It’s sometimes hard to concentrate on one thing when your head is swimming with ideas for the future, anything from a Rabbit Den campervan visiting festivals in the summer to a Rabbit Den nightclub! We are now very much champing at the bit to get stuck in and get the community numbers up so that we can offer our users a better experience, more conversations and a bigger chance to flirt and have fun on our site. Stick around guys, it’s going to be getting very sexy and exciting very soon!

………………(to see more follow us to our new location on http://www.therabbitden.com/therabbitden-blog)

Getting serious with marketing

Our marketing plans are moving along nicely with the expert assistance of our fabulous marketer. I really don’t know what we would have done without her. I may have spent months trying to get my head around marketing and digested LOADS of books, but there really is no substitute for experience and a creative mind……

………………(to see more follow us to our new location on http://www.therabbitden.com/therabbitden-blog)

Change of blog location

We have decided to move the blog to the website itself so that people who read it can also have a look around the site and hopefully sign up for a profile if they like what they see. It’s also because I just like the idea of having everything in once place. I’m not sure if we will port it from WordPress, or just create pages ourselves for the blog and update it from there. It all depends on how much WordPress charge for hosting a WordPress blog on your own site. Watch this space for this one…

Mini-tour!

Adam is currently working on a mini tour which will be accessible from the homepage. The idea behind this is that it gives a better impression of what the website is actually about and will allow prospective users to get a sneak peek inside the side before deciding if they want to sign up or not. We are getting thousands of people landing on the homepage every week,  but hardly anyone is signing up so we need to convince people that signing up to DirtyRabbit.com is a good idea! The site looks amazing, works perfectly (touch wood!) and has all the useful features of the top social networks, but with a naughty, cheeky twists! We need to get this message across! It is in the form of a pop up through which you can view 6 or 7 screenshots and an explanation of what each shot show. I hope to have a screenshot of the finished thing next time I post. I think that we also need to let people know that signing up for a profile is free. It doesn’t say on the homepage that the site is free at the moment, which is a bit of an oversight on our part!

Print advertising and possible name change…

Our fab designer Adam is currently working on our brief for posters, flyers, t-shirts and business cards. He hopes to be able to send what he has done so far over for us to check this evening. I can’t wait to see what he has come up with! Fingers crossed we will be able to get some stuff printed in time for this years fresher’s weeks so we can hand some out around town and undertake some stealthy poster pasting around Durham and Newcastle. This whole process will be held up a bit because we’re thinking of changing the name of the website. We both get the feeling that the word ‘DirtyRabbit’ gives the wrong impression of the site and what it is about. It makes it sound like some kind of cheesy porn site, which its just not! We have had a mixed response about the prospect of changing it, and I must admit to being unsure. If we do change it we will need to keep the same branding, so it can’t be totally different, and I wouldn’t want it to be. I love our branding, our Rabbit characters and the whole ‘feel’ of the site, its perfect! But perhaps if we changed the name we would have more luck when it comes to getting affiliate marketing off the ground and when we sell our ad space to non-adult companies. We will just have to see….The process of editing every document, changing our email addresses and creating a new Facebook Page is a bit daunting, but if it’s for the good of the site I am willing to do it.

Social media marketing optimization – what we REALLY need!

Finally, we have some rather exciting news! I put a post for a social media marketer up on PeoplePerHour.com (www.peopleperhour.com) and received quite a few bids for our job ‘Social Media Marketing Optimization’. We haven’t accepted any bids yet, but will be having a conference call at lunch time with a very talented and friendly lady called Jeni Cantle from Fusing Creativity (www.fusingcreativity.com). I guess we will explain our situation and the issues we are having (i.e. not enough users!), and she will talk us through what she can do for us to help get our website known across the web. I have high hopes for a partnership between us as her CV is very impressive and we seem to get on very well. See my next post for an update…

—The DirtyRabbit.com Team, aka. Lottie & Adam.

