There's been a lot of concern about tube sites lately. But could these video-sharing sites actually be a marketing opportunity waiting to be seized, like TGP and MGP sites were?
According to some top industry minds, the answer is "yes." When exploited properly, they say, tube sites can be your best friends.
Conservative optimism
Traffic Dude specializes in online advertising, finding what works in converting surfers to paying customers. CEO Scott Rabinowitz has conservative optimism about tube-style sites and their potential for targeted, ROI-friendly marketing opportunities.
"Tube sites are the equivalent of the TGP/MGP concept for the Web 2.0 generation," he said. "They may distribute more material faster than TGP or MGP sites, but the principle remains the same. Properly used, they can help drive traffic to your site, and build your revenue."
Rabinowitz recommended a path to having tube sites work for you. "First, select content that you are comfortable seeing in unpaid distribution," he said. "For instance, if you've got a clip that has already been in heavy circulation on the Net, you may not see as strong a marketing response with these clips from tube site promotions.
"Before distributing the clip, be sure to watermark it: Make sure that anyone watching it knows where it comes from. This turns the clip into a commercial for your site.
"If watermarking your clips is all you can do for your tube promotions, then your clips will generate some awareness of your company at tube sites ... but possibly not as much as everyone hopes. The problem is that the bulk of all tube-site content is defined by sex act, giving users a vast array to choose from by general erotic category, but not much to differentiate one hardcore clip from another. This is why submitting watermarked bloopers or outtakes can be so powerful. They are unique, so they stand out above the noise of all the other clips. If they are really good, they'll even benefit from fans circulating these favorite clips through social bookmarking functions, shared ‘favorites' lists, et cetera, all the while showing off your watermark.
"Tube sites can be made to work for adult sites, rather than against them, so grab this opportunity before your competition does."
Entering the fray
Celebrity site MrSkin.com could be considered a tube site, in that its content is nude scenes taken from popular films. However, the comparison ends there for two reasons. First, MrSkin.com handles all of its video postings, in line with copyright rules. Second, MrSkin.com is a pay site in its own right, and its content sometimes is pirated by users and posted on real tube sites.
That said, Derek Meklir, the company's vice president of business development, sees tube sites as places to attract potential customers to MrSkin.com. This is why the company distributes content to sites such as YouTube, Google, MySpace and IFilm. "We have marketing channels set up with some of the tube sites, where we control the content that is being posted," Meklir said.
Meklir sees tube sites as an extra marketing outlet for MrSkin.com's content. "If we are able to represent our content correctly [and] have watermarking and linking back to our site, then we see both a branding opportunity and a straight sales opportunity as well," he said.
To date, "we have not seen a large jump in traffic because of the tube sites," Meklir admitted. But this may change as tube sites grow in popularity. Meanwhile, he said, there are ways to select tube-site material that won't cut into your core business. "If you have older content that won't make your site lose value, it might be worth putting your watermark on it and uploading it to tube sites with proper linking," he said. "This will allow you to reuse older content and bring new traffic to your site. The same goes for outtakes or blooper content that you can't use from shoots."
Doing it yourself
The cliché "If you can't beat ‘em, join ‘em" reflects the Adult Entertainment Broadcast Network's approach to tube sites. Rather than wring its hands about AEBN content turning up on tube sites, the VOD provider launched PornoTube.com to market its own products.
"PornoTube.com started in the offices here at AEBN," said Suzann Knudsen, PornoTube's head of promotion. "It was a collaboration between the creative minds who saw there was a need for such a site to support our members at xPeeps, qPeeps and SocialKink with a way to self-publish erotic images and videos. The members of these sites were frustrated at the limitations from other similar platforms, and in response to their suggestions, we gave birth to PornoTube."
PornoTube looks and operates just like any other tube site. In particular, "PornoTube offers both image and video sharing on a totally free, user-driven platform," Knudsen said. "You do not need to be a member to simply view content, but you do need to create an account if you will be using any other features. Like many other tube sites, the system allows you to share media using the embeddable media player. Users are also allowed to keep track of their favorite clips, rate media with our star system and comment on it, as well.
"Our ‘Channels' section highlights the best of adult, with trailers from studios, humorous outtakes and star-quality interviews. PornoTube has a video-on-demand theater, which gives users the option to track full-length movies if the short clips aren't doing it for them. We also offer an RSS feed to alert the user to new material."
Despite all these fan-friendly features, PornoTube definitely is a tube site designed to serve the company whose content it offers. "PornoTube offers a platform for adult-content providers to load promo clips for their sites and take advantage of the phenomenal traffic we attract," Knudsen said. "We are completely committed to protecting content owners, as well, and we do everything possible to make sure that any clips loaded to the site that we identify as being from one of our partners in the industry is linked properly back to their sites." PornoTube even offers text and banner advertising through Etology and has a "Featured Media" section brokered through Traffic Dude.
As far as Knudsen and PornoTube's content providers are concerned, tube sites definitely can serve the adult industry rather than stealing from it. "We couldn't be happier with the results," Knudsen said. "It's definitely become a win-win situation."
This story first appeared in the February 2008 issue of AVN Online magazine. To subscribe to AVN Online, go to https://www.avnmedianetwork.com/subscriptions/
