On self-promotion and my role in the social media ecosystem

I make no apologies about being immodest. More often than I would like, people seem to be annoyed at my self-confidence (which sometimes borders in cockiness, I will fully admit) and call me self-absorbed, self-obsessed and arrogant. What these people seem to often forget, particularly in the social media world, is that I’m not here to promote myself. I’m here to promote OTHERS.

Look through my Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Instagram, Foursquare and Pinterest platforms. LOOK CAREFULLY. Read throughout. I don’t blog about how amazing I am (with the mere exception of well, this post), or about how amazing my consultancy is. I am not trying to sell you tickets to my next speaking engagement or have you book hours of my consulting brain. I write about local restaurants (yes, the restaurants that *I* think *YOU* may want to eat out). I produce content about the Vancouver arts community (so yes, *I* get to enjoy theatre, dance, movies and other artistic shows, and then I write about them in hopes that *YOU* will make the choice to attend them and support a struggling local Vancouver scene).

I curate content on Twitter. More than 70% of my tweets are retweets of OTHER PEOPLE. Not retweets of my own content. If I post the slides of my talks, it’s not to brag about how smart I am, but to share whatever I think is useful to YOU, my readers. Little known fact: when I talk to public relations professionals (and I give many of these talks a year), I *always* make it clear to them that my priority are my readers. If there is a choice between giving ME tickets to a show, or giving away tickets so that one (or more) lucky readers can win them, I choose the latter.

So yes, I resent being called self-promotional. I resent it because if there is a clear choice I have made is to curate other people’s content. To promote OTHER people’s content. To connect people with one another. To build community. Little known fact: I send DOZENS of emails EVERY SINGLE DAY connecting people who are either unemployed or sub-employed with other people who may be hiring. I connect folks with one another that can benefit from a mutual relationship. I retweet job postings every day like crazy. I actively seek to find things that can help other people. I self-pitch when somebody is too shy to ask me to blog about a worthy cause. Would you call that self-promotional? I call that “service to the community”.

I was trained since I was a little child to value myself and to know my worth. So no, I am not really very modest. But that’s because I have worked VERY HARD to earn every single thing I have. I work 16 hours a day, many of those unpaid, to make this world better. But no, I’m not self-promotional, not really. And no, I’m not on social media to sell you anything or to promote my own business. I’m in social media to build connections, to build community and to build a stronger society.

That’s my role in the social media ecosystem. And if you want to call that self-promotion, then by all means go ahead. As Don Quijote said in Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s famous opera magna: “dogs are barking, Sancho… that must mean we’re moving forward“.