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I suspect we all know one, the marketer or agency bod who is better at promoting themselves than their company, products or services. You know the type – they have a high industry profile; they byline themselves rather than their boss; they pop up regularly on the local marketing speaker circuit; they write an obsessive blog; they tweet for England, Scotland and Wales at all times of day and night. In a nutshell, they live in a bubble of self importance, and they’re usually also fairly self-unaware.
A recent run-in with an excellent self-promoter got me thinking....what’s he got that I haven’t? Where does he find the time? How does he do it? Why does he do it? Yes girls, it was a chap!
But is there anything wrong with a little bit of ‘me’ promotion? Maybe I’m just a little jealous that he has made himself famous and has more than 2000 Twitter followers? Moi?!!
Self-promotion isn’t of course about self adulation, which is something else altogether. And self-promotion only succeeds if your ideas are visionary, or if you can shape people’s thinking to effectively buy into YOU. Look at Muhammad Ali, one of the greatest self-promoters in history IMHO. The world loved him not just because he truly was “the greatest,” but also for his integrity and the boldness of his ideas. He was prepared to put himself out there, although at times maybe a little tongue in cheek action was involved...all part of his character.
If you think Ali’s success was only about his athletic ability, then take a minute to compare your feelings about Ali to your feelings about Mike Tyson (am I showing my age here?). Tyson’s accomplishments were also fairly magnificent, but he never communicated a greater vision that made us cheer him on did he? Well, there was the whole ear-biting business, together with many more acrimonious ‘ crimes’ - self-promo at its most desperate!
So, distant memories of Ali got me thinking, what tips can we learn from such a master of self promotion? Yes...I know another chap ladies, but he had it off to a tee didn’t he guys?
1. Successful self-promotion is borne of confidence. If you don’t believe in what you’re saying, who else is going to believe in the power of you? To be recognised you need followers and nobody wants to hang on the coat tails of an uncharismatic ‘personna’ (Mr former Prime Minister take note, although your horse has of course already bolted).
2. You need to have unquestioned self-belief. Take a stance and stick with it, even when at times you may doubt your position. Never look back, keep looking forwards and keep on believing. BTW if you are a genuine self-promoter skip to point 3 – of course you never doubt yourself do you?
3. Having a platform from where you can share your ideas is also mission critical for the self-promoter. You may choose to Tweet yourself to within an inch of your life, hijack the local Chamber of Commerce or CIM events calendar, get on a few professional association committees, share your contentious thoughts with your trade or local media – work out what works best for you to push yourself out there.
4. You need to brand yourself. Aaaah yes we heard much about the power of the personal brand during the recent UK election. Just remember honesty and integrity works, insincere facial expressions generally don’t. Just work out your uniqueness and go exploit.
5. It helps to quickly establish a community of followers. Like-minded folk who want to shine in your wake. Usually information hungry web-trawling loners (yes you too may have had a professional Facebook stalker?) who are happy to hang on your every word or blog, commenting and reinforcing your belief in the power of you. Your own personal ego masseurs.
6. Finally, don’t be afraid to share your ideas, the good the bad and the ugly. A successful self-promoter needs to have the ability to generate original thought. You are a visionary and you need to inspire to hold your audience. Not easy, but then again success doesn’t come on a plate – so get the grey matter working – find stimulating people to be around and get stimulated.
As a closing thought, remember that unless you work for yourself, or in a business that requires you to heavily self-promote, try and strike a balance. After all, as marketers, our role in life is to make our companies more famous than ourselves. This of course will inevitably involve some self-promotion but just keep a firm grip of that self awareness to make sure you don’t get carried away. Having said that, if you are looking to get headhunted for that all important next career move, the ladder of self-promotion could give you the step up you need!
