The Challenge of Personal Branding: Walking the Fine Line of Self-Promotion

(Updated on 2/20/21)

In my line of work, it’s critical to my success that I market myself just as effectively as I market my clients.

But, when building your personal brand, there’s a fine line between self-promotion and just being a straight-up arrogant jerk. I find that it’s helpful to keep a few things in mind to stop from crossing over that line into jerkdom.

Let’s look at a few ways you can build your personal brand and not alienate or upset anyone (or look like a total jerk) along the way.

These are all simple steps you can take to promote yourself and grow your personal brand without crossing the line. You’d be amazed, however, how many people overlook them and end up making huge mistakes that crush their brand.

The first step. Just listen.

Listen

Listening is an underrated skill in the business world, and the world in general. It’s truly a lost art.

When we talk too much, we miss out on tons of great opportunities to engage others and grow our network, thus missing out on a a change to give a serious boost to your personal brand.

This goes for both in person encounters and in the digital space when you’re creating content to promote your personal brand.

When you post thought pieces for others to consume, make sure you are prepared for the feedback that follows.

Be open to others’ ideas. Even though you might be an expert in your field, you can always learn something by listening to what others have to say. By always trying to have the last word, you miss out on lots of great information, not to mention you look like a total jerk.

I highly recommend opening up the comment section on your blog and letting both positive and negative comments through. Comments, as Google’s John Mueller recently note, can be a positive thing for your blog, and removing them can negatively impact your SEO.

Positive comments also allow you to see what you’re doing right and engage your readers.

Negative comments, on the other hand, can show you what you may want to change, as well as give you the opportunity to showcase your skills for handling negative people. That’s another important skill in and of itself, and if you do it the right way, it can reflect positively on your brand.

So, just listen.

Be willing to accept feedback, and don’t attack if you receiving some feedback you don’t like.

Blog comment responses
Image: Blog comment responses to build your brand – Source

Be Nice

Another way to end up looking like a jerk is to go around posting arrogant comments, putting others down and just being rude and obnoxious. I know this seems obvious, but there are lots of so-called experts out there who act just as described above. Don’t fall into that category.

Even if the jerk tactic is effective, it’s likely people are only listening to you because they’re entertained by your over-the-top comments, not because they actually believe what you say or respect you.

That’s definitely not the goal, so just be nice and be helpful. You’ll go a lot further.

Focus on developing genuine relationships with others online and in person. If you see someone mentioning on social media that they are dealing with a problem (let’s say they aren’t able to grow their following for example) maybe point them in the direction of an article or provide an answer right there in your response.

By being nice and lending a helping hand, you can grow your network of “blogger buddies” as my colleague, and super-accomplished blogger, Ryan Biddulph of Blogging From Paradise fame would say. I highly recommend checking out his blog, as he’s a shining example of building a personal brand the right way.

The concept of being nice applies to all areas of the digital space as you’re trying to grow your personal brand and do a little self-promotion. Grow your network of bloggers, of marketing professionals, of speakers, or social media people…I could go on, but you get the point.

Focus on developing a high-powered network. You can then add value to them and promote their content to help them grow, and the reverse is true as well. Just be nice, and be real.

building a network
Image: Build your network and help one another grow – Source

Anti-marketing

Ok, this sounds like I’m bashing what I do, but just hear me out.

When you create content to promote yourself to your audience, it should mostly be helpful, informative and entertaining material that adds value to your audiences’ lives.

The occasional piece with specifications about your products, services, sales or promotions is obviously important to your mission, but I recommend that 80% of your content be of the helpful, informative and entertaining variety.

Create blog articles, videos with tutorials, ebooks and other content that provides actionable advice to help your readers, fans, or whatever word you want to use, solve problems. Instead of sending pushy sales emails, send emails that offer a tip or answer a question you know your audience can benefit from.

This will go a long way in helping build recognition for your personal brand while not crossing the line into being overly promotional and over the top.

It’s ok to add your branding and a call-to-action letting people know they can reach out if they need help. And you can certainly put your ebooks behind lock and key or ask for a small payment to download them. This helps build a revenue stream and can boost your email list while you’re still able to maintain the ability to help out your audience.

Wrapping it up

Keep these three tips in mind when promoting yourself, and you’ll earn the respect of your audience.

It’s a fine line to be sure, but it can easily be done. If you keep your audience’s needs in mind, you’ll avoid marketing failure.

Building your personal brand isn’t easy, but if you have patience and focus your energy in the right places (in the right way), you can rise to the top and stand out.

Final Tip – As you continue to grow your name and recognition, make sure to manage your online presence to ensure there aren’t any negative things out there about you. If you come across some, follow tip #2 and be nice when you ask to have them removed. Being mean can just escalate the situation and you can easily cross that line. And once you do, it can be hard to cross back over.

What other tips do you have for walking the self-promotional line? I’d love to read your comments below!

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Anthony Gaenzle
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3 thoughts on “The Challenge of Personal Branding: Walking the Fine Line of Self-Promotion”

  1. Anthony thanks heaps for the mention buddy. I deeply appreciate it. Being open to feedback and nice literally connects you with the world. We can all promote ourselves and others to become successful but being kind, generous and genuine is the only way to open doors enough to actually inspire people to promote you, out of their kindness and generosity. Being open to feedback and willing to do as pros advise will accelerate your success silly!

    Ryan

    Reply
    • So true. There’s nothing that says being tough and mean is the way to the top. It’s amazing how far kindness can take you. Hopefully that message spreads! And humbling yourself to be open to feedback and gore is so important as well!

      Reply

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