Social media and self-promotion
Something I see a lot of on social media is self-promotion, and it’s pretty hard not to self-promote yourself on social media. But I do think there is a difference between acceptable and unacceptable self-promotion. I’ve written in the past about being vain on social media when you only retweet mentions of yourself, which I consider to be an unacceptable form of self-promotion.
So what’s an acceptable form of self-promotion? I think giving people news updates about projects you are working on can be a useful form of self-promotion, or even trying to get them involved with a contest can be another form of acceptable self-promotion.
Sharing information is also, in its own way self-promotion. By establishing your rep as an expert with the information you offer, you do promote yourself and your services. Of course, you are also building your relationships in the same process, and helping people out with the information you provide.
Self-promotion can be good when it is done as a way of helping others, while also letting them know you can be a resource to them. In fact, at that point self-promotion is less about promoting yourself and more about making people aware of what you can do and how you can help them. It’s still self-promotion in the sense that you want people to think of you as a resource, but it’s not about vanity, so much as it’s about awareness. So some self-promotion is good, when it is done tastefully, and in a manner where the main objective is to inform and help others.
Remember first and foremost social media is about connection and helping people out. It’s not about you…it’s about them.
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Thanks Marcia Glad you liked it. What stood out to you about it?
Taylor:
Love this post!
Thanks,
Marcia
Taylor, as I have shared with you I stepped up the burners since October re: social media. I totally agree about the degree of self-promotion, what is in it for me. The main irony to me is how ephemeral a majority of the connections have been. Makes me realize social media networking is really situational vs. sustainable.
I would agree a lot of it is situational. Where it becomes sustainable is when you complement it with you in-person network to stay visible to that network on the web.
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