Why Self-Promotion Is Not a Bad Thing
I debated for weeks about whether to invite three of my Social Networking Made Simple members on my radio show last Wednesday. Because I subscribe to the 80/20 or 90/10 rule on social media. Eighty or ninety percent of the time I should be giving great tips, tricks, techniques and content to my audience and the remaining time can be spent promoting an offer, a class, teleseries, webinar, and just plain tooting my own horn.
If you follow me on Twitter or my Facebook pages or even Pinterest, you will quickly discover that I rarely self-promote. Sure, I share lots of information, give great advice and freely share my knowledge about all things social media, but it is rare that I come right out and say, “I am really good at what I do, so buy from me.”
Truth is too many people do that, or, they inundate you with emails, squeeze pages, a new class or whatever they happen to be promoting. I hate that kind of approach. To me it seems sleazy, pushy, invasive. If enough people get to know me, either in person, or online, they will naturally gravitate to me, right? WRONG!
Late last year, my business coach and I sat down and mapped out my marketing strategies for my newly created membership group which included using my radio show, The Social Networking NewsHour to invite three members on- air live to share their experiences learning from me. I squirmed in my chair and felt uncomfortable devoting an entire hour to hearing people sing my praises. My coach said it was nothing more than a testimonial from three happy members. I mulled it over and decided to do it.
The podcast is here, you can listen for yourself to what they said. After the show was done and I begin tweeting about it and sharing the link, I realized it was not a bad thing to do. Maybe I’ll do this once a quarter. I listened to the show and was happy I did it.
How do you self-promote? Are you uncomfortable, or is it a natural thing for you to do on a regular basis? What social media venues do you use for promoting your services? Please share!
6 Comments:
By Louise Edington 10 Jan 2013
I am terrible at it but have decided to get better at it
I am good at asking for testimonials though, just not actually using them!@
By Laurie Hurley 10 Jan 2013
That surprises me, Louise! You are so good at what you do and have so stepped into your place…. Self-promote, because you deserve it!
By LaGina Love 09 Jan 2013
I am glad that everything worked out for you Laurie! I am going to listen to the podcast.
By Laurie Hurley 09 Jan 2013
Please do!
By Susan Berland 09 Jan 2013
Self-promote? Me? I don’t think so. Like you, I was taught to give away my knowledge and people will naturally gravitate to me. I hate salesy approaches as well and have not yet figured out the happy medium. What I know is that you need to do sales to make sales. I’m going to be doing more speaking to promote myself and my services. As for social media, don’t know how to self-promote!
Susan Berland
By Laurie Hurley 09 Jan 2013
I hate hard sales, too. That is why I hesitated to do the show, but it ended up really good. There are so many people online who inundate me with their salesy emails that I figured, why not use a platform (my show) to toot my own horn without being “in your face” about my membership group.