Do I really need to self-promote?  YES, yes you do!

Have you ever had a strange sensation as you hit the publish button to your post and second guessed whether or not you over-promoted yourself or your product?  I’ll bet its happened at least once, but trust me when I say, we’ve all experienced it.  Brand promotion is a large part of social networks and online content these days, but it’s hardly all we’re interested in.  Right?  Right.

I was talking with my co-workers this morning and this topic came up, “Remember when TV used to have more ads than air time of the actual show you were watching?”.  That’s how social networks are beginning to feel.  We’re constantly being bombarded by promotions; expert advice, deals of the day, your local community’s next event update, etc. and it’s getting exhausting!!  The good news is, I believe people are starting to wise-up to this annoyance and force marketers & self-promoters to change their tactics.

What does all of this mean?  This is what I’ve determined; you’d better be promoting, and you’d better try your best to promote in a way that sets you apart from the crowd.  It has never been more important to promote you or your brand, and you’ve never had as many platforms at your disposal either.

Thoughts on Productive Self-Promotion:

• Remember to “pick your battles”, meaning, wait for the correct time to promote your big story or event.
• Make sure your promotion is powerful.  You want your message to strike on the first hit, so make the promotion strong, clear and in the appropriate locations.
• Be Positive.
• Be Honest.
• Be Human.
• Be Interesting, but not over-the-top!
• Be specific and to the point, but be creative.
• Don’t be afraid to put yourself in the center of the storm.  If you want to be heard, you have to speak up, and to a crowd.
• If you’re creating content and not promoting it, then nobody is seeing it.
• Content is super-duper important, but your ability to promote the content is even more important these days.

*
I think Lisa Barone hit it on the head when she wrote, “What separates the Good Content that IS read from the Good Content that IS NOT is your ability to promote it. I’d go as far as to say that it’s what separates people who are successful from those that are not – their willingness to promote themselves when it is in their best interest to do so.”!!  I couldn’t agree more!!