An Updated Approach: Changes between Then and Now
Good morning Survivors - I hope all is well, and that youāre keeping good care of yourself and continuing to secure the bag as best you can.
Iāve been using OF for three years as of this month, and a lot has changed between now and then: massive changes to consumerās time, interests, trust and (of course) financial freedom. My own approaches have changed in a few key areas as well which I think are not only beneficial to my income (and sanity), but also to my continued longevity on the platform.Ā
After three years, things have felt stale. Itās not just for a creatorās perspective: long term users (who tend to provide the most reliable support) have also grown tired of old strategies. To keep things brief, because Iām definitely procrastinating starting my day by writing this article (what else is new), Iām going to rapid fire some of my recent changes and why I find them helpful.
THINGS IāVE BEEN DOING DIFFERENTLY
1. NO MORE LEWD SOCIAL MEDIA
Lewd social media was fucking killing me, and I think it was also killing some of my chances of securing actual subscribers, not just followers on free platforms like Twitter or Instagram. To dodge TOS in terms of overt sexuality, a lot of creators shifted toward making content as lewd as they were able to without getting flagged for a shadowban, mostly by utilizing generically horny audios and trends to attract attention in hopes of finding new subscribers.
This works for other people just fine. I thought it would work for me, but it didnāt, namely because I fucking hated shooting lewd reels. Since I still run a primarily lewd page, I think the dissonance between hypersexual social media content and a more tease-focused page was generating a bit of a boost in initial subscribers but more often than not they would stay for a month, not purchase anything, and then leave. If my reels were garnering hundreds of thousands of views at a time, maybe the boost in sub income would have been enough, but by and large the approach just flopped for me. Low views on reels I didnāt like making just made me hate myself and the more I compared myself to creators getting a lot more attention than me, the less and less I wanted to post to social media at all.
So, I threw in the towel. I logged out of my old instagram (which was shadowbanned as shit anyway) and kind of just walked away from it, even though I felt like leaving behind 75k followers was a little heartbreaking. The truth was that the number was just a number, and no matter how many followers it looked like I had, no one was able to see my posts anyway ... so, I called it quits. The account is still up, I just donāt use it or look at it anymore. Huge relief to my mental health, to be honest.
I created a totally SFW account where I simply took photos and a few easy Reels here and there in outfits I really liked. To make my life easier, I would shoot a bunch of lewds at the same time - in the same outfits I was posting to Instagram - and then use those for OF. To my surprise, my subscriber count started going up, and my existing subscribers started to tell me that they were excited to see my SFW IG posts because they knew theyād get to see me put a lewd spin on things on my OF feed.Ā
Not only am I enjoying social media a lot more now, but it seems like itās benefiting me in surprising ways, which makes me want to dress up in fun outfits more - creating an upward cycle of enjoyment rather than a downward spiral of disappointment. This may be mostly beneficial because of my specific style (lewd rather than nude, etc) but who knows: maybe itāll help you if you feel youāre in a similar spot.
2. NICHE DOWN (AKA ENJOY UR FUKIN LIFE)
The biggest advantage Iāve experienced has very little to do with OF at all, which is perhaps my favourite shift in approach so far: Iāve stepped into my gamer girlie era, I guess. I started on Twitch about a year ago mostly as a hobby (because holy shit I really needed to do something other than shoot smut all the time) and itās not only made my life a lot better, but itās boosted genuinely interested subscribers, too.Ā
I hate to constantly monetize all of my passions, but the bottom line I think is that when people can tell youāre genuinely interested in something, the authentic enjoyment comes across as attractive. I play a lot of Zelda and have incorporated elements of this into everything I post online, including my OF content. Because the characters in the game wear elf ears, I started wearing a cheap pair of elf ears from Amazon and boom: Iām the Elf Girl now. Random niche, but lovers of the game series and randoms alike, I have something that apparently sets me apart (considering it was fucking $10 ears Iāll take it lol), and itās driving interest and engagement.Ā
I guess what Iām saying is this: find your own thing, and see what happens. At the very least youāll spend a little time doing what you love, and best case scenario, it complements your OF. I donāt know if it really even matters what that thing is - people are starting to look for more personality, and letting yours shine through a bit more might be a good idea.
