What is self-promotion?
Imagine you’re at a party, and you meet the guy who only wants to talk about himself. You know, that guy. Everything is about him. I bet that’s what you think of when you think about self-promotion: smarmy, selfish tactics that turn people off because they they bring no value.
On blogs, this kind of self-promotion arrives in the form of comment spam. The kind of comments I hate the most are not the automated ones, but the ones where someone actually put in some time and effort to say something, except they didn’t say anything truly valuable or worthwhile. They just wanted to drop a link. For the time spent, they could have achieved something much more.
On social media, this kind of self-promotion results in one-sided posts that promote only one thing: the person sending the message. These posts (tweets/stumbles/diggs/reddits/whatevers) only contain links to the person’s own sites, contain a large amount of affiliate links, and are often nothing but a sales message. None of this is considered terribly valuable by most people.
Is this all there is to self-promotion?
But is that all there is to self-promotion? Because if it is, we’re in big trouble. Every business needs to promote itself, so how can this be achieved if self-promotion is nothing but selfish ickyness?
Business visionaries like Tom Peters have often said that everyone is a marketer. The question implied by this is: so how good of a marketer are you? Tied to that is the idea that you should be aware of your status as a marketer. Awareness leads to improvement. Improvement leads to sales.
Just as you can sell without selling, you can self-promote without being that guy. How do I know? Because I (and many, many others) successfully do it every day. How? By doing things that don’t seem self-promotional at all, like helping other people.
My highly effective social media strategy has always been to provide value and engage with people. That doesn’t sound terribly self-promotional, does it? But when people have their lives enriched by what I do, how can that not help but promote me? If I engage in this strategy deliberately, then aren’t I promoting myself?
I view it as self-promotion, but in a way that doesn’t seem self-promotional. It doesn’t look like the old ways to promote which we’re all familiar with. People love to give out this “sage” advice about social media: don’t be overly self-promotional. I say that’s wrong. The trick is not to be “overly” self-promotional, the trick is to recognize that you are self-promoting in a completely different way.
Self-promotion 2.0, anyone? (Yeah, I know, but c’mon, what else are we gonna call it?)
Self-Promotion 2.0
Does this really work? Think of it this way: everything you do tells people something about you. The question is, are you aware of what your actions really say? The actions of a comment spammers say they’re only interested in helping themselves at the expense of others’ time and bandwidth. The actions of people who only post links to their own stuff in social media show they have no interest in you, no desire to really connect with you as a person.
When you’re conscious of what your actions really communicate, you communicate the message you want. When you’re deliberately shaping this, it is self-promotion and marketing. When your actions consist of helping others, actively promoting them instead of yourself, and generally providing the kind of value that makes your friends/followers glad they know you, you’re engaged in the best kind of self-promotion possible: the kind that doesn’t look like self-promotion. I don’t know who coined this term, but I like to call this “enlightened self-interest.” I know that helping others is good for me, too.
Follow the Leaders
You can see this in action by observing the success of any person who gathers a large crowd around them on social media. I mean the ones with the really huge followings. One of the main reasons why they draw such huge crowds is because people get what they feel is must-have information and help. Yes, there are other reasons, but this post isn’t about them.
Take Guy Kawasaki, for example. Guy is already well-known in tech marketing and branding because of his former role with Apple and his ability to speak, present, and market well. He created the news and topical super site Alltop. Not everyone likes what Guy does, because they feel he is over-promoting himself on social media (mostly Twitter).
There’s a problem with everyone’s problem with Guy, however. Every time he (or one of his “twitter ghosts”) posts a tweet, it is nearly always a link to someone else’s material. The link is on Alltop usually, or a link to Alltop is also provided in the tweet. In other words, Guy is practicing enlightened self-interest very effectively. When Guy posts your link, you know you’re gonna get some traffic!
By promoting others first, he promotes his own service. Even though some people don’t like what he does or how he does it, Guy’s strategy is an inarguable success. Thousands of people feel that what he does brings value to their lives (including me). You don’t have to be just like Guy to learn from his example. Do things your own way. My way is more low-key than Guy’s way.
They want what you want
We tend to think of self-promotion as something which is unwanted, like spam. That’s true if you’re self-promoting to people who don’t know you, don’t want you, and don’t care about you. But if you’re “preaching to the choir,” you have a much broader leeway allowable in your actions. If someone feels you’re not providing value to their life, they’re free to unfollow you or unsubscribe from your blog, but for the most part, you can assume your audience wants to hear what you have to say… otherwise, what the hell are they doing there? 
Of course I don’t mean this to imply that you should just shovel crap at them. But be careful about what it really means to give them “what they want,” because often what they want is what you want to give them. Your readers and followers trust your judgment, discernment, and insights, so give of them freely. Promote others and help people, and you cannot help but also promote yourself in the best possible way.
Inspiration
I had a lively exchange on Twitter with @Gennefer (a must-follow) in which we went back and forth about what is self-promotion. Our conversation is the inspiration for this post, and I wanted to take a moment to give credit where it’s due and thank Gennefer for being a great friend and an always excellent conversationalist. You can check out her website at http://www.gennefersnowfield.com/.
