Page 70 - AVN October 2017

FEATURE
FEATURE | By Stewart Tongue
REPUTATION MANAGEMENT
An industry veteran’s advice: Start now and hire wisely
You were 19 when you started. Nobody
mentioned that once you work in adult
it ends up on your “permanent record”
thanks to social media, IMDB, journalists
and the amazing reach of adult entertain-
ment to every corner of the world map.
Now you are retired from adult or have
moved on to start a career in something
else entirely and you are wondering what
Y
can be done to clean up the public per-
ception of your past. That’s what reputa-
tion management services are all about!
Here are some helpful tips that can save
you a lot of money and make your reputa-
tion campaign far more effective:
YOU CAN DILUTE THE NEGATIVE CONTENT BY
OVERWHELMING IT WITH POSITIVE CONTENT THAT IS
MORE INTERESTING, NEWER, MORE FREQUENTLY
UPDATED AND BETTER PRODUCED.
1. Be Proactive By Starting Early
The first thing to consider is the fact that starting earlier
makes all of this far easier. Things as simple as choosing a
stage name that is somewhat generic, and buying the .com
and .org versions of that name are helpful. So is owning the
social media accounts under that same name. Usually talent
who work in front of the camera are smart enough to obtain
their brand-name digital properties, but for people behind
the cameras or in the offices of porn companies it is equally
important to gain control over your name as best you can,
and as early as you can. If you fail to own your name, there is
a good chance someone else eventually will, and that person
may have far more mean-spirited intentions for that domain or
Facebook account than you would have had.
2. Understand What Can and Can’t Be Done
Legally
When clients contact me to discuss their
reputation issues, one of the first things they
typically tell me is “I want to sue the fuck out
of these people” and I have to calmly explain to
them that in most cases there is no legal cause of
action. There is nothing illegal about saying you
used to be a porn star, if in fact you used to be a
porn star. There is nothing illegal about listing all
the films you produced with your name on IMDB.
As long as the statements made are either true or
a matter of opinion, it becomes nearly impossible
to win any sort of defamation case against any
70 | AVN.com | 10.17