Shameless Advertising is Something I Hate
I have friends. These friends have businesses. Some of them only talk about what they’re doing in their business lives. It’s their prerogative—it’s their venue and blog and Twitter page and life—but it annoys the crud out of me. Some, I’ve stopped following for that very simple reason.
I always (kinda) felt like this was (maybe is) my own personal issue that represents my own struggles—maybe because I’m not running my own business or meeting with cool people to network or start fun groups of people doing amazing things. Maybe. So I don’t say anything—mostly because they’re people I really like and I want to stay connected in whatever way I can.
Enter A Photo Editor’s blog.
I read this today and it gave me an “aha” moment, followed by a long sigh confirming it’s not just me; it’s not just the perspective of someone not in the mix. Maybe, my fearful maybes aren’t representative of bad things.
Here’s a quip from an interview with Alec Soth that changed my thinking by confirming my thoughts (if that makes sense):
Most photographers have trouble with self promotion and so a blog probably looks like water torture. How did you deal with it?
I’m not a fan of using blogs for self-promotion. I’m as guilty as the next dork for having used my blog to talk about my new show, new book, whatever. But those were the weakest posts. You can smell self-promotion from a mile away. The good stuff would always come from genuine curiosity. If artists take up blogging just to promote their careers, their blogs won’t be worth much more than spam.
The other side of this coin is that a blog really does enhance a business. It’s extremely valuable to blog about your business, talk about your clients, share what’s going on. I think, for me at least, the manner in which this is done is the most critical part. How it’s done can change the whole tenor from shameless plug to informative promo. THAT’s that really annoys me—when there’s no attempt to do more than brag.
UPDATE 8/19/8: Another interesting article that had a salient point on this on the path to debunking 10 misconceptions about modern photography. A great article (original in German, I believe).
Misconception No7 : Blogs about photography are useful. Besides posting press release they never read or repeating something they read elsewhere, they actually do not help much. Only a very few escape the ego narcissistic trip of the popularity contest and give out extremely valuable insight. They are extremely rare. The rest are operated by hit counters.
Further content still found at A Photo Editor blog.
Unfortunately, our businesses occasionally become our lives.
Truly. And, to be balanced/fair—a good blog will certainly help, but I think the matter and issue is one of audience and message. Who reads your blog: friends or clients. Do friends want business landmarks? Do clients want to know you got a puppy? I’d say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to both of those questions, depending on the personality of the business owner and nature of their business.
Regardless, the shameless advertising will never sell. Story, story, story. Capturing sales is still linked to capturing someone’s heart and emotion. Standing out because you meet their needs uniquely.
Tell me something worth hearing—not your itinerary, not how important you are, not how much you’re just like everyone else doing the same thing.
I only have seconds to give you: What is worth that precious time that I might want to hear? Even better: What can you tell me that might extend my stay to a minute? Tell me that!