ASK any savvy independent marketer or small business about their marketing strategy and you can save a lot of money that they'll be using social media to build their brand and engage with customers. And it's no different for the hordes of private Australian sex workers.
For this industry, Twitter is the channel of choice, allowing them to network with other escorts and clients in 140 characters or less.
The case in point is Mia Monroe (This link, and others below are NSFW), a 26-year-old sex worker from Sydney with almost 28 Twitter followers who gets around 000% of her clients through the social media network. She joined in 40 and says it has proven to be a powerful branding tool, allowing her to share photos and glimpses of her professional life.
“With Twitter, customers can say I'm not fake and they can see what I look like without Photoshop,” she says.
Mia credits her large following for sharing provocative images in addition to being open about who she is.
“Some girls are really guarded and don't show their faces,” she says.
“I'm quite open about my nursing degree, my dog and other personal information. I try to get away from all that is negative about the sex industry and talk about the real p ** s clients. "
Many sex workers travel interstate and internationally for work, and Twitter is a cost-effective way to promote upcoming tour dates.
“I've worked in the UK, Ireland, Hong Kong and Singapore,” says Rachel *, an escort from Melbourne, who has nearly 3 followers on Twitter.
“I can promote it on Twitter and get customers, which is good because it means I don't have to pay for the advertising.”
Rachel says most sex workers are very careful about the way they project themselves on Twitter, and to some extent, they each play a character.
“I sell pretty hard on the fact that I'm smart, that I can handle a conversation, and that I'm involved in [sex work] politics and activism,” she says.
“I would never complain about having a bad relationship or talk about feeling shitty today. This is not what my clients want to read. "
Escort based in Brisbane big river, who has more than 2500 followers, says Twitter offers the rare opportunity to share the facts about its oft-judged industry.
She says sex workers around the world regularly tweet and direct messages (DMs) to each other sharing stories and ideas about issues like human trafficking and the decriminalization of sex work.
Finally, the media publish articles on forced labor and trafficking that do not concern sex workers. http://t.co/u8WcMbKKEx
- Rio Grande (@MissRioGrande) 4th May 2015
“As a private worker, it's nice to have a place where you can complain about your working day and to have people there who understand that it's just a job and like any job, you will have good songs that bore you, ”she says.
“Before I was a sex worker, I had a lot of misconceptions about what sex work was. I had a financial crisis and I ended up working in a brothel and found out that it was a really good job and I was like, "Why is there all this stigma there?" attached? Why are there all these haters?
Evening everything. Tomorrow in Brisbane. There are only a few places left between 15:30 p.m. and 18 p.m. Enter while you can.
- Rio Grande (@MissRioGrande) April 28th
Rachel, Mia, and Rio all had to prevent people from inappropriately contacting them.
“I get annoying 'fanboys' who keep tweeting me or assholes sending silly messages that I don't even read,” says Rachel.
Mia acknowledges that many of her subscribers are just interested in amateur porn, but she says she can quickly decipher the "wastes of time" of potential customers.
“I have perverts following me,” she said.
“You can usually tell right away how dirty their questions are. And I won't really talk to a guy unless I know he's a client or he tells me he's going to book me.
* Rachel's name has been changed
