How to self-promote with humility
Why self-promotion doesn't have to be a chore, it can even be fun!
Hiya 🌊! I’m Lucy from Hype Yourself. If you are new to this page, pop your email below to ensure you receive my posts sent every Sunday, a blend of expert articles, personal essays and home to the 52 PR tips challenge, where prompts are sent out every fortnight(ish) to help you with self-promotion, templates, expert tips and opportunities.
Hiya!
As part of my editorial planning for Substack in 2024, I pledged to create what I wanted mixed with what was requested.
I try to speak with all of my paid community to find out common struggles and themes.
Many of you told me mentioned when it came to hyping yourself it felt overwhelming and not enjoyable.
This was reinforced when last Sunday, I was a guest for
of
I happened to mention
and how she likens you should make selling online become part of your daily routine, like brushing your teeth.Daisy evolved it to how her self-promotion was like flossing. She doesn’t enjoy it but knows it must be done.
It took me a few days to fully marinade on this.
Who the hell wants to floss every day? Surely no one enjoys this? (I’ll stand corrected in the comments).
This article is my attempt to help give some tools to anyone who feels this way about self-promotion.
It’s also a reminder to myself because even though I wrote the book on Hype Yourself, and I don’t find it a chore, I worry about sounding too braggy or maybe making others feel bad.
Let’s get into it.
SHARE THE FAILS
For some of you, braggy, showing off, brash, and embarrassing are words associated with self-promotion.
I mentioned in a previous article that I was unrealistically disappointed when I pitched to write for Emma Gannon and didn’t get accepted.
But rejection is a constant for anyone who has worked in publicity, so your skin gets hardened. In that instance, I was having a Substack wobble as there seemed to be a clique I wasn’t in. Maybe I wasn’t a real writer after all?
On the same day, one of my peers became a Substack Top Recommended Read.
I wrote this article on comparisonitis to combat it, which had my biggest engagement for paid subscribers (21 if you are interested).
The goal of sharing the failure was not to secure a win.
But I have noticed an inevitable pattern: when I share a failure, I lead with lessons learned for now and actions to take forward next, which almost always results in something better.
THE ART OF DUAL-PROMOTION
Harvard Business Review just entered the chat. “Dual-promotion” they throw into the mix in an article in November. What’s that? I hear you ask…
New research, based on a series of 11 studies, suggests that dual promotion — in which you compliment a colleague or peer while talking about your own accomplishments — can both boost perceptions of warmth without harming perceptions of competence.1
It involves the art of “both self- and other-promotion… By talking positively about others, you signal that you aren’t self-centred — you’re a well-intentioned, warm colleague.”
If we are solopreneurs or solo writers, our colleagues often are others on this platform.
We think self-promotion is about showing off our trophy cabinet, but it can be subtler than this. Please don’t underestimate the incremental micro-compliments we give to demonstrate our expertise.
Rarely do I see a day go by where I don’t see Daisy shout about another writer’s work.
This isn’t ego-led, she doesn’t just give credit to big names, she is immensely likeable because she is continually pulling up everyone around her regardless of fame or following..
This isn’t a maniuplative strategy. She is a natural at dual promotion and it enforces her positioning as a ‘Joe Wicks or reading’. We, the readers, want to champion Daisy in return.
Who can you thank, promote or share to reflect your values and interests?