Social marketing and the art of self promotion

Some may think it just a tad ironic that with my first post on a new platform that hopefully will help get this blog more readers, I am posting about social marketing and self promotion.

The Hodges Partnership has been in business for almost seven years.  When Josh and I started the company we made some blanket decisions.  One of those decisions was we would not enter any award competitions.  Nothing against those who do, but we always thought they took too much time to write.  Time we’d rather be spending on clients than spending on ourselves.

Over the years we’ve tried to let our work speak for us.  Happy clients have led to referrals.  Life has been good.  Even when we hosted our first public event with Peter Shankman in January, the money raised went to FightSMA.org, a local charity.

Since we have started learning about social marketing, I have been increasing conflicted about that early decision.  No we’re still not going to enter awards competitions (hate them), but social marketing by the very nature of it is about promoting “personal brands,” blogs like these where people give their personal opinions, and cross-promoting content (sometimes self-generated content) across a number of social-marketing platforms like Facebook, Twitter, etc.

So should we spend more time promoting ourselves?  It’s not that we don’t do it at all, it’s just that it is not the number-one priority.  Our clients are.

In my previous post, Amber Naslund on her Altitude Branding blog talks about social marketing “experts” promoting themselves, then in some cases doing shotty work thus plowing the way for folks who can offer successful social marketing and public relations opportunities and results for clients and other interested parties.

Maybe that’s what’s bugging me.  Is it good enough to do the hard work and be successful without the “public” exposure, or should we begin to seek that exposure through traditional media and social marketing for ourselves as others do perhaps at the cost of client work?  And what about those folks who are proclaiming to be experts in your practice areas (whether they are or are not is debatable)?  Should you ignore them and stay the course?

I would like to think the smart people know the difference between those who work hard for clients first and those who work hard for themselves first.

Do they?  And in this new world of social marketing are you expected to promote yourself more?

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