LinkTree recently banned sex workers, pornstars, camgirls, and any sexy creators from their platform

For the past few years, LinkTree has become a hub for sex workers looking for an easy and efficient platform for hosting their links without having to start their own website to do so. Although recently, LinkTree seemed to target sex workers specifically and banned hundreds of accounts for “inappropriate use” which was later explained by the Head of Trust and Safety at LinkTree, “Per our company’s policies, the Linktree accounts banned stemmed from sharing a URL which violated Community Standards by sharing advertisements for the sale of real-life sexual services.” The biggest problem with their statement is that all of the accounts that were impacted by the ban were not advertising in person sexual services, many of which were just linking to the typical online sex work places like OnlyFans, ManyVids, and Pornhub. Whether or not you continue to use LinkTree is up to you personally but as soon as one type of sex work is banned from the platform, usually the others are targeted as well. So what’s the next destination after LinkTree?

Creating Your Own Website / Linkhub, or Commissioning One

There are a lot of perks to having your own website for advertising your links and services. Associating your services directly with your brand, having the links hosted on your own domain, having your own hosting so you know it won’t randomly be taken down or censored, and the growth potential for your own website are all great reasons to have your own performer website. It doesn’t have to be something super complex, whether you set up a basic LinkTree dupe using plug-ins or make something more complex, it’s a fantastic way to keep your services associated with your brand and ensure you won’t be a victim of platform censorship! If you aren’t tech savvy or simply don’t have time to build a website, there are also services made specifically for sex workers looking to have their own website like Sex Worker Sites and PS: Group.

Learn more: Create Your Own Social Media Safe Linkhub with Seedprod and WordPress

Use an Adult Friendly Alternative

While there is no guarantee a website will always remain sex worker / adult friendly, going with platforms designed specifically for sex workers can be a great way to avoid heartache in the future. Some good alternatives to LinkTree made for sex workers specifically include:

• Sex Worker – a new up and coming site currently offering a directory of adult workers, with plans for growth of the platform in the future for content sale coming soon!
• SmuttyLinks – described as a “linking platform on steroids” and designed by the Smutty network which is a no-censoring platform.

Go with a non-adult linkhub service (not recommended)

If you aren’t happy with the above options, you may just want to go with a new linkhub service. We don’t recommend doing so because you have no control over future bans and censorship but if this is still the path you’d like to go down, we highly encourage you to purchase your own domain name and use forwarding to at least add a little brand control to your linkhub! Some non-adult LinkTree alternatives include:

• AllMyLinks
• bio.fm
• lnk.bio
• Campsite
• carrd

Why is a linkhub important for your brand?

A linkhub is important for adult performer brands because congregating your important and preferred links in one place not only makes advertising easier but it is better for squeezing leads. When you have one destination that you can send all customers to, you are able to subject those clickers to more of your content and more potential monetary conversions while also clearly laying out the things that they were clicking to find. If someone asks, “where can I order custom videos?” and you respond with your linkhub and say you can find that, and more, on your linkhub then you are more likely to up-sell that customer and sell them more than just a custom video.

Linkhubs are also essential to performers and sex workers that advertise their services on social media because it condenses your “this is what I do” speech into an easy to consume website. Saying “link in bio” is much easier than saying, “I make videos, I offer live webcam shows, I do custom videos, I do custom photosets, I’m on a bunch of different social media websites including ____, ____, and ____, and my videos are for sale on _______, ________, _______, and _________.” It also helps performers to avoid flags on social media because a lot of adult websites are flagged by social media platforms!

How do I make my linkhub even more beneficial?

Do you want to make your linkhub even more beneficial for you? Use trackable links on your linkhub! A common (and free) trackable link creator is Bitly and by using trackable links you can see which of the platforms where you post your linkhub are converting the best, what people are interested in by which links get the most clicks, and what locations your clicks are coming from so you can utilize time zones to post to the audience that is interested in you! Using trackable links can also help you avoid flagging on social media platforms that scan links to ensure they aren’t adult links like Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok.

What safety tips can I use to ensure my linkhub doesn’t get flagged?

Avoiding adult website names and common porn keywords can help to ensure your linkhub won’t be flagged by social media, and it can also help ensure that if you use a non-adult linkhub that they won’t keyword flag you. For example, instead of using “ManyVids” as your title for your ManyVids link, try “(Your performer name)’s Video Collection” and use a tracking link instead of your direct ManyVids link.