Your take
What are your thoughts on these ideas around self-promotion? Have you tried them and do they work for you? What hasn’t worked for you, and why do you think that is? Please add your comments!
Morning Michael, what a wonderful meaty post. I’ve had a harder time with self promotion than probably anything else online. For whatever reason, I feel shy to provide links to my own stuff or say I’m great at what I do. However, after eight months of seeing barren branches from this narrow mindset, I’ve learned the errors of my ways. Self Promotion 2.0, bring it on.
@Sean – There’s an art to it that no formula can successfully emulate. You don’t need to say you’re great at what you do quite so much as you need to show others that you’re good. Deliberately getting yourself in front of others so they can see that for themselves is the action that arises from the conscious decision to self-promote in this way. Social media and blog comments are two great avenues for this. I hope that makes sense.
Its definitely a tough one – the age old marketing challenge. Selling something (product, services, yourself, consulting, etc…) While not ‘pushing’ it on people that don’t want what you are offering. The trick is offering something valuable and connecting that with the right people – those that see what you are offering as valuable to them at that moment.
The social media world might change the game a bit.
My take – share about others at a 15:1 ratio !
http://twitter.com/franswaa
@Frank – You are absolutely correct. There’s an age-old saying in sales & marketing: people hate to be sold, but they love to buy. There is much wisdom in that. A ratio of 15:1 (others/self) can be a good rule of thumb, but it’s only a general guideline. I’m sure you will agree that rules are definitely made to be broken at times.
PS – the extra link to your twitter profile trips my blog’s comment moderation. If you left it out, your comment would appear right away and I wouldn’t have to manually approve it. Just sayin’.
I agree with this notion of self-promotion because there becomes a point when we must remember not to focus only on ourselves and promoting business but to combine learning, relationship building, and some form of promoting yourself (without going overboard and/or doing things that are against your personal code of ethics)
@Missaup – Yes, self-promotion is just one ingredient in the mix. I like how you mention a personal code of ethics, simply because most people do not think about what their ethics really are.
Michael,
This is an excellent and comprehensive post that encapsulates our discussion well. Hopefully, it will serve as a primer for those seeking to maximize the value of their engagements on Twitter or other social media platforms, but this concept works across interactions, both on- and offline.
I’ve always subscribed to the “value for the community = value for all” methodology, meaning that the benefits you receive by offering insights, solutions and assistance far exceeds gratuitous posts and self-aggrandizing commentary. The best way to demonstrate knowledge is by *sharing* it, not touting accolades or using socnets as a glorified blog feed or overt sales stream.
When I learn something new, I always share it with my community, which usually sparks a dialogue (similar to our exchange), and through that conversation, key areas of expertise are brought to light (for all parties involved), and salient nuggets are crystallized that spread throughout the network, attributed to each participant.
So, it evolves organically from a singular point of view to multiple perspectives around a topic, which translates into added value for everyone. The key is not to have the loudest voice, but to create a forum for *all* voices to be heard.
It’s the difference between being the conductor of a symphony where all instruments are brought together to create a harmonious composition vs. the tuba player trying to drown out the rest of the orchestra. So, you can choose to be the conductor, or the grandstanding horn player, but which one do you think demonstrates that they have the chops to create a magnificent opus? Or more accurately, which one do you think will get hired to lead a team?
Thanks again for the opportunity to participate in this important discussion, Michael. I look forward to many more of our always spirited debates in the future!
Gennefer
@Gennefer – I always learn a lot from you and I find your perspective to be a valuable counterpoint to my own. Seems we’re always on at angles to each other on issues–not exactly on the same side, and not on opposite sides. Kind of interesting, that.
My bad Michael … shameless 2.0 self promotion going on
Link no longer included.
To add another thougth … at work I find that talking things through with others to get more opinions and perspectives always (mostly) leads to a better solution.
It’s hard to not want the glory (or may that’s just me), but there is power in the community and collective ‘think tank’ that one individual can’t produce.
It always pays off to help, share and promote others!
Hi Mike,
This is a fascinating subject and it is one that needs to be thought about carefully. As you know, if you have a website or a business in general, self promotion, PR and ultimately traffic volumes will determine how successful your business is.
And a very popular way of self promoting is posting on blogs and social marketing websites in ordere to A) improve serach engine rankings using anchor text, B) to build a following of potential customers.
Heck I have no problem with self promotion as long as there is no obvious spamming going on and you are actually giving or adding value to readers.
I admit, when I post in blogs I leave my link to my website with my anchor text but I always try and write something informative which adds to the conversation.
Whether anyone likes it or not, if you run a business you need to promote it. And this means you do need to shout about what you are offering and why it is so good.
Naturally, this is going to ruffle a few feathers but you cannot please everyone and you just have to accept that sometimes your methods may not be liked by some but that’s just business.
So my view is that self promotion is critical to a businesses success but my advice is to think carefully about how you go about it.
