Self-Promotion: How Much is too Much?
April 8, 2009 by Sandy Mitchell
Filed under Jobs
Many freelance writers write for multiple sites, either for blogs or Web sites that we own, for blogging networks, or for a combination of the two. It’s tempting to talk–and link to–about one blog or Web site from another of your Web sites. However, when does self-promotion get to be too much of a good thing?
The short answer is when it offends either your readers and/or the company for whom you write.
How do you know when you’ve crossed that “conflict of interest” line, especially when you are writing for your own blog or for someone who doesn’t have explicit guidelines for this sort of thing? Consider the following (bear in mind that these points are my opinion; yours may vary.):
• Posts and articles promoting your other ventures should be a minority of your writing–in my opinion, never more than one such post should be visible on the blog page. Visitors come to read about your topic, not your writing career.
• If you are writing for a network, it’s perfectly acceptable to link to other related blogs within the same network. It’s generally bad form to send visitors off the network to another site. (The exception would be if your other site is the only available information about that topic. Very rarely is this the case.)
• Posts that ask the reader to click on ads, vote for a blog, or buy something you penned are usually viewed poorly both by readers and network administrators.
Does this mean that you can never mention one blog when writing for another? No, just make sure that you limit your self-promotion and that what you are promoting adds something valuable to your topic.
(photo credit: S. Mitchell)
Good advice, people do not read blogs to know about the writer’s writing career or to make his blog profitable. The writer should first think about his readers, not his self-interest.