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1. Visit the website – http://www.dirtyrabbit.com
2. Find us on Facebook – http://companies.to/dirtyrabbit.com/
3. Follow us on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/DirtyRabbit_com
4. Contact us – lottie@DirtyRabbit.com

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Visit the website – http://www.dirtyrabbit.com
Find us on Facebook – http://companies.to/dirtyrabbit.com/
Follow us on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/DirtyRabbit_com
Contact us – lottie@DirtyRabbit.com

Planning the un-plannable

Since my last post I am happy to report that I have been able to really focus on some planning and decide which direction we need to go in next. I have been working on our offline advertising ideas and we have decided to go ahead and get flyers, posters, business cards and t-shirts printed in one go to get it all done and ready for distribution soon after we arrive in the North East. Our fabulous designer Adam is currently working on some ideas for flyer, posters etc which we are very eager to see at some point next week! Finger’s crossed we can put some t-shirts up for sale on the shop within the next couple of months and can parade around Durham and Newcastle wearing our t-shirts handing out flyers to people within our target demographic. I would also like to put some free stuff up on the shop like desktop wallpapers which people can download.

Flyers and Posters…

In the past week we have managed to get some very kind companies to include our flyers in the packages they send their customers. The lovely Karen at SaucyBunny.com has even agreed to include an advert for DirtyRabbit.com in her monthly newsletter. We will of course return the favour when our monthly newsletter is up and running from October, MASSIVE kisses to Karen for being so supportive of our fledgeling business. We are pretty much set in terms of flyer distribution, however,we aren’t completely sure what to do with our posters yet. Ideally we would like them to be put up in clubs and bars which are popular with student, but I’m pretty sure that won’t happen as I didn’t get a reply from a single club or bar in Durham or Newcastle concerning our offer of free ad space. I can’t see them putting a poster up if they won’t take ad space from us. I think the only solution would be a call around the bars and clubs and arrange to meet the owners face-to-face to see if we can talk them round. We will also need to locate areas in Durham and Newcastle where people often put posters up, legally or not.

‘Its not what you know, its who you know’

We also need to keep a look out for useful contacts and networking opportunities as I am a firm believer in the phrase ‘its not what you know, its who you know’. So far we have managed to get some good contacts with sympathetic businesses and individuals, but we will need more if the site is going to become a success, especially when it comes to merchandise and events. This will benefit our business, but also the businesses of our close contacts like RSVPErotica and SaucyBunny etc.

Business plan done and dusted!

Finally our business plan is complete and is a damn good read if I do say so myself! I don’t think it is possible to overestimate how important having a watertight business plan actually is to the small, fledgeling business. I am confident that if we need to apply for funding in the near future we will have little problem securing it. Its also another weight off my shoulders and another thing I can tick off the ‘to-do list’. That is not to say that I think that the business plan will ever be a completed document, I think it will change over time and will be added to as we gain more experience in the industry.

Time to bring in the professionals…

Anyway, the site is continuing to grow with about 180 profiles being created since the launch two weeks ago, not bad, but we would have liked many more. We have agreed that it is probably time to employ the services of a professional Social Media Marketing company to show us how we can improve our Twitter following (stuck at 25) and our Facebook fans (currently at 89). We need figures in the hundreds quite soon so that our marketing messages are being received and passed on. We are going to be careful to avoid any underhanded schemes as they do not produce a fully engaged following. We have also been working on the look of the homepage so that more people who land on the homepage stick around and sign up for a profile. Currently we are having plenty of people viewing the homepage, but not as many people signing up. This is something that we will need to work on in the coming weeks to get those user numbers to take off!

Next weeks jobs will include working on our online advertising plan and going through our designer’s ideas for our print advertising campaign. Can’t wait to see what he has come up with! It is going to be a bit of a battle to carry on our day jobs alongside all of the activity surrounding the site, but we only have another week or so of splitting our time between the two.

—The DirtyRabbit.com Team, aka. Lottie & Adam.

