items that our models have posted and tagged us on. I also read through our private model groups, responding to questions and updating them with any new info that the day has brought.
Once that is done, I catch up on my emails and talk with the tech team about their ongoing work to improve the Cams.com platform. The afternoons are devoted to working on my Twitter schedule and organizing future travel events. Oh, and building quarterly travel budget forecasts. And, and, and. There's always something to keep me busy!
XBIZ: As the event manager for FFN, describe the most rewarding elements of your job. How about the trickiest challenges?
Rudolph: I love contract negotiation. Putting together the best project for our needs at the best price possible is a fun challenge. I also love the first day of an event, because all the balls are in motion and mostly out of my hands. I get to see how everything comes together!
The trickiest parts are when plans change unexpectedly, like last-minute flight delays or items held up in shipping. One trip, we bought fidget spinners as swag, not realizing they were banned in our destination country. They were stuck in customs and we were left fidgeting. Whoops!
XBIZ: Talk about your approach to interfacing with coworkers and pursuing success via collaboration.
Rudolph: The people I talk with regularly really make this job enjoyable. Since I work out of my home, I miss a lot of the daily office activities, though I chat on Skype with my co-workers maybe a bit too often. We have group meetings via video conference call whenever the team needs to get together and working closely together is extremely important to project success, I've found!
XBIZ: What distinguishes FFN, and Cams.com especially, in this competitive marketplace?
Rudolph: Since I have been with the company in various capacities so long, I feel I have a rather unique perspective. FFN has a long history and maintains a massive network of products. But even with the growth we're experiencing, it's a closeknit group of people working together on constantly improving.
Cams.com is evolving and growing all the time, and I consistently hear from models that it is their favorite. They love our personal touch and the features our platform offers. They also say we have the most polite customers!
This year we have focused hard on getting our models to broadcast in beautiful 1080p, while also adding new games that help them make more money in "free" chat. We have much more coming in 2019, but I'm not allowed to tell you details quite yet.
XBIZ: Tell us about a few professional milestones you've achieved this year.
Rudolph: I added "social media management" to my skill set in 2018! I've run my own Twitter and multiple other social media accounts to promote my own website, but this was my first experience with running a company "brand" account. It's really enjoyable and quite challenging!
XBIZ: What's on the horizon for you, as we head into 2019?
Rudolph: It looks like Cams.com is hitting the ground running for 2019, so I already have several events and travel projects on my plate for the first quarter. We have also increased our contest frequency for our models because everyone loves them so much.
Personally, I plan to take my two-year-old rat terrier to advanced training classes because he's super smart and needs a bit more stimulation in his life. Thank you so much for your interest and for making me feel special!
