We are currently in an absolute frenzy of porn hatred, intense porn compliance legislation, and Republican power-hold over the Senate, House, and Presidential seat. The effects are easy to see; states have been passing insane laws to over-complicate the paperwork process for porn production rendering it nearly impossible to keep up with, age verification laws passing in over 20 U.S. States and over 11 countries with age verification requirements, and increased censorship of sex workers and adult content producers across almost all social media platforms. The increased efforts to kill the porn industry with excessive compliance, suggestions for increased taxation, and limiting of the reach of our content can lead to frustrating results especially in the marketing department. If a sex worker posts a photo on social media but nobody sees it, does the post make an impact? No, it doesn’t. That’s why the move to paywalling all adult content while utilizing SFW media posts to drive your audience to your adult links is one of the best marketing methods currently.
What are the benefits of exclusively doing SFW marketing?
There are quite a few benefits to SFW marketing and although it can be frustrating to adjust your content strategy to include creating SFW previews, taking SFW photos, and in general having to not do porn when that’s kind of the whole schtick – it can be insanely beneficial to you in the long term.
- Tighten the porn creator communities defense against critics: If more creators start entirely paywalling their adult content behind websites that make customers complete age verification then there will be less accusations of pornstars exposing minors to pornography. Obviously, the chokehold this argument has over some people will never truly go away, but doing our part in contributing to de-bunking the myth that we’re cretins polluting the minds of the youth can be a beneficial argument towards why porn isn’t bad.
- Reduce the accuracy of AI generated content created without your consent: Artificial intelligence image generation software increases it’s accuracy by being fed your photos. The less it knows, the better. If someone generates nude photos of you to post, whether it’s to make a profit themselves or simply for the “fun of it” (yuck) then it will be less accurate if it has less content to work with. This will also increase the value of your actual adult content because it can not be replicated by a computer program which makes it more “exclusive.”
- Increase your potential audience on social media: Plenty of social media platforms that are “adult friendly” actually shadowban people who post adult content to their profiles to maintain the safety of users that don’t want to see adult content (even though it’s already automatically censored on most platforms, but we don’t have to get into that one.) If you stop posting NSFW content entirely, often times the secret suppression that was placed on your account will drop off and you’ll actually reach more potential fans with your posts because the algorithm will stop punishing you for being a pornstar.
- Increase the value of your nudity: If someone can simply open your X account and see your nipples, will they still tip on a cam site to see your nipples? If they can watch a 20 second preview on a loop watching you get (respectfully) plowed, would they pay for the whole video? We’ve entered the “short form content” era of social media and unfortunately people will just blow a load to your 20 second preview instead of spending money for the full video. There are still supporters that will grab the whole thing and people who want more than the 20 seconds but if you don’t give them that 20 seconds in the first place then they’ll have to pay if they want ANY seconds. Kind of makes sense, right?
- Encourage more fans to become comfortable with the idea of age verifying: We are never going to escape the age verification laws now that they’ve arrived and a large amount of fans have fallen off from being paying customers to simply being social media lurkers because they don’t want to age verify. The more performers paywall content, the more likely customers will be to eventually give in to the age verification to access that content.
- Generate more personality based connections that will increase spending habits in the future: Customers tend to spend more money on models who have a personality they genuinely enjoy and when you’re making SFW content you’ll want to incorporate some of your interests to make the posts more likely to result in engagement which will lead to you finding fans that enjoy the same things that you do! It will generally make communication more intimate, interesting, and keep the conversation flowing. Fans will remember you as “the hot pornstar who likes the same thing I like!” and the next time they’re looking for a sexual release, they’ll probably come to you first.
What are the best options for moving to SFW marketing?
Typically you’ll want to announce to your fan base that you’ll be paywalling all of your explicit content and explain your reasoning for doing so. This is a great idea because it may actually encourage your followers to reach out to their local lawmakers when their free porn gets taken away. Depending on which website you’re planning to wipe your content on, there are many online platforms available for completely wiping an account, or if you don’t post frequently you can go through and manually remove the posts that contain NSFW content.
You’ll want to ensure you turn off auto-tweets from websites that will post nude previews or use hashtags associated with pornography because even if you transition to entirely SFW content, tags that are associated with porn can still trigger shadowbans on your accounts.
Gathering all of your adult links into your own personal website or link hub is a very efficient way to funnel your traffic from SFW marketing. Clearly labeling the websites with what is offered there will help fans to find exactly what they are looking for. You can also mix in some SFW ventures on your website or link hub to help diversify your income and help prevent your website from being labeled as an adult website. Your website or link hub shouldn’t include any NSFW content either unless you’re age verifying users that access it.
What if I don’t want to only post SFW marketing content?
Not transitioning to SFW content marketing will leave you susceptible to account closures, shadowbans, and other unfavorable events but I understand the desire to retain your ability to post your content freely to show your fans what they’ll be getting. If you’re not willing to transition your main social media accounts to safe-for-work media then it may be worthwhile to create back up accounts that you advertise now with your NSFW account just in case something does happen to your account. Terms of service updates are constantly tightening and restricting the ability for porn creators to advertise their porn openly, so if you don’t want to adapt to the change by changing your marketing plan you should definitely prepare fallbacks for the worst case scenario. You never want to be caught with your pants down, especially on a website that suddenly bans people with their pants down.
How do I market porn using SFW content?
Marketing pornographic content in a SFW medium can be hard at first, especially for longterm adult creators that are so used to baring it all, because that’s what we’ve been doing for years. A big way to ensure you’re sending the right message while also not getting shadowbanned is to be subtle with the messages in your marketing. “Blue and white site” is a common reference term for OnlyFans so you can talk about the platform without really talking about the platform. Same with “black and orange” for Pornhub. “Yes I have one” is a commonly acknowledged statement for “yes I do porn.” Watching some adult content creators that utilize a SFW marketing strategy can help to give you a better idea of how to accomplish it successfully. Remember to take inspiration but don’t do exact duplication when you’re trying various methods in your marketing plan that you’ve used inspiration from other creators for. For a very long time, I referred to myself as a “corn farmer” and when I filmed new content I’d say there was a “plentiful harvest.” If you are consistent enough in your terminology or use physical cues/props to indicate what you’re saying, people will understand.