I’m a fan of criticizing our society and everything I think is wrong with it.
But I’m also a diehard realist, and always consider if what I’m suggesting is possible.
This either creates hope of change, or a harsh realization of inevitability.
That’s the crossroad I’m at regarding self-promotion.
I don’t like self-promotion. I can’t say I don’t do it at all, but I really despise everything about it. I trust traditional word of mouth, on two good friends sharing something great with each other in a regular conversation. I believe that providing and spreading value should be done by two different people. There’s no real difference between the noise of advertising and the noise of self-promotion, but somehow the latter has been increasingly accepted lately. The reason? It works.
Or so people say…
Self-Promotion Limits
Let’s assume it works for a second. Why does it work? My guess is because we have friendly relationships with a group of people that feels obligated to like us, to like what we do, to be our first audience and our first advertisers. Initial self-promotion will hide our content’s true value. It’s just friendly reciprocity. Our friends are equally bad indicators of success as they are at giving honest criticism.
The real reason “it works” is because it brings fast results, and that’s all we need in this fast paced and impatient world of ours. Self-promoters have followers that they wouldn’t have if they hadn’t self-promoted their work. That’s why I really can’t say anything to those that do it, because they DO have results to back up their decision to self-promote. But what kind of results?
It took Seth G. and Gary V. years to reach the point where they are at right now. Not only years of hard work translated into innovative ideas and business success, but also years of patience. Patience waiting to show up in the media and real life friendly chats. Maybe unconsciously, but they did it anyway. Let’s see which bloggers, PR people, social media advisors and other practitioners, reach that level of success 10 or 15 years from now. There’s a difference between 25,000 and 1,000,000 followers, and self-promotion can only take you so far.
The great ones talk. The average ones yell.
Self-promotion Placebo
The problem with self-promotion is perception.
We think that the more we self-promote, the better results we get. That if we haven’t gotten enough responses is because we haven’t promoted it enough. This may be true in the beginning of the journey (and even this is questionable), but once you reach average success, self-promotion is just noise (which your friends won’t call you on). Self-promotion ends up working as a gratification placebo. Since we don’t get the response we want from our community, we do it ourselves, therefore creating the false perception of good quality content.
Newsflash: it didn’t get promoted because it wasn’t good enough, or it was aimed at the wrong people.
The reason there’s usually only a handful of really successful promoted posts in each blog (if we define success by comments, retweets and such), is because it’s hard to create that kind of content consistently. It has nothing to do with promotion.
We are trying to make the boring sound new and interesting, and we are failing every time.
Average success through self-promotion only fuels our desire for more attention. And a high need for attention paired up with low quality of content will eventually hurt our reputation.
Self-promotion Decision
A smart guy on Twitter said to me once: “Stop having faith in humanity. It’s far easier to just not.” And maybe he’s right.
But if he is, I’d rather lose.
If self-promotion and an irresponsible generation of noise is what it takes to thrive, I’d rather remain hidden and true to my values. I may be looking for a noise-less utopia, but it is because I think noise is more harmful than what we give it credit for, and self-promotion is a big factor behind it.
Integrity is more important than marketing victories.
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A good decision and a true observation concerning the limits of self-promotion. Delivering good content is the most important thing to be part of the solution, not the problem. Hopefully your approach would be taken by more people: Do good things, give them time, accept if something doesn’t work. All of us would be better off that way…
That’s my hope. Thank you Fabian.
I think the biggest problem is misdirected self-promotion, not so much the idea of self-promotion itself. People can easily tell when you’re sharing your work with them because you feel they would be genuinely interested and when you’re sharing it in the hopes you’ll get a few proverbial pats on the back. If someone has taken the time to get to know me – what interests me, what I may learn from – I have no problem with them promoting their own work.
You’re right though, Carlos…integrity is far more important that retweets ever will be. But I believe self-promotion CAN be done with integrity, and when it is, it becomes far more powerful than empty, braggadocio proclamations ever can be.
The problem here is that that “trade” or “pact” of knowing you in exchange of they promoting their work, is that you are not only person on the receiving end of the promotion. Many others with a different philosophy of yours would have to put up with the noise as well.
Ah! You were eavesdropping on my conversation this morning weren’t you???
I 100% agree with your thoughts here. It’s of great value to talk to each other, as friends, as normal human beings and exchange ideas or thoughts. Your final words of integrity being more important than marketing victories is really spot on. It’s up to people to figure out their niche, but ultimately, this will fail them if it’s not really who they are.
LOVE this post.
Thanks a lot Beth, I did eavesdrop but I wanted it to be a surprise, that’s why I didn’t tell you
Great post!
I’ve always that inner anti-boasting gene… I like the motto “actions speak louder than words”.
