Do You Make Time to Promote Yourself?
Wouldn’t it be cool if our day-to-day exploits were publicized on their own family of networks, similar to professional athletes?
Yesterday, in a surprising turn of events, the Tech PR Firm’s Joe Schmo went off on the competition by placing five stories for his client in a span of 48 hours. Let’s go live to Ted who is with Joe right now.
“Thanks, Jeff. Joe. Amazing last two days. Tell us about it.”
“Well, you know, I’ve been working hard in my cube for the past few weeks, you know, doing some extra media monitoring and writing, and I’m happy with the results. But you know as well as I do that tomorrow somebody’s going to be gunning for me. I’ve got to continue to work hard and everything will fall into place.”
“Great. Jeff, back to you.”
Of course, you and I both know the chances of this happening are about as likely as Michael Arrington writing a pro-PR blog post, so it’s up to us to publicize ourselves.
Think about it: We spend all day promoting our client’s work to the media, but how often do you think about promoting your work to the people who need to know?
Hardly ever, I’m guessing.
But how else is anybody supposed to know about the great work you’re doing? They’re surely not going to take the time to discover it for themselves.
You have to do some PR on your own behalf.
Don’t go overboard and tell your boss about every single story you place for your client. But when the time is right, schedule some time to go over your recent body of work and talk about what’s working. (If you have glowing words from your client, even better.) It doesn’t need to be presented with an end goal — more money, more responsibility — in mind. In fact, I’d venture to guess that the less feedback you ask for, the more you’ll get.
If that isn’t feasible (and, for your sake, I hope it is), suggest to some colleagues a monthly get together to talk about the work you all are doing. Chances are good that they, like you, want somebody to recognize their hard work.
Too often, we get so caught up in the work we’re doing for somebody else that we don’t sit back and review what we’ve done. But when you’re working your butt off, taking stock in the fruits of your labor can be a rewarding, and much-needed, exercise.
What do you think? Is this realistic? Or am I just being idealistic?