This ties into the last paragraph, and is also my biggestĀ ākey pointā: long term OF users are getting tired of the same old same old. Theyāre not stupid and they donāt want to be treated like ATMs. They know that when creatorsĀ āfollow backā itās got nothing to do with continuing connection and everything to do with being able to spam them with PPVs even after their subscription ends. Theyāre really sick of S4S on the feed. Theyāre well aware a ton of creators are run by management agencies and theyāre bored of hypersexualĀ āu up?ā sexting prompts. Now Iām not saying these approaches donāt work at all - because jesus christ Iām well aware that the top of the top girlies are doing all this shit and making way more money than I am - but what Iām noticing is Iām retaining subscribers more now than I was when I was relying solely on mass messages.Ā
Iāve started reaching out individually to new subscribers with an actual handwritten welcome message as they arrive. It always includes a simple snap photo of me in whatever Iām wearing (usually my robe while holding a cup of coffee since I check notifications in the morning) - and the response for a very simple action has been overwhelmingly positive. People are shocked that a creator would touch base and say thank you by hand. Itās boosted engagement and boosted sales, and Iām not looking too closely at analytics, but itās also seeming to boost renew-on numbers as well.Ā
At the end of the day, OF just isnāt that deep. People are still looking for two simple things: fap content to make themselves feel good physically with, and a chance to interact with a hot girl to boost their mood. Making sure weāre not forgetting the latter half seems increasingly more important these days.
Side note: as a camgirl graduate, I saw this exact same shift on MFC years ago. We had a couple years ofĀ āfast easy moneyā when people believed we were all rabidly horny exhibitionists, but when it became increasingly obvious that it was a job like any other job, people started to lose the emotional connection which slowed or stopped financial support. As that dip occurred, a lot of creators started to pour focus into emotional connection to varying degrees. At the bare minimum, we prioritized conversation time just as much as sexy time, and it created anotherĀ āfeastā period after a short famine. Interesting to see cycles repeat themselves on OF, too.Ā
4. UTILIZING PAST CONTENT: MOST RECENT STRATEGY
When youāre using a paid page, OF doesnāt allow for locked feed posts. They also donāt provide any sort of āvideo storeā or clip shop setup, which is a huge let down in terms of utilizing previously created work longer term. The ability to even scroll down the feed of a creator who has been posting for more than a year is borderline impossible: eventually, with enough scrolling, the browser simply crashes.
So far this year Iāve made a ton of fantastic photo and video sets that sell really well upon release and then just gather dust. There are a bunch of strategies to re-release content, but Iāve found puttingĀ āre-releaseā in the description of a PPV kind of turns people off for whatever reason. So, I cooked up a new idea, and it is paying off very well.
I went back to January and tagged all January posts under a label titledĀ āJanuaryā (creative, I know). I then went over to Canva and created a āJanuary Favouritesā graphic that includes a small preview photo and a brief description of the video: something likeĀ ābooty focused in black lace lingerieā, with the time of the video and number of photos included, as well as the price. In the post description box itself, I copy/pasted my actual captions from my message history.
People can request this content to be hand delivered. I tell them to message me the date and title of the video (itās an easy copy paste for them), and then I send over the content via PPV. Since Iāve been using my organization structure for a while now, all I have to do is access the folder on my computer, drag and drop the content and copy/paste the caption from the post itself.Ā
What Iāve noticed is a huge uptick in old content sales. People will often order two or three at a time. So far this is the best method of delivering old content that Iāve devised so far, and even though itās a little more labor intensive than just re-sending old messages, the personal connection makes it more appealing to the supporter.