Id have to agree with Sarah tho. I think self promotion can be done with integrity.
Tim Ferris for example was voted the best self promoter a year or two ago by wired – but his “shameless self promotion” never annoys me, actually I enjoy all of his stuff because its he has solid content.
Not all self promotion is an irresponsible generation of noise
While an award is usually a democratic opinion, meaning that maybe I DO feel that Tim’s promotion is noise, the main problem here is that you are talking about a minority. Why? Because only a few people are capable of creating quality content consistently, so by allowing everyone to do it, we are allowing mediocrity to promote mediocre work.
Any new venture has to start with self-promotion. You can’t have word of mouth advertising before you have your first customer!
When I started my computer sales business in college, the first thing I did after filing all my paperwork and getting all my ducks in a row was tell my friends that I started a business selling computers and asked them if they new anyone in the market for a new computer. I self-promoted until I had a base to spread the word for me.
This is the counter-argument that I was looking for
I’m already working on a post that will be the reply to this counter-argument, but for now, let’s just say this: people aren’t companies. We can’t apply the same rules.
Carlos,
You obviously aren’t on the United States Supreme Court! While I agree that companies aren’t people, I’m not so sure that we can apply the inverse across the board.
As I mentioned to Tim below, everyone starts somewhere. What you do, whatever it is, provides value to someone somewhere. But until they know that you can provide value for them, they have to be told. Before word-of-mouth can happen, self-promotion has to happen.
People can be companies. But not all of them are. OwlSparks is not a company, so I shouldn’t promote it as such.
“Before word-of.mouth can happen, self-promotion has to happen.”
Depending on the transparency of intentions. When money is the clear goal, we customers are more tolerant, understanding and don’t care about your feelings.
OwlSparks is not a company, so instead it is an extension of yourself. It provides insights of you via your insights of the world. Promoting OwlSparks is self-promotion, just like I promote myself when I promote my blog.
When you promote it, you implicitly say “Hey, I thought of something insightful and am sharing it with you. I am providing value for you.”
I can only think of one person who self-promotes to the point of annoyance on Twitter. And I stop following that person for periods of time because I can’t take it.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t encourage anyone to apologize for self-promotion. If it’s good, don’t feel bad about sharing it.
Everyone thinks it’s good. That’s exactly the problem. We should all shut up a little bit more just in case we are mediocre, even if we don’t see it.
Ah, but good is just a matter of taste. It’s a circular argument.
“The great ones talk. The average ones yell.” Oh, so true.
Before we started our travels and website, we had no experience with blogs, promotion or social media. We’ve picked things up along the way through trial and error. We certainly know more now about all these things than we did three years ago. But, we are still struggling with this issue of self-promotion. We’re not very good at it – we’d rather our work get “recognized” for its quality and value instead of spamming it everywhere or playing the “I’ll promote you if you promote me” regardless of the specific content or product in question. But, sometimes I feel that our – or another person’s – good content doesn’t get the attention it should get because of the lack of self-promotion.
The peace I’ve come to terms with is that I may not ever be “successful” in online or social media numbers, but I am happy with the decision to staying true to the content we feel is quality. Our small online and offline community appreciates this and one day I think that will lead to something more sustainable and interesting. If not, that’s OK too. Life is about trying new things and always experimenting.
“But, sometimes I feel that our – or another person’s – good content doesn’t get the attention it should get because of the lack of self-promotion.”
This happens to me all the time. It’s not self-promotion what you are lacking. the harsh reality is that what YOU think it’s great, others may not. OR what it IS great, it’s not what your audience is looking for, so it would get more recognition aimed at the right people.
I love your philosophy guys, I’m there with you.
This is one topic I definitely get torn back and forth on. I’m not a fan of self promotion, by nature, but I see the results it can achieve. And as Rebecca said, if it’s good, and you’re proud of it, why not share it?
I think there’s a line between being totally full of yourself and self promoting way too much, and self promoting enough to increase sales but not be totally self involved. That line is so hard to judge though, in my opinion.
Increase sales?
Like I said above, people aren’t companies.
How many bloggers for example, that are constantly yelling out about their posts do you see making sales?
We need more control, more quality consciousness.
The sales may not be immediate, but folks may be self promoting communities that they plan to generate income with down the road,
I agree with you, though, we do need more control.
I agree: “The great ones talk. The average ones yell.”
I disagree: “People aren’t Companies.” Life is people and companies are created through them. If you have something of value to someone else that people are willing to pay for, that is a company. Prostitution is the oldest career in the world. (wikipedia) Stop for a second and think about how many thousands/millions of people have always done what you are ranting against. Consulting anyone? It is not that the fundamentals have changed rather the ability for one person to find people has changed. With that said, there are a lot of people with absolutely no value to anyone that somehow make money from yelling HIRE ME and that is where I think you are coming from.
