Socialmediaworx

Two of my favorite blogs are talking about self-promotion. Or, for that matter, the lack thereof.

From Signal vs. Noise:

10. Be undeniably good. Steve Martin was on Charlie Rose last week. At the very end, he gave his advice to someone who’s trying to make it in any field: “Be undeniably good.”

When people ask me how do you make it in show business or whatever, what I always tell them — And nobody ever takes note of it ‘cuz it’s not the answer they wanted to hear. What they want to hear is here’s how you get an agent, here’s how you write a script, here’s how you do this — But I always say, “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” If somebody’s thinking, “How can I be really good?”, people are going to come to you. It’s much easier doing it that way than going to cocktail parties.

That’s some good advice. Go out and make something that kicks ass and people will notice.

Likewise, Seth Godin followed up on this same post:

Self-promotion, as the term is used by many people, is a mildly pejorative way to describe someone who promotes himself at the expense of others.

Nobody says, “That Yo Yo Ma, he’s so self-promotional,” or, “can you believe what a self-promoter the Dalai Lama is?” That’s because they’re not promoting themselves. They’re promoting useful ideas. They’re promoting tactics or products that actually benefit the person they’re reaching out to.