LOS ANGELES (August 1, 2013) — The Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP) is pleased to announce the latest honorees in its Featured Sponsors of the Month program, which recognizes select sponsors that help to protect children on the Internet from being involved in or exposed to age-inappropriate material.

According to ASACP Executive Director Tim Henning, the adult entertainment industry can share many “good news” stories about its enduring commitment to keeping children out of and away from porn. Among these achievements include the proactive self-regulatory efforts adopted by adult oriented websites and other operators; such as adhering to the ASACP Code of Ethics and market-specific Best Practices, which are a hallmark of these top-tier operators.

Other efforts involve embracing the multiple award-winning Restricted To Adults (RTA) website meta-label which self-identifies a site as containing age-inappropriate material, enabling better blocking by parental content controls and other filtering applications.

“Our new Sponsor Recognition Program is just one way that ASACP helps digital media businesses protect themselves by protecting at-risk children online, while publicly recognizing the substantial achievements the companies have accomplished in this regard,” Henning said. “ASACP wants to help spread this message to legislators and other relevant stakeholders in order to inform them of the facts while they consider the new laws and policies that will affect all online business owners,”

Each month, ASACP will recognize several select sponsors as a means of providing exposure and recognition for the adult industry-leading companies which have committed to supporting ASACP and its vital mission, year after year. This initiative will also help provide a “face” to the wide range of legitimate enterprises serving one of the world’s most vibrant marketplaces.

DatingGold.com

An ASACP Corporate Sponsor since 2007, online casual dating and webcam affiliate program DatingGold.com has shown its commitment to protecting children in a number of ways; such as including the RTA meta-label on flagship cam site WebCamClub.com and vetting profiles and other information on its sites such as flagship dating site, AmateurMatch.com. The firm also offers a number of niche cam and dating sites, as well as exclusive and co-branded sites that have proven popular with promoters and consumers alike.

While all ASACP sponsors are held to the highest standards, there are additional membership requirements for cam and dating sites, as user generated content (UGC) is often involved, and this material is produced outside of legitimate commercial channels that adhere to the existing legal requirements for a performer’s or other participant’s proof of age. Extra steps are needed to help ensure that only lawful images of consenting adults are displayed, and ASACP stands ready to assist its sponsors in understanding the child safety issues surrounding UCG as well as in forming cohesive responses through best practices and other means. Here, DatingGold excels as an example of how proactive measures by content providers can make a difference in keeping children safe on (and from) the Internet.

Cybersocket.com

According to Cybersocket, for more than a decade it has been known as the go-to source for print, online and communications services targeting the broader GLBT community; not only producing the nation’s largest freely distributed gay magazine, with a circulation of 70,000 issues monthly, but also producing the Gay Pornucopia blog, plus a comprehensive search engine and the gay webmaster chat board, TheGayBoard.com. The company also hosts the annual Cybersocket Web Awards, which have become a seven-year tradition of honoring the finest in gay online services.

“It is Cybersocket’s role to analyze, categorize, comment upon and popularize gay and lesbian oriented websites,” states the company’s popular website, which adds that “Cybersocket leads the field in groundbreaking news, practical resources and provocative original content for the GLBT community.”

As an ASACP Corporate Sponsor, Cybersocket extends its leadership position within the global GLBT community to become a powerful voice in the battle to keep children out of and away from adult entertainment; in part by incorporating RTA meta-labeling on its homepage.

CyberStampede.com

A multi-year Corporate Sponsor of ASACP and the association’s SEO agency of record, CyberStampede.com is a provider of global SEO and SEM solutions for today’s leading adult entertainment companies. CyberStampede specializes in on-site SEO work for entertainment and related companies covering the spectrum of the adult business community and impacting traffic and sales for mobile and desktop sites, membership and video-on-demand sites, live cam and dating sites, shopping and product sites, and industry news properties.

The company has also had the pleasure of building and maintaining complex and highly focused paid search (SEM) campaigns for the adult industry’s top brands, spending millions of dollars, profitably and accountably, to help leading industry brands meet and exceed their sales goals online.

“CyberStampede is committed to the highest standards of ethical and compliant business practices within the worlds of adult entertainment search engine and digital advertising, with part of its mission making online child protection a best practice priority for all of the work it does on behalf of its clients,” CyberStampede president Rodney T says. “As a business policy, we engage solely with websites who share our values and who are themselves actively engaged in barring access by minors to mature content online.”

“At the most tangible and functional level within the craft of SEO work, we specifically advise our clients and implement keyword selections which are 100 percent devoid of inappropriate search terms or marketing language which can impact or drive interest to or by minors in any form,” Rodney T added. “Further, within the realm of link-building SEO practices for clients, we advise for and actively pre-screen all prospective link partner sites for keywords and content which are compliant with best practices for the protection of minors.”

CyberStampede is a great example of how an ASACP Sponsor, member, or contributors’ financial contributions can be leveraged through further assistance, such as the promotional SEO work being done on behalf of the association.

What can your company do to help ASACP in its mission, or to support its sponsors?

