Promote Others Online

The secret to success on social media is to help others. The more you support others, the more credibility you will enjoy. This credibility will come in handy when you most need it.

This an extremely difficult lesson to learn.

Go to a company’s web site. Pick one at random. The odds are overwhelming that 95% of what they are doing is to promote their own products and services.

Now, look at their Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook feeds. You’ll probably see a similar stream of self-promotion. After a short time, such companies train readers to ignore what they say.

Countless consultants and authors make the same mistake. They tweet incessantly about their new book or article. They blab about that magazine that just wrote about them.

People do not go online to read ads.

The alternative is to always be on the lookout for valuable news that others will find useful. In doing so, you can demonstrate your mastery of certain subject areas. The quality of your reputation becomes associated more with what you do and less with how much you self-promote.

As your following grows, your efforts to help others will carry more weight. It won’t be any harder to help others – a tweet to 10,000 followers is no harder to send than one to 10 followers – but your impact will increase dramatically. As it does, people will show you more gratitude and respect.