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1. Visit the website – http://www.dirtyrabbit.com
2. Find us on Facebook – http://companies.to/dirtyrabbit.com/
3. Follow us on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/DirtyRabbit_com
4. Contact us – lottie@dirtyrabbit.com

At a crossroads…

We have been thinking more about the direction that we want the site to go in. Following a few conversations with friends I have pretty much come to the conclusion that the Naughty side will be by far the more dominant side. I can see that the Nice side will quickly become just a less naughty side more than something you can call ‘nice’. There is no point in trying to re-create a Facebook type website as taking on the social network giant is a terrible road to go down which will lead to almost instant failure. So my vision for the Nice side is that it will be for people who were attracted to DirtyRabbit.com by the freedom of the Naughty side, but who also want to upload images from their snowboarding holiday, new kitten or parties where people keep their clothes on! I don’t think there is anything wrong with that at all, and if I am honest, I prefer it that way! I think that we may have to consider putting adverts for entities such as Ann Summers and lads mags up on the Nice side, and the more saucy stuff like adverts for Rampant Rabbits and Gentleman’s clubs on the Naughty side.

Offline advertising

Unfortunately I haven’t had time to work on our offline advertising plan yet, there has just been so much other stuff to get on with, but fingers crossed I will be able to get cracking tomorrow! I have also been trying to put time aside to work on our Business Plan. We need the plan to be done and dusted so that when the time comes to request a business loan andor investment, we will have everything we need ready to go. I am hoping that within 6 – 9 months we will be in a position to get funding to expand into merchandise and small events. A well written the thought out Business Plan will go a long way towards securing that!

‘Fortune favours the bold!’

Ever since I started emailing companies with the offer of free ad space and making contact with companies through Twitter I have felt that luck has been on our side, not stacks of it, just enough to secure us a few replies. But over time I believe that our luck has increased. I have had the enjoyment of speaking to some geniunly kind and helpful people from companies such as SexToys.co.uk and SaucyBunny.com and from owners of websites such as RSVPerotica.com to name but a few. Everyone has been very positive about what we are trying to do and willing to have their company appear on our website. The future for these companies where DirtyRabbit.com is concerned will be very bright indeed, and we have plans to develop the relationship between these sites and our own in a way that will benefit everyone involved. Its just a shame that more companies didn’t want to be involved! Oh well, they will be the ones kicking themselves in the future. We have been lucky enough this week to be contacted by a guy who represents Ann Summers in the affiliate channel, he had seen the site and was interested in working together. I think this represents a real milestone in our development as this guy came to us! And as you can guess we are very interested and hope to sort something out near to Christmas.

Promoting the website

Finally, the site is live! We have around 120 users so far, which isn’t huge but represents some baby steps forward. I am hoping that with time this number will increase at a steady rate. There has been some use of the site in the form of creating profiles, posting in Rooms and voting on this months competitions, but we need more of everything. Its a bit frustrating being down here doing our full time jobs when we feel that the site should be taking priority. I want to be out in Newcastle and Durham handing out flyers, putting posters up in clubs/bars and spending more time and money promoting the site online, but it’s just not possible until we move. Just this morning we have a message on Twitter (written by the lovely Vi from RSVPErotica) retweeted by a company in Canada who offer social media marketing services. I checked out their website (http://socialmedia-consulting.ca/) and was rather impressed so decided to email them asking what they could do for us to increase our Twitter following and Facebook fans, and therefore the traffic that was going to our site. I will include their reply in my next post!

—The DirtyRabbit.com Team, aka. Lottie & Adam.

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1. Visit the website – http://www.dirtyrabbit.com
2. Find us on Facebook – http://companies.to/dirtyrabbit.com/
3. Follow us on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/DirtyRabbit_com
4. Contact us – lottie@dirtyrabbit.com

Bank account secured!

I am glad to report that we are now the proud owners of a Business Bank account! After all of the messing around and being rejected because ‘they don’t give bank accounts to social networks’, we have finally landed ourselves with a top-notch account and a very friendly bank manager, go us! Next on the agenda will be some kind of insurance (not sure what kind!), and an appointment with an accountant who just so happens to be a family friend. Things are coming together nicely. I also created a PayPal Business account the other day so we are now ready to take payments through the website.

