As an industry veteran and founder of NMG Management, Megan Stokes is no stranger to fast-tracking monetization for brands and creators of all kinds, whether they are big studios or independent talent looking for time-saving strategies and business development insights.
Now, with Fanwire, she has created a service that specifically addresses the ever-changing needs of creators on their premium social media sites, especially once scalability becomes a chief concern.
Our main goal is to support creators, agencies and assistants with the automation of fan monetization.
From leveraging automation technology that can send messages in accordance with pre-selected keywords and parameters, to employing AI to identify actionable analytics and make decisions that optimize subscriber retention and deliver content on demand, Fanwire aims to be a one-stop shop for scaling up to newfound heights. The service also strives to tap into the power of community trust and engagement, while keeping an ear to the ground for feedback on new features.
XBIZ sat down with Stokes to discuss Fanwire, its milestones and its behind-the-scenes processes, in this company profile.
XBIZ: What was the inspiration behind Fanwire?
STOKES: Anyone who has ever run a fan site account knows just how much work and time go into it. Fanwire was made to help creators not only get back time, but increase their passive income. Our team has been in the industry for years and we wanted to ease some of the burnout and guesswork necessary to have successful fan pages.
Our main goal is to support creators, agencies and assistants with the automation of fan monetization. Our system automates many of the redundant tasks, helps creators stay organized and taps into additional gains and necessary data points they could be missing; we also offer in-depth statistics on tracking links to improve future decision-making.
With Fanwire, creators have a newfound ability to offer content on demand, allowing them to make passive income, re-engage with expired fans and consistently send pay-per-videos (PPVs) without missing a beat.
XBIZ: How does Fanwire distinguish itself from other creator solutions?
STOKES: With a desire to benefit everyone, and a deep investment in prioritizing mental and emotional health, we have listened to what the industry needs, and now we offer our tracking feature. This has been the biggest black box of media buying for both agencies and creators. Discovering this niche and offering in-depth stats for free trials and tracking links, helping creators to track the success and ROI of their work, we truly have something to distinguish us in the industry.
XBIZ: Talk about the tech behind your automation and your approach to continually improving it.
STOKES: We have a bunch of automation features. The most valuable for top creators is the content-on-demand feature. Here’s how it works: you get to set up a list of keywords, content and pricing. From there, you can promote teasers on either your feed, in a welcome message or on other social media accounts with a call to action to activate the keyword. Every time a fan sends a keyword and requests a specific PPV, we deliver it in under 10 minutes.
We also have “smart PPVs,” where creators can set up a chain of priced DMs to go out to both existing and all future fans. We call them smart because when you opt in, our AI analyzes the best time, and even the best pricing, for each fan. No need to figure out which time zone the fan is in, which times work and what's the spending pattern, as we analyze this and have our creators covered.
XBIZ: Tell us about how you collect feedback from creators and incorporate their needs into updates.
STOKES: Every day, we are in contact with creators, and are always excited to get feedback or suggestions for improvements. We truly listen. Our customer support team is always happy to help. We schedule demo calls and help creators set up their Fanwire accounts tailored to their specific needs.
We usually ask, “If you had a magic wand, what is the No. 1 thing you would like to stop doing on your pages so you have more time to do the tasks you love or to actually get the time to take a nap?” We take all the feedback and actually base our development goals on what items will give the creators the most time back and increase their earnings.
XBIZ: Discuss your marketing strategy for getting the word out about Fanwire.
STOKES: Community is our biggest strategy, so we go to conventions and reach out to agencies and individual creators, while also becoming more involved in social media. It’s been a lot of word of mouth but luckily we have an amazing product and great customers. We also do a referral program to help creators get additional free months and get new models using our product.
XBIZ: What milestones have you recently hit for Fanwire?
STOKES: As I mentioned, we just added a feature that can track your traffic and we are very excited about this. We’ve also added a “content on demand” feature so if you’re asleep, your fans can still get the content they want, which creates passive income. The future is looking very bright and we’re excited. Fanwire can even tell when a fan logs on and send a preselected message within 10 minutes.
XBIZ: Talk about your efforts to provide business education and help to creators, such as through your blog.
STOKES: Our biggest thing is the community; we want everyone to succeed and our industry to thrive. We’ve found that adding these blogs helps creators interact and have additional ideas, plus support for what's working and not working on models’ accounts.
Fanwire speaks at conventions to inform creators of the best way to utilize our features, along with demo calls to set up their accounts. When you use our product, we have a dashboard feature that lets creators know their most profitable times to post.
We also really love Pineapple Support, which helps creators find support and professional therapy. Mental health is No. 1 to be successful in your business.
XBIZ: Share a few real-life success stories from creators who have used Fanwire.
STOKES: One of our models only used our pre-expired and expired feature and went up 300-plus fans in the first month. Of course, this helps their income, because it increases subscription revenue, which is a bigger payout at the end of the month. Even now, they’re able to continue sending PPVs to those expired fans and get an extra layer of monetization. This gives models their personal time back without worrying about losing revenue.
XBIZ: What's next for the brand and technology in 2023 and beyond?
STOKES: Right now, our traffic-tracking feature is launched and ready to use! We are discussing lots of ideas but still finalizing things. In 2023 and beyond we plan to expand more and get even more involved in the community, more conventions, group demo calls with models and more informative videos on social media.
