…that’s Blatant Self-Promotion for those lucky enough to not have encountered the acronym before.
‘Ya know how some authors make a book and then go onto the Twitter and the Facebook and post the same thing over and over, which basically says: Buy my book! It’s wonderful!
That.
Or how other people co-opt content and tack on promotional messages that make no sense at all?
That.
Or those folks who never talk to people via anything online (including email and blogs), but rather treat it as though they’re sitting in a tree shooting spitballs at passersby?
That.
Here’s what irks me most about BSP: sometimes smart people do it. Good people. People who just don’t know any better. Even people who have actually written great books that deserve better. Yep BSP persists, because, I guess, it must work for some people. I have yet to find anyone who actually purchased a book because of BSP, but it must happen. Or else people wouldn’t do it, right?
I was recently talking with a couple of Very Smart People about an author who desperately needs a BSP intervention. He’s one of the afore-mentioned good guys, with a new book out (like, from a real-live publisher and everything), who, for reasons I’ll never understand, is misusing social media.
I’m not going to name names because, like I said, he’s a good guy and a skilled author, and it’s not necessary to name him here to learn from him.
Specifically, a while back he got himself a Facebook Page (good), but then his Twitter feed degenerated into daily messages that said nothing more than “If you like my books, please follow me on my fan page” and a link. And every day, a scheduled message that says, “For more information on my books and appearences [sic] check out my website.”
Typo aside, what’s wrong with this? Isn’t social media—Twitter especially—a viable means to drive traffic to pages and sites? Yeah, sure it is. But if you’re not creating content, you’re missing a huge opportunity. The tweets and posts above give nobody an actual reason to visit the page or site.
And there could be lots of reasons…a contest, an essay, even just a picture. Something that gives people a reason to care—and not just the people who already know who you are.
If you’d like to get a sense of whether your social media presence is too BSP heavy, Klout can be a useful tool. Like any social media tool, it’s not exact—and this is a qualitative, rather than quantitative issue—but looking at your retweets, mentions and post likes can be useful.
But the reality is, if you think yourself guilty of BSP, you probably are. Good news is, it’s not hard to fix.
