Welcome to my Great Content Roundup, folks! Today, I’m looking at a big question that applies to businesses of all sizes.
When do you start promoting yourself (your content, your business) too much?
The only exception I could think of is local ice-cream shops – I probably wouldn’t ever get tired of seeing their posts, but maybe that’s just me.
Recently, I’ve encountered some businesses that over-promoted the “heck outta themselves,” excuse the grammar. I’m talking every HOUR on Twitter they were tweeting about their app. Every other day the rep was messaging me, either on LinkedIn or on my personal email.
Granted, the company had a nice Twitter community going and what looked like some actual real interested followers who were devoted fans—but as a prospective client of theirs, I was turned completely off and decided to tell them to “stop spamming me” a few days ago.
Now this experience was so fresh and real in my mind, as I read content this week I couldn’t help but place it next to what I was reading about. So, let’s delve into:
The Great Content Roundup, Week 9: How Much Is Too Much Promotion?
Social Triggers has a great rule on how to build a blog audience: the 80/20 rule. Spend 80% of your time promoting OTHERS’ content; and 20% of the time promoting your own. This is exactly what we do at Express Writers (view our Twitter as proof); and we connect with new followers and great industry friends all the time.
80/20, folks. Those that flip this for 80% self-promotion will soon be labeled a spammer.
Neil Patel mentions somewhere in his very useful post How To Inspire Your First Time Blog Visitors To Trust You that you absolutely have the right to share your own content on your profiles. I agree. Um, hello: you own the profile—and you should use it for your advantage!
But, he also says this: Blogging is not a one-way street. It’s an exchange between you and your readers. I think this applies to all content you publish. He says you should listen more, and answer questions. (Brian Dean at Backlinko is a very successful example. He emails his new signups with this question: “Reply to this email and tell me one thing you’re struggling with. Even if it’s teeny tiny.”) Patel’s post here is golden.
Buffer’s Guide on Content Promotion: How Content Promotion Works for Blogs Big and Small: Our 11 Favorite Content Distribution Strategies. This is an amazing piece, I highly recommend reading it through. The part where the author follows up and emails the person he mentions in his blog for a kudos, thank-you, and new loyal fan—GENIUS! Might I say. And I’m always saying you should mention your influencers. Also, #6 – the top content community is Inbound – I’m on Inbound and can attest to it as a wonderful community gaining us new fans, followers, and engagement overall. The only downside to all this is time. It’s going to take a LOT of time for one person or one marketer to follow all the steps. I recommend involving a team in this process.
