Self-Promotion Begins At Home?

I am a bad marketer!

I chanced upon a reaction to the presence of bloggers including Robert Scoble at an SAP convention. It included the assertion that they asked softball questions while journalists were more informed and critical. This is a significant issue, but not one that fits my self-imposed blogging remit, even if it does speak to the debatable question of whether newspapers will be killed by the blogosphere and the nature of the knowledge seeker's consumption experience.

So, rather than write a post myself and stir up some minor self-publicity, I dropped Robert an email seeking his reaction because his is an audience which should, in my opinion, consider this issue more than they seemingly do. The result - the original PR commenter gets a link from Robert and her Technorati ranking moves (in the space of one day) from 1.6 million with no blogs linking to her, to 560,000 with just 5 blogs linking. My ranking went down! Doh!

Well no, I'm not a bad marketer. I helped to stimulate a conversation in the right arena. Good marketing is about the subject not the marketer (as many advertising professionals would do well to remember). I also inadvertantly renewed my awareness of the importance of sneezers and the distorted nature of online ranking. So if you're bewailing your lowly status, don't. Rankings don't matter as much as the conversations. The former is the online equivalent of mass marketing noise, the latter the online equivalent of permission-based engagement and we all know which is ultimately the more valuable. Just focus on writing good stuff for yourself and your self-selecting audience and your impact will be felt.

Though, if that doesn't satisfy, you could consider attacking an A lister and I'll spread the word.