It’s no exaggeration to say social media changed our everyday lives.
Can you imagine a world without Facebook? Twitter? Instagram? Simpler times, for sure.
This ultra-connected space we know today is an incredible window to the world. One that unfortunately pried open our privacy rights, but that’s for another day.
Instead of whining about social media encroaching upon our lifestyle, we’re going to harness its lightning and use it to jump-start our affiliate marketing campaigns.
Let’s take the wheel and hit the road!
What camgirls can teach us about social media and adult affiliation
With the advent of popular social networks, we’re witnessing nothing short of a revolution in how online adult marketing is managed.
What was once known as an industry dominated by men and their big studios has now been freed of this business model. Well, for the most part.
In other words, models have more power over their own destinies than ever before. Which means they successfully removed the middleman and get more money in their pockets.
So, what’s their secret?
They build huge followings on major social media channels, including but not limited to Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter.
But wait, don’t these channels have strict terms of service (TOS) against adult content?
Most of them do, but like the saying goes, “Adult, Uh, Finds a Way.”
Twitter for instance allows for adult content as long as it gets marked as “sensitive media.” This allows cam models and porn stars to create popular profiles where they drum up their next performances with links and appropriate hashtags.
Snapchat on the other end will ban you for promoting sexual content. Models get around this restriction by creating what are known as “private snaps.” There are even websites dedicated to selling access to these naughty accounts if you search enough.
Instagram kinda works the same way, where raunchy hashtags can lead you to adult content in seconds — despite having a Community Guidelines policy that barrs nudity in the very first few sentences.
Users can find porn surprisingly fast, which has led to criticism.
In simple terms, camgirls use loopholes in guidelines from major social media platforms or merely create new accounts to get around bans. And it works, because access to such accounts net a premium online, especially if the models are active.
What a social media account takeover is and how to do it
As the name implies, a takeover is when you take control of a popular social media account in order to boost exposure for your brand.
It’s one of the most common tactics used in influencer marketing. For a limited time, you get to use an account with thousands of followers, create interesting content and — hopefully — draw in some conversions.
For an advertiser or affiliate like you, it’s a great opportunity to increase engagement and drive traffic to your offers.
In most cases, account owners are the ones who will be on the lookout for potential takeovers. This is because they have a great understanding of their audience; they don’t want to bet all their chips on a horse they don’t know or trust.
Of course, you can still request a takeover. However, be sure to follow these quick tips so you don't scare away potential partners that may be on the fence when it comes to deciding whether you're worth it - or simply not worth the risk.
- Know what the followers care about
- Offer something valuable
- Create an experience rather than a sales pitch
- Don’t be greedy: account takeovers are not free, so expect to spend some cash
What if I’m the host?
Congratulations are in order if you’ve managed to build your own social media following.
A takeover might not sound like something you’d want to try, but there are many benefits you shouldn’t overlook:
- Increased recognition through cross promotion
- Reinvigorated content strategy with a fresh perspective
- Avoids the problem of ad blockers
- Trackable metrics: followers, likes, comments, clicks and hashtag use
And a few pointers to keep in mind:
- Carefully choose who you’re partnering with: you want the perfect match.
- Set permissions on the safe side. For instance, Facebook lets you assign roles such as Admin, Editor, Moderator, etc. This is also useful to manually approve content before it’s shared… just in case!
- Lay out clear expectations - what kind of content can they post? What's permissible? This will help you avoid any nasty surprises.
About shoutouts
A shoutout is another popular way to give more exposure to your offers.
You can define them as follows: when someone on social media mentions you or your brand, they’re basically using a virtual loudspeaker to get people to notice — and follow — you. That’s a shoutout.
Here’s a modus operandi you can use as an adult affiliate on Instagram:
- Create an Instagram account with a fresh email
- Search for the ‘Snapchat’ and ‘model’ hashtags
- Find accounts with 10k+ followers (to enable swipe up link with a story)
- Look for an email in their bio or direct message account owners about shoutouts
- While you wait for rates, click on people they follow to find even more quality accounts that might be worth it for shoutouts
How much does it cost?
As a basic rule of thumb, the more followers an influencer has, the higher it’ll cost ya.
Funnily enough, it doesn’t mean your campaign will be more profitable. Sometimes, choosing micro-influencers might be more than worth it. Remember that engagement within a niche is a very important metric.
The cost for a shoutout depends on the target market, number of followers and account age to name a few factors. Make sure the likes/followers are actually organic — this shows how many accounts are legitimate and not bots or fake accounts.
Some tools will help you determine the cost of a shoutout on social media, like this calculator from Influencer MarketingHub. There’s also a free Instagram followers audit if you wondered how to spot organic vs fake followers on IG.
Shoutouts’ costs are evaluated on a case-by-case basis, but expect to spend anywhere between $15 USD to sky is the limit for your sponsored message.
The art of writing for social media
You could be a distinguished novelist and totally suck at social media copywriting.
It’s a whole different world and you usually have to say more with less. Not something everyone can do with the snap of a finger.
For starters, social media has a tendency to use visuals to spice up its messaging. Like it or not, you’re going to have to use emojis and silly GIFs to crank up your click rates.
Unfortunately, it’s “kill or be killed” in many cultures—here, It’s more like EMOJI … OR GET KILLED on social media.
Emojitracker lets you see which emojis are the most popular on Twitter in real time.
One year ago, Mark Zuckerberg posted an infographic of the Top Emoji Trends on Facebook.
You can also see the Top 100 Emojis on Instagram.
Quick tip: on Instagram, the most popular adult emojis are of the vegetables family: eggplant and peach. They’re followed by the angel, devil, tongue, smirk, pointing fingers, water droplets and over 18 symbol emojis.
Writing for social media also means you’ll need to include #hashtags, especially on Instagram and Twitter.
We use Webstagram for inspiration. This website lists the most popular Instagram hashtags and users. The latter is precious is you ever want to spend big bucks on celebrity shoutouts/takeovers.
Back to the actual writing, you’ll need to follow some basic guidelines if you want your content to work. Each social media platform has its list of best practices. They usually boil down to keeping your copy short and adding tons of relevant hashtags to bring in more traffic.
Sometimes, you can even skip the writing and simply post a video to drive engagement. In fact, lots of popular accounts do exactly that and gain 500k+ likes and 2,000+ comments per post.
So the secret to writing on social media would be to actually not write that much. But a good story can also create a lot of discussion; it’s up to you to choose whether you want your content to do the storytelling or if you’d rather tell something nice to your followers.
Putting it all together
Social media is a powerful tool for affiliates. A takeover or shoutout might not be something you want to try right now, but creating an account and sharing cool content is free.
Only once you’ve built up your credibility with organic followers should you think about promoting offers. And when you do, don’t forget to create value for your viewers unless you don’t care risking what can be months’ worth of efforts with a single post.
If you’re only interested in getting your message viewed by a maximum number of people, don’t forget that account owners don’t owe you anything… and that you’ll need to spend varying amounts of money depending on many factors such as engagement rate, number of followers, niche, etc.
Remember, in the social media relm, more is less. Let your pictures and videos do the talking. Add relevant hashtags and emojis to drive more traffic.
Do you operate popular social media accounts? Have you made money with them through affiliate programs? Let us know in the comments below!