The intimidating world of Reddit can be a high converting marketing hub for adult creators

If you have no experience on Reddit it can appear confusing if you have no background advertising on or navigating forum and thread based social networks. On the surface, Reddit looks like it has too many layers, in addition to the base rules to follow you also have to comply to the rules created by users to participate in their subreddits. Usually on social media you can expect to get interaction on your profile by using keyword rich terms that people can search for and find your posts with but Reddit throws the traditional experience out of the window and encourages you to participate in various subreddits in order to get a wider reach with your content. That doesn’t mean it’s bad; it’s just different!

Pick one or two photos or videos that you will use for your advertisements

Whether you will opt to market utilizing photos, videos, or GIFs you should pick one or two, it will help prevent you from providing too much free content as well as make it easier to select the photos or videos from your phone or computer. Now that you’ve selected the content you will be using, you are going to watermark it with your Reddit username. “u/WhateverYourNameIs” A majority of subreddits will ban users that watermark their content with a website link BUT your Reddit username is typically allowed and also encouraged. Many people will more than likely (unfortunately) scrape the content you post for re-post in different subreddits, for their own personal use, and sometimes even for catfishing. When you put your username on there it helps alleviate a majority of the problems that can come about from no watermark and it is easy to do since you are only using 1-2 pieces of content.

Where should I put my watermark?

I highly recommend putting the watermark somewhere that will cause the content to no longer be appealing if it were cropped out, so if you post a photo of your boobs put a semi-transparent watermark on the collarbone or right under a breast. You can learn more about watermarking and the benefits in Alice Skarys blog “Watermarking Adult Content: An Introduction.” To sum it up, the benefits of a watermark will almost always outweigh the time invested into putting the watermark on your content.

Create a list of your communities or utilize Reddits “My Communities” list

Whether you create a list of communities in your phone (with the link so you can easily click and open the subreddit) or you utilize the “My Communities” feature on Reddit (which can be found under the Home dropdown on desktop or the hamburger menu on the mobile app) use this list to very easily post in all communities you are active in. I prefer to create my community list in my phone because I separate the groups into sections; “Requires flair,” “Requires caption brackets,” “Does not allow self posts,” and “Requires external hosting,” are some of my lists in addition to my basic list of subreddits that don’t have any rules or requirements for the posts. I have these lists so I can easily manage my time and if I need to post quickly and efficiently I can skip over groups that don’t meet my needs at that time.

Vet your subreddits

How do you vet a group? Read the rules, make sure you don’t need to be verified to post (or if you’re okay with doing verification, get that out of the way before you start posting there) ensure you don’t have to put specific information in your title in brackets and that you are familiar with the process of posting there. You do not want to utilize a subreddit that makes you jump through too many hoops to post there because it will cause you to take a longer time posting and there is no guarantee you’ll make your moneys worth from marketing there. While verification is becoming more common in bigger groups with more users, remember that the verification process should not include things like free video calls, free content, or anything that is a financial loss for you.

External hosting for GIFs and videos

One of the biggest time suckers are subreddits that require external hosting and it is very common for GIF and video based communities. If you’re looking for external hosting for GIFs or videos, the most common websites used for these are RedGifs and Imgur. Using external hosting sites may be off-putting but they have an added benefit of you uploading your GIF or video content ahead of time and being able to access it when you join new communities, plus both external hosting sites actually have a good bit of traffic of their own and you may find yourself getting customer conversions from the sites themselves!

Make your caption / title something that can fit in any group

The easiest way to caption your photo, GIF, or video will be using a copy and paste that you quickly paste in and post so you can be on to the next post, that’s why when you’re coming up with your caption you should think of something that will provoke conversation and upvotes without “baiting” (as this is against a lot of subreddits rules) that will also fit into the various communities you are posting in. Asking questions will help to provoke comments or presenting “a challenge,” something along the lines of, “do you think you could handle all of this?” Since it doesn’t mention specific body parts or aspects of a niche, you’ll be able to get away with using this caption on your post in nearly every group.

Ensure your profile has a pinned post with links you are pushing customers toward

No matter what you are trying to up-sell, ensure that your profile has the links pinned so that when a potential customer clicks your profile they will see those links first and foremost. Reddit also has a pretty convenient linking feature now that allows you to highlight certain links on your profile but keep in mind some of the links to common adult sites aren’t allowed, so if you don’t use their pre-selected options I would not recommend putting in your own links.

Want more tips on growing your social media presence as an adult creator?

Whether you want a streamlined process or you’ve got the time to delve into crazy social media promotion, I’m more than happy to be your guide! Consider checking out my consultation options to dive deeper into growing your social media.