Great post as always.
Shane Mac
@shanemacsays
Companies and people’s intentions, goals and ways to reach them are very different. They are different states of the same thing, if you will. Prostitution is a one person’s company. The problem here is that you are making it about the money, and I’m not. I don’t want to reveal all my arguments right now, so I’ll promise I’ll post something soon regarding this topic, and I will love to hear your thoughts there
Here are my thoughts… not all about the money:)…
http://www.m2volt.com/blog/2010/01/do-business-like-a-prostitute/
I’m a new blogger, and I do my best to be happy with whatever the results of my site may be. Part of me tells me not to even post here because if I do my URL will be attached, and that would be self-promotion, and what if people think I’m full of myself? And then they’ll think I’m mediocre because I don’t have the content to back up the message (or whatever) I’m writing on, and because of that I feel bad that I wrote anything in the first place because I suck…
At least that’s where the train of thought would be going if I let it; but here I stand, posting a comment.
Tim,
Every blog, every company, every personal reputation has to start somewhere and sometime. We don’t spring forth from Zeus’ head, fully grown.
My own blog is in it’s fledgling stage. I think I might have one regular reader at this point. But I don’t hesitate to bring it up if it contains something relevant to the conversation. Because no matter how much you write, no matter how well you write, no matter how insightful, thought-provoking, or creative you are, without readers, without participants, a blog isn’t successful.
Blogging, like social media, is a two-way street. Actually, it’s a three-way or hundred-way street. Promote it and yourself, so that others can come and contribute and add value to it which will benefit you and your blog, but also other readers.
Tim, I disagree with Edward, and here’s why:
You are both confusing self-promotion with transaction.
When you self-promote, you are only asking me to do something. You are asking me to check out whatever it is you’re “selling.”
When you are making a transaction, the value you provide may or may not lure me into seeing what else you are working on. If you leave an insightful comment, we will check out what you do. If you are really creating something valuable and worth mentioning to people, we WILL do it. It’s good for me as well to be your first promoter, because I would be strengthening my relationship with you, and because it would speak well of me to discover that kind of quality. There’s nothing wrong with adding your link to your name, because you’re creating noise by doing it, you’re creating value with your comment and you are letting me choose if I want to discover what else you do.
Yes, maybe we will ignore you if after checking out your content we don’t think it’s great. But that’s the way greatness reaches the surface, by passing that test. Are you up to the challenge?
Am I up to the challenge? Such an excellent question…
Damn it! I am! I wouldn’t be doing any of this if I didn’t think I was.
Domo arigato Carlos-san. Domo.
I sympathize with your line of thinking. I have never had to rely heavily on self-promotion before as I followed the more ordinary path within established corporate structures of business. Having just struck out on my own, starting my blog, and other entrepreneurial endeavours, I am torn between what I perceived as the importance of self-promotion, and my reluctance to engage in it.
I’m like you. I can’t stand it. But began to see it as necessary. And see myself doing it now, however much I would like to resist it. I see the merits in what you’re saying. It’s comforting to read that I may have been overemphasizing it, and that it may not be as much of a necessary evil as I thought it to be. The ‘necessary’ part of that phrase being the one I question now.
The concept that it will only take you so far is spot on. Patience and integrity will always get you farther.
Oh! And I can’t stand people who YELL! I always find people don’t want to listen to them. Especially me. Ha.
Necessary is an illusion. Self-promotion is not necessary, is just a shortcut to a “lower than true greatness” spot.
I am fine with people tweeting their posts a few times – but you are right – the harsh reality is that sometimes your post sucks and it doesn’t matter how many times it’s tweeted, i’m not interested. It amazes me when people say “I put out good content.” Everyone should think they put out good content, but “good” is in the eye of the beholder.
Good is interesting, authentic, and relevant. It depends on the person if any given post resonates with them on all three of those points.
Also, I think we all know who the self-promoter is that we constantly write these posts about – yet this same person keeps seeing results in the form of comments, fans, subscribers, etc. So he will keep promoting his stuff incessantly. Some of us think this is a tragedy, and 500 other people out there think this guy walks on water.
It’s not that self-promotion is always bad, but more that the level of self-promotion you do will attract a certain type of person. If you self-promote a lot you will attract someone who loves self-promoters because they assume they will get something back. And then it’s just a circle jerk, albeit a large circle.
Monica,
Love the response… Especially, “Good is interesting, authentic, and relevant.” Look forward to making our chat happen soon…
Thanks,
Shane
So, am I aiming for a jerk-less utopia?