by AJ
Self Promotion or Self Adulation – whether on Squidoo or on The Net, it is important to know the difference!
February 10, 2010 in AJ's musings, Featured by AJ
AJ is Musing about how we can lose friends fast if we embark on a campaign of Self Adulation when we thought what we were doing was Self Promotion
OK I admit it, I was struggling for a topic for this week’s article and then my daily feed from Copyblogger dropped into my in box. Thanks to a recommendation from Drifter, Copyblogger is one of the very few blogs that I try to keep up with on a daily basis and it is one that I would recommend to anyone. But I digress….
Today’s Copyblogger post is The Art of Shameless Self Promotion and it helps us distinguish between a perfectly acceptable behaviour on the net and one that will earn the disdain of our intended audience very quickly.
Nathan Hagan defines Self Promotion as:
the art of spreading ideas, concepts, and a greater vision
Self-adulation is
just the promotion of accomplishments, deeds that have already been done
By promoting ideas, especially if they are something that will benefit people in general and not necessarily just yourself, you are giving others something to cheer for. It is ideas that inspire not achievements.
There is a great comment on the blog:
Self-promotion vs. self-adulation is like self-belief vs. arrogance. The former is about your positive place in the world, and the latter is simply about you
Yep, that sums it up very succinctly!
So when trying to promote a new concept or idea in some of the great debates and discussions about Squidoo, no one needs to try to establish their credentials by highlighting their own achievements on Squidoo – we can check out their Bios if we want the details! All it will do is turn people off to the message, because they may just assume that the message is actually all about building the “Kingdom of Me”!
The Art of Shameless Self Promotion also gives tips on how to create a Self Promotion Platform – go check it out. It makes for very interesting and thought provoking reading.
With thanks to 
Overheard on twitter...
Interesting post, AJ, and an important topic to our online activities. I keep reading interviews from “gurus” who say the best way to network is not to proclaim your so-named guru status. Rather, your reputation grows from the content you share. If you share quality content, readers will see you as an authority. They will talk about your expertise, which is far better than the self adulation of “look at Me” – which doesn’t provide value for anyone.
Self promotion can be difficult to do, though, as some of us may not be entirely comfortable sharing their work or knowledge. I think it comes with practice and certainly, with the right tips, like in your post.
jennifer-akers´s last blog ..Public Lens Critique
Thanks AJ for hitting the nail on the head and sharing a great resource. I’ve just experienced some unease about something I wrote to promote a free webinar I will be running next week. The webinar is about overcoming procrastination and I felt the need to talk about my accomplishments to justify running the seminar. But I had a sense of unease that the justification was moving over into “self-adulation”. Based on this post and the Copyblogger article, I deleted the reference to my accomplishments and feel a lot happier. The program members who want to talk about procrastination will turn up anyway.
I think sometimes “self-justification” gets in the road of being clear about the boundaries between self-promotion and self-adulation. I think too we get caught up in the Internet speak and become unconscious of how it is impacting our language and behavior. The post is a timely reminder for me.
The article emphasizes the fact that sharing ideas that inspire is effective self promotion (without self-adulation). So another thing I took away from the article (and will display on my computer) is this comment:
“Your ideas might inspire hope, thought, or action . . .
but as a general rule, good ideas inspire something.”
Thank you Jennifer and Ron – you are both people whose views I always respect and take note of. So to get comments like these is heartening indeed!
I think that with some people their own self confidence is so low that they feel they have to justift why they are qualified before they can comment or contribute to any discussion.
But with others it is a fact that they never miss an opportunity to blow their own trumpet and look for any excuse to highlight what their own achievements are.
It is quite sad really….