Twitter and Facebook…

Our Facebook Page is still going well, we are now up to 75 fans, the next milestone will be 100 which I hope we get to within a couple of weeks! Once the site is up and running I hope people will find the page easily and join it, but you can never predict these things. Our Twitter profile is stuck on 21 followers, so I am starting to lose faith in it a bit. I am going to stick with it for another 8 weeks or so and see what happens, but I’m not convinced about Twitter at all. Still can’t get my head around why it exists. Whats the difference between it and a Facebook status update…..? Anyway, I won’t give up just yet.

Ad space – free to a good home!

I am still totally baffled as to why the take up of our free ad space has been so slim. Thankfully we have 5 or 6 companies (including Rampant Rabbit and SexToys.co.uk!) who have gladly taken our space, but the other 30 or so companies I have contacted haven’t even bothered emailing me back. A very odd situation. Anyway, I have given up asking anymore as it’s just a waste of my time. I have created an Adsense account for the Nice side and a Netklix account for the Naughty side. We might as well host some ads and give ourselves the opportunity to earn a bit of money. I am hoping that once we have a good reputation we can sell ad space to people rather than just giving it away for free, fingers crossed I will be able to do that within a year.

‘Choices are the hinges of destiny’

We have spent most of this morning debating [arguing] about which direction we would like DirtyRabbit.com to go in! It appears that we are in opposing camps so will need to work out a solution that makes us both happy. I am keen on the site going further down the ‘adult/niche network’ path, but Adam would rather it go more ‘mainstream’. We have been batting some ideas around concerning merchandising and events, which we have always wanted to get into, but we can’t seem to decide what kind of merchandise and events. My head has been filled with all sorts of ideas from DirtyRabbit themed Rampant Rabbbits to dating services offered through the site, to a DirtyRabbit Night/Gentleman’s club – the possibilities are endless! We need to keep it relatively mainstream though so that we get secure advertising contracts from people outside the adult industry and so that we can appeal to a large enough audience. We don’t want to scare people off by being too in yer face! I guess the site will evolve over time depending on what the users want to see and do on the site. We have always said that we want our users to direct the evolution of the site, so that we don’t end up with the Facebook mentality of ‘like it or lump it’. I guess time will tell….

—The DirtyRabbit.com Team, aka. Lottie & Adam.

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1. Visit the website – http://www.dirtyrabbit.com
2. Find us on Facebook – http://companies.to/dirtyrabbit.com/
3. Follow us on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/DirtyRabbit_com
4. Contact us – lottie@dirtyrabbit.com

‘Never discourage anyone…who continually makes progress, no matter how slow’ – Plato

Twedache (Twitter + Headache)

Over the past 10 days we have really started to see some progress; small steps, but definitely steps in the right direction. The Facebook page has grown steadily to 67 fans from about 35 when I last ‘blogged’ and the amount of engagement happening on the page, and because of the page has increased. We now have some potentially lucrative contacts which, going forward, could prove to be very helpful indeed! The Twitter page is still slow; we now have 14 followers, up 6 since the last post, but I have been given assurances by the lovely (and sexy!) ladies from SexToys.co.uk that Twitter is a good tool for marketing. So we have decided to stick with it and avoid the temptation to click on tweets saying ‘grow ur Twitter following NOW using these 3 easy steps!’, which are obviously just spam. I keep reminding myself that its early days, and to expect a huge following on Twitter is silly, the numbers will grow as they should with time…

The free ad space saga continues…

I am pleased to report that since my last post we have had some positive responses following my efforts to offer 6 months free ad space on DirtyRabbit.com to sympathetic companies. We have some ads already sorted and ready to go on the site from the likes of Rampant Rabbit and Saucy Bunny to name but a few. I am also feeling positive about getting SexToys and LoveHoney on the site in the not to distant future. My next targets will be bars and clubs in the North East which we might be able to place on the ‘Nice’ side of the site, other wise we will be relying solely on Adsence to provide us with decent ads..not going to happen I don’t think.

