We did a blog back in November of 2022 about poaching and how it affects our community. It's time to revisit this subject.
One of the things we hear the most about Unfiltrd is how much creators love the community we have built on the platform. Creators promoting each other and propping each other up. Not seen as competition, even if they share a niche. We all have something unique to offer to our fanbase.
But something we're seeing more and more of, especially on social media, is complaints of poaching. Or behavior that can be seen as poaching. So let's talk about it.
What is Poaching
In our industry poaching refers to the act of attempting to get another creators followers and subscribers to follow and subscribe to your content. This is typically done by commenting on another creators content in order to get their clients to notice you, or using their following list to target their followers in mass message campaigns. If you see someone on your social media commenting that your followers should follow them, or posting their link trees in your comments this is poaching.
Poaching On Unfiltrd
So what does poaching have to do with Unfiltrd? Well, as previously mentioned, we've seen a rise in complaints from creators claiming that poaching is rampant on Unfiltrd. Creators commenting on other creators locked posts with nothing more than strings of emojis or otherwise. Though you may mean well, and your intention may be to support the creator by creating engagement on their post, this behavior comes across to most as a Poaching tactic. This causes the creator to be weary of your behavior and ultimately harms the community we've been building for the last two and a half years. If a creator thinks you're trying to poach their fans, they're not going to work with you for SFS or other collaborations.
Not only do we see creators balking at this behavior, but we also get members messages support and security to complain of a creator they dont even follow spamming their inboxes with unlockable content. A lot of these complaint come from members who came to the platform for one specific creator and they get really annoyed with being spammed by someone they don't know, dont follow, and had never heard of until they popped up in their inbox.
What You Can Do To Help
On Unfiltrd we have built out a multitude of ways to build engagement without spamming other creators comment sections to get noticed. We have the discovery page which features every post on the platform and can be filtered by tags. So tag your content with the niches you work in to get the most attention from the people interested in that niche. This does not mean that a brunette should be using the blonde tag. That's just disingenuous marketing.
There's also the trending section that complies all of the content with the most interactions- likes and comments. And though you think you're helping creators get to this page by interacting with their content, it comes off as shady and a lot of creators don't appreciate it. let the creators fan base get them into the trending section. Stay out of other creators comment section unless you actually know them. I have a rapport with a few creators whom I either recruited to the platform or knew well before they joined. Theirs are the only comment sections I am in and it's usually to hype em up. If you don't know them and you're just following and interacting for the sake of it; Stop. Most platforms restrict creators from interacting with each other and fans unless they are specifically subscribed to those people. We would hate to have to build out this sort of functionality on Unfiltrd, but if we continue to receive these complaints, we're going to have to implement these practices.
That's all we have today. Have a profitable week!
K love you byeeeeee
Sara Lyn.