While diverse in their business roles, these companies are unanimous in their support of ASACP and among those exhibiting the commitment to corporate leadership and proactive self-regulation that exemplify today’s top-tier digital media companies.

For more information, please contact [email protected].

About ASACP

Founded in 1996, ASACP is a non-profit organization dedicated to online child protection.
ASACP is comprised of two separate corporate entities, the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection and the ASACP Foundation. The Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP) is a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. ASACP manages a membership program that provides resources to companies in order to help them protect children online. The ASACP Foundation is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. The ASACP Foundation battles child pornography through its CP Reporting Hotline and helps parents prevent children from viewing age-restricted material online with its Restricted To Adults (RTA) website label (www.rtalabel.org). ASACP has invested nearly 17 years in developing progressive programs to protect children, and its relationship in assisting the adult industry’s child protection efforts is unparalleled. For more information, visit www.asacp.org.

A lot of businesses are now taking advantage of the social media market, but does it really provide an advantage for your company? That depends on what you are offering.

“According to Adweek, there is bad news for brands who are rushing to social media sites. Young people don’t want to be friends with you! According to a new report from Forrester Research, just 6% of 12-17-year-olds who use the web want to be friends with a brand on Facebook.

Among Web-connected 18-24-year-olds, that figure doubles, which means that only 12% of 18-24-year-old think is ok to friend a brand. Even scarier for brands: Young people don’t want brands’ friendship, and they think brands should go away.”

“Young consumers are basically telling brands, when I interact with you I want you to listen to me and interact with you. I don’t want to interact (friend) a brand that just engages in a one-way conversation with me.” Social Media Optimization

It’s pretty agreeable that the vast majority of people do not want to be branded, but to simply choose the brand of preference. If you are offering a service, social media is absolutely for you because the product is based on customer interaction. When the customer interacts with your company on a social media network they are sharing the great experience they had, and not endorsing a product.  We’re not sales people, but we sure love to tell stories about our life experiences. If you’re selling a product it’s best to stick to SEM or standard marketing techniques to keep the power of choice in the consumers hands. Recently PepsiCo found out the hard way by dropping standard advertising all together, spending at least 50 per cent of its American branding budget on social media.

“Beverage Digest reported last month that the company’s flagship brand, Pepsi, had fallen to third place behind Coke and Diet Coke. Pepsi – known for its Refresh Everything goodwill campaign and a bevy of social media efforts – had ranked second for decades in that sales category. Some considered the slip an indictment of the brand’s embrace of social media and de-emphasis of traditional broadcast advertising – exemplified by its withdrawal from the Super Bowl last year.” Clickz.com

Find more information on Businessdailyafrica.com about PepsiCo and social media marketing.

The bottom line is, if you’re offering a product, social media could be a gamble for you; if it’s a service social media can do wonders for you! If you’re not sure, don’t be scared to talk to us, we’ll help you reach the most accurate demographic.

In the recent past I have run into many encounters where I will offer my SEM services and they will respond to me with questions about my “SEO” services. I personally don’t do SEO, but I do SEM and web design (You can see my site here). For all my SEO needs I go to Cyber Stampede! This lack of understanding the two terms generally causes a lot of frustration on both sides which is unnecessary; this article will hopefully clear up some of that confusion.

To most people SEO and SEM are synonymous or they feel the terms are interchangeable, this is not the case. The key to understanding the difference is knowing the difference between paid and organic listings. Paid listings are seen at the top and right hand side of the main results (3 on top, 5 on the right), the main results are everything else. SEO pertains to organic listings which are the most important because these results are based solely on relevancy as where paid listings (SEM) can shoot to the top with a fat wallet. Sometimes this is not the case, ads that are placed that have high relevancy will sometimes appear in a higher ranked spot because of their relevancy to the keywords they are targeting. If this sounds unfair to those who want to pay their way to the top; in all fairness advertisers want to show the most relevant ads to gain the highest revenue.

That being said you are probably beginning to see where SEO and SEM are similar, but not the same. SEO is actually integral to SEM, but can exist without SEM, in the long run SEM would fail without adequate SEO. Good SEO can save you money, and make you money if it is done right, and will also increase conversion rates (The ratio of customers that visit to the amount that actually make a purchase, or reach the goal point you’ve set). SEO is so important that some SEM ads will actually be rejected because of poor relevancy due to poor or lack of SEO.  As the definition below states ” Personally, I would start with SEO and then move onto SEM.”.  Here is a quick and easily understandable definition I found on another blog:

“SEO is the act of optimizing the HTML and other content of your website for relevant, targeted key phrases in order to attain higher natural listings than competing websites. SEO provides a cheaper long term solution for increased qualified traffic and generates customer inquiries that ultimately convert to sales. Now SEM is broader than SEO. It includes SEO and other areas to improve a sites visibility in search engine results pages, like paid listings and paid inclusions. You can think of SEM as more expensive and quite possibly more targeted, while SEO is free (not counting your time of course) and its purpose is to obtain better free search listings. Personally, I would start with SEO and then move onto SEM.” PageStrength.com

Be sure to come back on Monday!