Promotion: When is it too much?

Seth's post on promotion, blogs and the relationship between readers and bloggers / site owners and the level of promotion that is expected. It also touches on the self promotion paradox of blowing one's horn too loudly and crossing the line into the oncoming lane of hucksterism.

Man, do I get it. Daniel and I think our PHOTOtool is one of the best items around for photographers to use to increase awareness, create wider markets, sell images in a variety of ways, and stay in touch with clients. Yet we don't post about it very often. I sometimes want to post something here that I think is important, or has some relevance, but fear that it would be construed as huckstering (is that a word?). So I usually don't.

So, I wonder what to do? I really believe in our tools, and the power they can bring to photographers and small businesses, yet want the blog to remain somewhat 'untainted' by 'advertising'. Maybe that shows how jaded we have become in expecting advertising to be deceitful, or somehow vaguely dishonest. Even when we know we are talking about real truths, and take pains to explain the ways it can be used, the tools and services some of us market can seem crass if we overhype them.

I can remember finding a new blog by a rather famous "Marketing Guru". It was not a blog, but a continuous, and tediously boring ad for his "seminars" and "reports". Damn awful... I can't do that 'self-serving', all about me, crap. Cheapens the message.

And blogs aint magazines, nor are they books. They are a medium, a tool for sharing, teaching, learning, expounding, preaching, proseletyzing, evangelizing and occasionally shouting. But they fail as 'hardsell' shenanigans. And that is a good thing. Seth wonders how some seem to walk near or cross that line and mantain readers. I find it interesting as well, but cannot explain it either. I don't mind Blogads, or even banners. But I like the content clean of hype, and strong wth ideas.

I wonder where that uncrossable line is too, Seth. I sometimes feel we should all blow our horns a bit louder, takeing care what tunes we play.

Seth's Blog: Promotion, self-promotion and [insert ad here]: "In email, no one, at least no one I respect or believe, enjoys getting spam. Ads in email don't work because email is a tool, not a medium. If I subscribe to a permission-based email campaign (like those notes from Amazon or a gift certificate on my birthday from Yahoo) then I look forward to it and respond. But ads in the sense of unanticipated, impersonal and irrelevant... not on my agenda, or yours, when it comes to email, or RSS for that matter.

But the blog experience is different. Maybe.

The most popular blog in the world carries more than 25 different ads on its home page. The other most popular blog in the world carries just 1. Clearly, one blog profits more than the other, but it doesn't seem to affect readership."