Shameless plug: here is the Etsy listing for how I organize my content.
https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1351112056/my-content-organization-system-for?click_key=68f2357cc7e2bf776dac1b1ed744ef9d62ff16bb%3A1351112056&click_sum=0c185da1&ref=shop_home_active_7&crt=1
Since this is working, Iām creating a master list of all content to date. It isĀ tedious, but is also paying off. I went to my own profile and sorted my feed byĀ āascendingā rather thanĀ ādescendingā, which brought me waaaay back to the very bottom of my feed. From there, I created a label for 2019 and 2020, and then started adding every single post to those labels. In 2020 alone, I made 1200 individual posts. A lot of these had 10 to 15 photos attached to them. While this was well and great at the time, the reality is no one was able to even see them anymore, so some pruning was definitely in order.
After sorting all of 2020, I ādeletedā a lot. It seems that clickingĀ ādeleteā was a much slower process in terms of actual page loading time, so instead I moved everything to my private archive (where Iāll eventually go and work on manually removing when I find the time). Bottom line is this: I chose the best of the best in terms of posts, removedĀ āduplicatesā (since Iād often break up a photoset into 5 or so individual posts, I simply kept one or two from that shoot and removed the rest), and then advertised the new label to anyone wanting to see the best of what I had to offer to the feed for that year. In the end I took thingsĀ down from 1200 posts to 400. Itās still a lot of content, but itās little enough that it can actually be scrolled through without breaking the browser.Ā
My next step is to do what Iāve been doing for 2023, but for the entirely of 2020 in oneĀ ā2020 Favouritesā post: the same style graphic with brief descriptions on the image and longer captions in the body of the post. This way people will be able to clickĀ ā2020ā³ and choose from a list easily. Since itās working well enough for more recent content, I have high hopes that this method will continue to work for all the content Iāve offered so far (or at least the content I want to re-release).
This is where the longevity aspect comes in. On months where I make fewer new sets, I want to be able to utilize old sets to offset income loss.Ā
In reality, there will come a day where I stop making new lewd content with any frequency. I want my page to continue to be attractive to new subscribers without it feeling too recycled. With a massive (hand made and slightly labor intensive)Ā āvideo shopā available and an easy way to actually see all the content Iāve made so far, I feel strongly that I will be able to continue to profit off OF even if my new, more involved content sets become fewer and further between. This can also help to insulate me from periods of stress or illness where Iām simply forced to pause new work to a stronger degree.
I wake up and check my messages, being sure to look at ānew subscribersā and reach out to each one personally. I attach a simple selfie and open the door to future communication without it feeling tooĀ ābusiness-yā.Ā
I then reply to all my other messages and provide content requests via PPV. Since itās just a matter of dragging/dropping and copy/pasting, it doesnāt take me long, and it still comes across as authentic communication with me (the creator) myself.Ā
Often Iāll put on a comfy pair of panties and a cute little bra and shoot a couple basic posts for the feed just to keep things updated, and then work on dressing up in something fun to make SFW socials posts. After shooting SFW, I make a lewd photoset in that outfit (upskirt shots, strip teasing, etc) and Iāll shoot a short video or two to include as a new PPV. I queue the feed post, send off the PPV and get ready for Twitch, where I get to be myself and attract an audience interested in my personality and potentially attracted enough to how I look to drive them to search for NSFW content.Ā
At this point, Iām really enjoying how Iām doing things. So far this month Iāve only released two PPVs and Iām still sitting at a maximum of 350 subscribers, but Iāve pulled around $5,000 and can expect at least a little more by the end of the month. For considerably less frantic and exhausting work, Iām making more than enough to support myself and save, and thatās good enough for me. It feels good, too.Ā
Not all advice will be advice on how to make $100,000 in a month or whatever. What I aim for is consistent and long term income without burning myself out, and these changes have honestly been really helpful. I hope they might stand to help you, too.