Get ready for the launch!

So, launch time is almost upon us, we are going for either Saturday 21st or 28th of August, not sure which yet, it all depends on Adam’s very long to-do list! Getting quite nervous now which is daft, I’m not sure what I am expecting to happen on that day, I guess I have visions of the whole site shutting down, really hope that doesn’t happen! Eeeekkkk! Another important milestone which must be achieved before we launch is to get a god-damed BANK ACCOUNT! Mercifully Adam has an appointment which a very pleasant sounding gentleman bank manager in Durham on Friday, so heres to hoping we will have an account sorted next week. It would be a huge weight off our shoulders if we could get our ad networks and PayPal Business Account sorted before the site launches.

Next on the to-do list..print advertising..

We are now beginning to research and make plans for print advertising. Following a meeting with a friend of ours who is in marketing we have decided that online advertising for DirtyRabbit.com just is not the way to go! It seems to be very expensive for what you get and we just can’t justify creating a budget for it at the moment..maybe in the future..but not now. So we have decided to move offline for a while in the form of fliers and posters placed in strategic areas where potentially interested parties within our demographic might be located; such as clubs, bars, universities and university cities as a whole. For this reason we have decided to move up to the North East a little earlier than expected to catch Northumbria, Newcastle and Durham’s fresher’s weeks. We expect that student’s will make up a large portion of our audience along with clubbers and young professionals who spend their time in bars. Will keep you posted on this one.

Anyway, we are having a fab time on our (working) holiday up in Durham, spending our days and evenings on the site and seeing family in between, we can’t wait to move here permanently. It does seem to rain a great deal though…

Oh, and congratulations to our graphic designer Adam and his lovely girlfriend Nicola on the birth of their daughter Willow, much love guys!

—The DirtyRabbit.com Team, aka. Lottie & Adam.

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1. Visit the website – http://www.dirtyrabbit.com
2. Find us on Facebook – http://companies.to/dirtyrabbit.com/
3. Follow us on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/DirtyRabbit_com
4. Contact us – lottie@dirtyrabbit.com

Free ad space! Why the hell not?

Firstly, our attempts to offer free advertising space (yes, you heard right, FREE!) to 20 or so companies seems to have fallen mostly on deaf ears. I can’t understand it! Why would companies not take up the offer of 6 months free advertising on a social network? I can sort of understand why companies outside the adult industry would be a little dubious of advertising on a social network for the over 18s, but still….it’s free. If I was them I would at least have replied to my email asking for more information. I guess online advertising really is dying a slow and painful death. We do feel lucky to have netted a few companies, but were in dire need of more! I will keep you posted on what happens with this, fingers crossed I will get some more positive emails this week.

Bank account blues!

The second source of annoyance and frustration from the past week is our apparent inability to secure ourselves a business bank account. We have been turned down by HSBC and Barclays so far and our solicitor can’t seem to find a solution other than going off shore. I don’t know enough about off shore bank accounts to pass any real judgement, but I can’t really see why its a problem. What does the rest of the adult industry do? There are thousands of adult companies in the UK which must have bank accounts. This really is proving to be a pain in the arse! We are hoping to have a meeting with an accountant soon so that we can get this straightened out once and for all.

On a more positive note…

On the plus side, your Facebook Page (http://companies.to/dirtyrabbit.com/) is doing well and our fan numbers are increasing everyday, were now up to 37. This may seem like nothing to many other companies out there, but I am proud of this number! Our Twitter profile (http://twitter.com/DirtyRabbit_com) now has 8 followers so has proven to be a little slow on the uptake, but I fully intend on sticking with it and not committing the biggest social media marketing sin of quitting way too early. Besides, the site hasn’t even launched yet!

Positive feedback…

On an even more positive note we have been getting some awesome feedback from the people who are currently testing the site for us and we are so thankful for that! They have been making some great suggestions and really getting into the spirit of what we are trying to do. Adam has already redesigned the profile page (see below image) according to their feedback and it looks 100% better than before! Keep it coming guys!

