Self-Gloss

“I don't have time to maintain my LinkedIn profile because I'm too busy doing real work.”

This blunt statement (or excuse), wrapped in a façade of cheekiness has been on my website for a while. I guess it's my way of explaining my historically meager interaction with social media, especially in a professional sense. Even in a personal sense, if I'm honest, I haven't posted on Instagram since 2019. I’m probably just uncomfortable with self-promotion. This doesn't make me special (self deprecation like a true gen Xr) – but the question is: is it good or bad?

If you consider all of the self-marketing chatter that's been floated around (or even sold at high cost) in the past 15 years, one would overwhelmingly conclude that it's a bad thing to sidestep self-promotion, especially on social media. 

Having written to this point, I arrive at a point of reflection: this article itself is, in fact, self promotion. Perhaps I’ve diminished the usual cringe factor by presenting it in a more appealing way. The way that they would add green parsley to an overcooked sirloin at Bonanza in the 80s. “There, that's not so bad now.

All things being equal, I’d rather promote someone else. It’s frankly exhilarating when a business owner shares their goals & vision & even their origin story then their sustained passion for their company. Because they’ve been so engaged in the operations, they’ve either under-managed their brand / communications experience, or they’ve gotten it off to the best start they could, but then grew at a nice-problem-to-have pace.

But now it’s high time to elevate. In fact, it’s just the right time to work with a middle-aged caucasian consultant and invest sweet juicy tax-deductible dollars on fun, but common sense creative collaboration.