Know your competition, they say. Team up with your "competitors," I add. But why did I wrap the word in quotes? Well, because as adult performers, we can prosper greatly by partnering with others to promote our brands to mutual advantage, whether through content trades or marketing efforts.
Even within the scope of studio shoots, which can be competitive when it comes to casting, your brand is unique due to your one-of-a-kind persona and personality.
Precisely because all content creators are unique and different from one another, leveraging those differences through an alliance will create value for both parties.
So ultimately, you are mainly competing with yourself. As a content creator, this is especially true, since you don't need a third party to produce your content.
That puts you in the privileged position of not only seeing others as colleagues instead of competitors, but as potential sources of extra revenue streams.
IF THEY GROW, YOU WILL GROW WITH THEM
Since fans often spend their money on a variety of stars, if you suggest specific colleagues who may appeal to them, this can cause a feedback loop that drives everyone’s profits up.
Just make sure you know and understand your audience; if you promote the wrong creator to the wrong fan, the latter will perceive it as spam, and nobody will benefit. But if you do it right, your fan will admire you even more, your new ally will acquire a prospect and you will benefit from reciprocation at some point.
Looking at this in reverse, you better be prepared to set a good example. If somebody shared their fan base with you, make sure you return the favor. Take the time also to contact and thank them, as this will allow you to strengthen the relationship and possibly even discuss a common strategy for growing each other’s business.
ESTABLISHING A FREE SHOUTOUT FOR SHOUTOUT DYNAMIC
Follow your heart, not your ambition. Personally, I like to establish a relationship with my favorite creators, not necessarily with the most successful ones. The reason is that if you have a natural affinity for specific creators, there is a good possibility their fans and yours are interchangeable and a better chance that they will reciprocate. That's often how relationships develop in real life, after all: we become friends with the friends of our friends. Supporting like-minded creators is the best way to passively monetize the part of your fans’ budget that they spend elsewhere, and it may even spawn other alliances.
YOU CAN ALSO PAY FOR OTHER STARS’ TRAFFIC
Regularly reinvesting a small part of your earnings into promotion is a must if you want to grow your business. In fact, if you’re looking for a quick promotion boost, consider buying access to other creators' fan bases. Hit them up via DM or seek out an online service that may offer influencer advertising. Even better, sell your own traffic to other stars if you’ve got solid engagement and they’re shopping for a boost.
Just make sure that most of your fans will find your client's content and attitude worth their time and money; otherwise, you will look like a cynical spammer to them, you will progressively lose some of them and your clients may end up feeling like they wasted their money. Be fair and don't jump the gun until you are reasonably sure that you can deliver results.
All in all, while a free collaboration may be more desirable, a paid one is still a legit opportunity to monetize your fans and promote your brand. Such a feature is being implemented, in fact, on the platform I work with.
To conclude, show love to your fellow content creators, be it on social networks or content and cam platforms; follow, praise, keep a channel of communication open and share your fan base with them. Precisely because all content creators are unique and different from one another, leveraging those differences through an alliance will create value for both parties.
Sabrina Deep is brand manager and ambassador for Blisss.Company. She can be followed @SabrinaDeep on Twitter and contacted by email at Sabrina@Blisss.Company.
