Friday 4 April 2008

Self promotion in social media is unethical?



Whilst reading my one of my favorite blogs: www.copyblogger.com, i stumbled across a fantastic post entitled 'The Jim Morrison guide to strategic content promotion', now i wouldn't even try to paraphrase a genius like Brian Clark, but i do wish to embellish upon the point he made.Brain asked the question "are you OK with spending the time to create truly exceptional content while simply hoping that everyone “organically” discovers it?"

This is a very good point, i mean not everyone who has something vital and inspiration to say on the passionate subject of their choice will get those words read. I for one, would rather read this persons views than not, and if that means that a few of their friends spin, stumble or digg their post, then i think that's OK. I know that withing the social media area and the many networks, this kind of shameless self promotion would be frowned upon for not relying on its own merit. But i think it is safe to say that some people who are already well networked and do not have to work as hard as others to make their mark.

I'm sure that lots of people disagree with this, but i have poised my finger over the stumble or Sphinn button of one of my posts that i feel delivers an interesting opinion of a current issue or news item.

Online marketing banter did a fantastic post about "Is it a sin to Sphinn yourself", James was very brave in this post, pointing out the fact that although he is a regular Sphinn user and in his own words has been 'a pretty solid contributor'. But he admitted that he doesn't submit alot of articles and the those he does, tend to be his own. The reason being as a young blogger with a virtually virginal blog - if he didn't Sphinn his posts, who would?.

I'm almost done, but before i go, another post that caught my eye was the interestingly named 'The paradox of self-promotion with socail media'. Here it states "The Paradox of Self-Promotion with Social Media:

Social media generally frowns on self-promotion, in many cases admonishing outright those who practice it. But with the sheer numbers of new videos, posts, sites, pictures, and stories appearing each and every day, self-promotion is a necessity for anyone starting out and hoping to gain any sort of foothold."

It also gives some good Do's and Don'ts

I think this about round up the frustration felt - and it made me giggle:

I blog.

I blog about things that I dig.

So why wouldn't I Digg what I blog?

The way I see it, Digg is a way to show the world what you dig on the Internet.

If what you dig is something that you did, is it wrong to Digg it?



In the meantime, i think i'll balance up my sphinning of others with a few of my own of course.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey there,

I've learned a lot about this subject in the past few months. I'm not sure if you found the Sphinn submission for my 'Is it a Sin to Sphinn yourself' but the response from the community was overwhelmingly positive. 22 comments were left and 21 were positive. However, Sphinn is a little different to most social networks. As a community purely targeted to marketers, self submission is allowed and within the terms of service.

From my experience, self submission is ok in moderation as long as you're an active member of the community. It's only when you use the service solely as a promotional/spamming tool that the community starts to turn on you.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Claire Stokoe said...

Hi James,

I read your post and commented on it in mine. Makes sense what you say about Sphinn, i suppose it's all about finding a community that is sensitive to it's users needs.

I think spamming anywhere is going to get a backlash from the community. Although i have promoted clients in the past via relevant community boards etc, i never really liked doing it and always feel that it should be the client themselves adding benefit to the community with advice etc.

Thanks for your comment :)