How do you sell yourself in this era of rampant self-promotion, more and more choice, more social media to check out, and just a general increase in social noise?
This is on my mind at the moment because I have recently started a new newsletter/blog, and I’m trying to promote it. The way I see it, I am faced with the choice of being either obnoxiously self-promotional, or hiding my light under a bushel so effectively that nobody notices me!
I think Joe Coleman may have come up with the answer: let the reader choose their level of in-your-face promotion! I wrote the article below a few years ago, and it’s even more relevant today.
I’ve started a new blog/newsletter. It’s a space where I can write about the stuff that I find interesting, things that have meant something to me, articles I come across, education, word play… I’m sure more sections will be added in the days and weeks to come! Please do have a look: Eclecticism.
The default screen on Joe Coleman's site.
Many of us find it difficult to sell ourselves. Be too obvious, and you risk feeling that you're being obnoxious. But be too subtle and you worry that you won't be heard above the noise.
This problem is especially true in the world of indie (self) publishing. There are Facebook groups in which the whole point of them is to shout at everyone about your latest book. I haven't done that yet, because it seem such a, well, odd, thing to do. Mind you, if everyone else in the group is doing it then I suppose it's normal, so I may give it a whirl one of these days!
Someone I think has taken the right approach is Joe Coleman, a copywriter. Go to his site, and you'll see a paragraph about what he does. But wait! There's a scroll bar at the bottom, where you can go from "Less hard sell" to "More hard sell".
Impossible to resist! So, try the least hard sell, and you get:
"So, yeah, I'm a freelance copywriter. What of it?"
The least hard sell
Go to the other extreme, and you get this completely over-the-top flashing advert that even contains a pointing finger moving up and down just for good measure!
The most hard sell
Seems to me that Joe has tackled the "obnoxiousness" problem head-on and made a joke out it. Brilliant.