Grant
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I had asked a question in Twitter looking for advice about blogging as I’m new to it.. Then I was reading this article. In the middle of reading it @remarkablogger was answering my question for me on Twitter. THAT’s exactly my favorite kind of self promotion, one that shows a person’s intention of ONLY being noise or of actually helping each other. I advice my clients to become part of social networking online and it’s incredibly hard to convince them that Twitter is not just people blasting their links at each other. It’s a community that has to be experienced before it can be understood.
Thank you again for your advice!
@Chrissy – You’re very welcome!
[...] Promote yourself without looking self-promotional – by Michael Martine [...]
This was very helpful to me…thanks for the information.
Eric Elliston
President of Elliston Consulting
http://www.ellistonconsulting.com
[...] provoking help with self promotion that doesn’t suck, check out Michael Martine’s blog http://remarkablogger.com/2009/04/06/self-promotion-20-promote-yourself-without-looking-self-promoti... and content. I think she has a great perspective on how to be effective with self promotion without [...]
Great post Michael – to some extent, everyone who is in sales goes out of their way to use euphemistic language which hides the extent to which they are involved in self promotion and the ‘selling’ of their product or service. Instead, we ‘offer’ products, we ‘provide’ solutions, and we ‘deliver’ services – anything, that is, but ‘sell’ them. However, deliberately avoiding self promotion can sometimes undermine a client’s confidence – if your client knows for sure that that they want whatever it is you are ‘offering’, ‘providing’ or delivering, then are happy to have it ‘sold’ to them. The challenge is to identify those clients in the first place!
Jonathan Fayers
Managing Director, Lava IP International Pte Ltd
Nice post Michael.
Seeming less “self-promotional” really makes your brand shine, and seem like it has some roots beyond just the owner promoting it. With self promotion, it is fine as long as the brand name is retained and by not spamming and churning out good quality content, you can attain that goal.
The more time i spend running my business the more i feel i need to work on doing this more!
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[...] out this blog post on self-promotion. Contains some really good tips for anyone that uses social media to source [...]
[...] out this blog post on self-promotion. Contains some really good tips for anyone that uses social media to source [...]
The most annoying comments I receive on any of my blogs are when my competition tries to build a backlink on my site. If they were providing good insite on my blog, it'd be one thing, but they excessively spam links or appear to not even have read the post.
Naturally building links are probably the best way. At the very least, going around reading blogs that interest you and then adding to them with a comment after you've read them are acceptable promotion in my mind. Great post, just found your blog and plan on checking out some other posts.
Thank you for sharing your point of view. I have been considering starting a blog to help promote my website but I have a self conscious feeling that nobody wants to hear what I have to say. After reading your article I am definitly going to start a Blog . I especially like what you said about preaching to the choir, very true ! If they dont want to hear what you have to say then why are they reading your blog. I also like your perspective on “enlightened self-interest.”
Thank You for an Excellent Article!
You're welcome. It's actually a very good question to ask yourself: why
would anyone want to read my blog? Not to make yourself feel down but
because in the quest to come up with a good answer, you'll create a blog
worth visiting. What can you bring to the table that nobody else is doing?
Usually this is a combination of our personality and our skills/experience.
Give it a go, you'll never know if you don't try.
Good Morning, Michael, I found this to be informative and well written which made it an easy read. I'm going to take some time to read through some of your other posts … Wonder if you have a post about how to get people to post on the blog instead of on Facebook, Myspace, or private message you…
I write two inspirational blogs and when I post a link to them — I get loads of emails and comments to my Facebook, but not to the post itself.
O.O those are sooo amazing tips!! Thank you very much, I trend to promote my website too much
By the way, am I the only freak blogger who writes it's website everywhere??, I mean:
in the bathrooms, in the sand of the beach, in the menu of the cafeterias etc..I write my URL everywhere!!!
Nice list Christian, will bookmark this as a reference for later reading.
I agreed; I would be childish approach to promote your self in a attention seeking manners, so we all should behave properly like a professional…
[...] Self-Promotion 2.0 – Promote Yourself without Looking Self-Promotional o Via: Remarkablogger o http://remarkablogger.com/2009/04/06/self-promotion-20-promote-yourself-without-looking-self-promoti…• Self Promotion is not a Dirty Word o Via: Women Entreprenuer o [...]
I agree – there is a fine line between blatant advertising and 'giving people what they need'. I find that most SEO consists of people tying to dress up advertising in 'helpful' comments, but what can you do?
I delete or mark as spam any comment that is obviously self-promotional (and
sometimes even not so promotional if the URL is dodgy).
[...] are all some quick tips on how to self promote your business cheaply. Get off the couch and start promoting, there’s a world of clients that are looking for you out [...]
This is such a great post. Its hard finding that middle ground of promoting your site (which is what is a “sale” for me if they make an account ) without being pushy and still see results.
Jessica, this is the new “middle way” of marketing, which many have started
calling the Third Tribe. The first two tribes being bloggers and internet
marketers. Read up on these ideas at Copyblogger to learn more.
This is such a great post. Its hard finding that middle ground of promoting your site (which is what is a “sale” for me if they make an account ) without being pushy and still see results.
Jessica, this is the new “middle way” of marketing, which many have started
calling the Third Tribe. The first two tribes being bloggers and internet
marketers. Read up on these ideas at Copyblogger to learn more.