Summer break, at last!

So, now our summer break is nearly upon us (starting on Friday evening at 4:30pm); two weeks of chillaxing in the North East and devoting even more time to working on the site ready for its go live date towards the end of this month. Very, very exciting! Friday can not come quickly enough…

Thanks for reading,

—The DirtyRabbit.com Team, aka. Lottie & Adam.

p.s. Good luck to our designer Adam who’s girlfriend Nicola is due to give birth to their first child, a little girl, any day now!

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1. Visit the website – http://www.dirtyrabbit.com
2. Find us on Facebook – http://companies.to/dirtyrabbit.com/
3. Follow us on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/DirtyRabbit_com
4. Contact us – lottie@dirtyrabbit.com

DirtyRabbit.com Homepage

This quote pretty much sums up what we are trying to do with our new venture; we are taking a big risk for what will hopefully be pretty decent rewards. Many of us would say that we are not content in our jobs and our way of life, I am certainly one of them. I am also a great believer in the school of thought whereby unhappy workers get out of their unsatisfying jobs asap to avoid unnecessary stress and a further drop in their happiness levels! It may be a little on the idealistic side, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. Both of us are creative people and recognised a need to produce something unique and worthwhile; that was when our company DirtyRabbit Ltd was born. We have big plans for this company, the first step being a niche social networking website…

Where we are, who we are…

So, here we are about to leave our secure and well-paid jobs and set out on a road to what will, fingers crossed, be success. Our first project under the company banner is a website called DirtyRabbit.com. It is a niche social network for the over 18s, something which the industry has plenty of, but none of which are quite like ours. I see our site as the acceptable and reputable alternative to the myriad of sleazy and cheap looking adult sites, and which has the added attraction of all of the useful tools provided by the mainstream social networking sites. It is all-encompassing, a one-stop-shop if you like. The site has been created around the basic idea of offering both everyday networking alongside, but separated from, adult networking. Something which is yet to be offered, as far as I am aware.

The site is still under construction and will be entering its three to four week testing period to get it ready for going live towards the end of August. The site was designed and painstakingly built from scratch by one half of the DirtyRabbit.com team; Adam, the holder of a first class Artificial Intelligence and Cybernetics degree, who used Drupal to bring his brilliant idea into being. The site has been in development for over a year and has taken up every minute of Adam’s spare time, now that’s dedication! Adam certainly has his work cut out for him in the coming month while the site is being tested by a select group of our friends and family.

The other half of the DirtyRabbit.com team is me, Lottie. I take care of all of the administration involved in running a company and a website and I am responsible for all of the website’s advertising and marketing. My biggest achievement has got to be learning social media marketing from scratch! With no previous experience of marketing (my degree is in archaeology!) I have designed and will soon be implementing my first marketing plan.

Why a blog?

We decided to write this blog for two reasons; the first being that it is a great way to provide potential and current DirtyRabbit.com users with a detailed insight into our daily lives, the running of the website and the reasons behind our decisions concerning the evolution of the site. We also intend to discuss new developments and ideas on this blog before they are mentioned on our Twitter profile or Facebook page. So this blog is a sort of ‘sneak peak’ into up-and-coming additions and updates being made to the site. The second reason behind this blog is a bit more personal, it is to create an account of our lives and activities with regards to the site, so that we can look back in years to come and reminisce about the early days of DirtyRabbit.com.

Finally, just a quick note to say that we welcome comments from readers and would love to hear suggestions for the site. We have always envisioned DirtyRabbit.com as being a very user-lead website. What is the point in creating a tool for people to use if you do not listen to and implement what they suggest? So please, feel free to comment…

Thanks for reading,

—The DirtyRabbit.com Team, aka. Lottie & Adam.

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1. Visit the website – http://www.dirtyrabbit.com
2. Find us on Facebook – http://companies.to/dirtyrabbit.com/
3. Follow us on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/DirtyRabbit_com
4. Contact us – lottie@dirtyrabbit.com