I’ve learned A LOT in the last month about community, collaboration, and prioritizing REST to turn my (pent-up) sexual energy into creative energy… and I’m ready to share.

Here’s how I pulled off one of the biggest moves as a Sex Ed content creator to date — securing sponsorship, increasing my following, and reaching hundreds with a LIVE event.

Back in May I did a 4-week LIVE podcast series called Pushing Pleasure.

My goals with creating this NEW kind of content were to:

1. Revive my podcast in a new way, which had been on a small break after burnout.

2. Take my content to the next level with interactive events and prizes! (I secured over $650 worth of products for audience giveaway!)

In short, it was fucking fantastic.

BUT some things got in the way of making it THAT much better… (an ode to the perfectionist in me)

Here’s what I wish I’d known before diving into LIVE content creation.

Some Event Stats:

• Reached over 400 live listeners, featured 20+ panel guests, and gave away over $650 in prizes

• 2 podcast episodes of archived ORIGINAL content. It would have been 4 episodes (1 per week) but watch the video to see why this didn’t pan out :(

• Increased my mailing list subscribers by 17%

• Secured 3 NEW brand partnerships with my deliverables

How I broke this 4-week sponsored event series down:

1. Picked dates & general structure (interview style / loose) 1- 1.5 hrs (it take time to build a room/vibe on Clubhouse)

2. Secured brand partnerships & giveaway products ($650+ in products - which wasn’t easy, but worth it)

3. Picked the themes for each week

4. Selected Guests based on their expertise & willingness to contribute

5. Outlined structure & questions per guests/topic

6. Assembled my team to execute/promote the event (PR, Technical, Outsourced digital assets to Fiverr, Cross promo on IG & word of mouth etc)

7. Post-event follow-up: made sure that giveaway items got to people, thanked guests & provided podcast episode links as a deliverable to brands, etc

Things I wish I’d known:

1. Technical aspects- like, always have a backup REMOTE recording. I can’t believe I failed at this… twice :/

2. How to advocate to get more/bigger brand deals. And not only products — I’m talking SCHMONEY, because this was hard as hell and took over my work-work for a month! Ideally, I want to build something out to where I can pay myself and my team. This was NOT the case this time; basically, I got paid in dildos. Hence this lovely tweet of mine here right here 👉🏽…

3. Have backup experts/ guests /cohost (a plant - even) Having a co-host or someone to feed questions to / have questions fed to you was a godsend! (I got tired of my own voice- Imagine that.) Also, some people say they will do things, and then don’t show up; prepare for last-minute (as in day-of or minute-of) drop-outs so you don’t get caught in the tailwind of others’ flakiness!

4. BONUS: Create a funnel with your CTA (call to action) / advertising breaks during the live podcast event) doing this helped my mailing list subscriber rate go up 17%, increased my following on Clubhouse by 100+ folks, and helped me gain traction with content creation to get my IG following past 1k! So those ‘annoying’ verbal reminders to 'follow me' & ‘fill out the Giveaway Form’ totally worked!

What I’ve learned:

• The value of my work does not deplete just because its not in-person (IRL)

• Prepare for the worst & hope for the best

• Ask for the specific support you need from people: your team, your followers/audience, and your brand partners

Leave your feedback about the Pushing Pleasure event if you happened to make it LIVE on Clubhouse or heard the re-cap episodes (11 & 12).

If you're into creating content, I’m cooking up something extra special very soon just for Sex Educators!

Let me know how you liked this Vlog by leaving a comment on YouTube😄 I might do more!

x Ari