Highlights from SHA’s Sexceptional Summit Engaging with the Media: Building a Business and Online Presence

Over the last weekend of July, SHA held a two-day virtual conference on Engaging with the Media: Building a Business and Online Presence.  We heard from sex and social media experts, including world-renowned clinical psychologist and author Dr. David Ley, sex and relationship therapist and educator Dr. Chris Donaghue, couples’ counselor and sex therapist Jen Meyer, marketing expert and MŌN app founder Cale Jones, SHA founder Heather McPherson, Netflix phenome and social media influencer Alyssa Ljubicich, founder and CEO of ethical porn website afterglow Lilly Sparks, and sex therapist and sex worker Jasmine Johnson. 

Additionally, Dr. Ley facilitated master panels on journalism and how to charge money for your sexpertise. The first panel featured journalists Jelena Kecmanovic, Brian Smith, Ryn Pfeuffer, and Hallie Lieberman. Then, the Monetizing Exposure panel brought back Jasmine Johnson, Lilly Sparks, and Heather McPherson with the addition of BDSM author, educator, and social media influencer Midori of PlanetMidori. Overall, the Sexceptional Summit covered media strategies and tools to flesh out your authentic sexuality brand, get your particular style of sex-positive message out there, position yourself as an expert, and create a growing community.

Therapy and the Media

The reciprocal nature of therapy and the media lays the groundwork for our discussion on utilizing the media to build your business. Johnson sums this up by speaking to the fact that your lived experience can inform your therapy practice, which you can then use to inform what you choose to share with the world. She exemplifies this in her own practice of coaching and sexually explicit content production. Though these never mix, the two rely on each other to up the ante and build expertise. 

Idea Generation

Tips

For those who are just starting out or are considering expanding their business, Johnson also provided some tips for how to create your next big, sustainable idea. Johnson recommends you focus on progress, not perfection. This will help keep the focus on what is most important and takes some of the unnecessary pressure off. Going off this, Johnson also states, “don’t walk it back, walk it forward,” to ensure your ideas build off each other and authentically display your overall branding goals. In fact, many speakers over the weekend echoed this theme. Because your message is the core of your business, there should always be a strategy behind whatever you do. Stay connected to that core by zooming out every once in a while. It’s no secret that it’s easy to get bogged down in the details of conceptualizing and running a business, so taking some time to check in with yourself and your desires is necessary to keep the ship afloat.

Pricing

Paramount to this discussion is a topic no one likes to talk about: money. Though this conversation can be uncomfortable, SHA finds it important to talk honestly in order to allow the conference participants the best shot at getting out what they put in. The first step to this is realizing that what you’re doing is work, especially with the stigma, guilt, and unsafe circumstances associated with it, as Johnson put it. Dr. Ley reiterated this by saying that you are the business, so you should view your streams of income as not only supporting your work but yourself. Here lies the ultimate paradox within the sexuality community that McPherson spoke to. There is a misunderstanding about what we’re doing because sex should sell, but it often doesn’t as easy as one would think. To combat this, Midori gave us all the advice that she had once been given: tell others that their work has value. By affirming each other, we can not only grow our community but also create a culture of pay transparency and equity. Along these lines, Midori stated that money is not the only way to support someone. You could, for example, like and share someone’s social media posts or recommend their services to others. 

This also helps start what was referred to as the “funnel.” Ljubicich explained to us that a great way to get paid for your content is to start your audience out with user-friendly and free or low-cost content, and then work them down to more lucrative content (e.g., Patreon). Another way to earn a sustainable income is to ensure you’re able to age through the industry (as opposed to aging out) by diversifying income streams. 

A final price consideration should be paid to underserved communities. For BIPOC and other populations, Johnson recommends business owners have someone else pay for those services in the form of scholarships. SHA actually does this already with the BIPOC Collective scholarships. 

Journalism and Television Versus Social Media

Journalism and Television Tips

As far as relationship-forming goes, media appearances should be thought of as a partnership between the interviewer and the interviewee. To get off on a good foot, Dr. Ley suggests you engage with the journalists and editors of articles that you like or are in your wheelhouse on social media. This will make these writers aware of your expertise, so they will ask you for quotations next time. Then, you should interview and research the journalist; make sure their approach is appropriate for the specific article they hope to write featuring you. Thus, this mutual respect can and should be maintained.

Social Media Tips

In contrast to journalism and television media, social media can be a more personal way to connect with your audience. It can also be a great medium to trial and error product language as well as gauge engagement and build community, according to Sparks. Ljubicich adds that with the way social media algorithms work, trusting that the right people will find you often works better than trying to insert yourselves into spaces that don’t fit with sexual content. 

Mental Health

The final takeaway from the conference surrounds mental health while in the media or online. Jones and Dr. Donaghue agree that you have to take care of yourself in order to produce meaningful things and keep a growth mindset. Dr. Donaghue even shared a personal strategy from his arsenal: he keeps a file on his phone containing screenshots of all the positive messages he has received over the years. This can not only give you a boost when you’re feeling defeated, but it turns the negativity around the permanence of media on its head to make something positive and on message. However, Dr. Ley wrapped up this conversation by reiterating that not all strategies will be right for everyone. In this way, you should take what you need or like, and leave what you don’t. After all, engaging with the media is a highly personal goal and responsibility. 

Community Building

A key part of maintaining mental health is the ability and responsibility to take others with you on your journey to success. “Lift while you climb” was stated early on in the conference by Dr. Donaghue, and it became a huge theme of the weekend. In fact, many of the presenters have had experiences in being a part of building someone’s career as they built theirs. For example, while creating MŌN, Jones founded a community of people dedicated to education and creation through dialogue. After stating “shame thrives in silence,” a conference participant, Adelina Adler, wrote, “one of the biggest tools to heal shame is community.” As this is one of SHA’s main objectives, too, Dr. Ley suggested to participants that they develop relationships with each other. 

By Summit Attendee: Emily Carriere