Unselfish Self-Promotion

This is a very interesting article.

I very often see blog posts with a title that reads “Shameless Self Promotion” followed by a small blurb about their new product or their new self help book. I never understand why so many people say this. I get blog posts daily related to self promotion and the majority of them are start with the words “a bit of Shameless Self Promotion”.

You might think that the title “Shameless Self Promotion” appears once in a while here and there on a blog or a website. The majority of blogs or internet posts use the word “Shameless”, WOW. This inspired me to write a self help or self improvement book on how to market and self yourself.

Are you afraid of promoting yourself ? Are you afraid that others will not like you because you are selling or marketing or promoting? What’s going on? For starters, most of these internet entries come from people that have great content on their websites and blogs, so promote it, otherwise people will never find out and benefit from that content.

… Now, you also have to remember that if you have a good product or a good service and people will benefit from it there is no shame in promoting it. After all, you are providing a solution. This single thing is the premise of this post. -If you provide value you need to promote it- This value can be with a product or service and it can also be form [sic] your advice, expertise, stories or blog posts. It is what I call “Unselfish Self Promotion”. Unselfish Self Promotion means that you provide value first. You provide value to family, friends, stranger and even customers or prospects. You provide it in content, products, advice and friendship. When you do this you are promoting yourself whether you want it or not.

You hear this phrase a lot more lately because so many people are utilizing the internet to become the next celebrity. If you’ve never heard of Perez Hilton, Lonelygirl15, or Leeroy Jenkins, you can be thankful. The problem is that like most internet phenomena, they quickly become fads and disappear. Why? Because they are flashy characters based on publicity stunts with no real or long-lasting longevity. They simply perpetuate for the sake of perpetuating themselves. Their shininess is the only reason why people are attracted to them.

Does it take a great deal of talent to use Microsoft Paint to draw mocking cartoons over pictures of celebrities or to upload YouTube videos of people doing stupid or embarrassing things? No, and over time, they begin to feed on themselves and become diluted, because everyone else will think they can do the same thing and will copy the original idea. On the other hand, providing something of value to your customer indicates that you are thinking of their needs and wants and supplying a product that will satisfy their needs.

Shameless Self-Promotion = meeting one’s own needs for celebrity
Unselfish Self-Promotion = meeting the needs of others and letting them know how you can serve them

And really, isn’t that what servant leadership is all about?