I find it ironic that I filmed this video on why women suck at self promotion several days ago and I kept doubting whether I should put it up. Umm hi I suck at self-promotion!
According to a great post my friend Nisha Chittal wrote, The Politics Of Self-Promotion: Women Suck At It – “eight times as many men as women graduating with master’s degrees from Carnegie Mellon negotiated their salaries”. She has a lot of other great statistics on her post – all which floored me! So I’m very curious WHY women suck at self-promotion. I think it’s pretty clear from watching my circle of friends there is certainly a different style of promotion among men and women but I’m curious what that is.
Since I like promoting other people … Here are some of my favorite Gen Y Women Bloggers you should be following!
- Rebecca Thorman – Modite: career advice for a new generation of workers.
- Tiffany Monhollon – Personal PR: building relationships, and sharing ideas.
- Sydney Owen – On New Media: Sydney recently moved to Chicago for a fabulous PR job! She blogs about PR, life and new media.
- Nisha Chittal – Politicoholic: commentary about a wide variety of issues, mostly political and social.
- Grace Boyle – Small Hands, Big Ideas: Life as a Gen Y in a startup with daily inspiration
- Holly Hoffman – Work, Love, Life: her blog title says it all! Holly is very inspiration and thought provoking in her writing.
- Jamie Varon – Intersected: Jamie is moving to Italy in 3 days, what more do you want to know!
- Jamie Ann – Oh! How Lovely!: Jamie blogs about life and inspiration and fun pink things!
- Monica O’Brien – Twenty Set: Monica O’Brien is a Marketing Consultant specializing in marketing strategy and consumer insights at the juncture of new media and traditional marketing.
- Susan Pogorzelski – twenty(or)something: career and personal development with a mix of creativity and reminiscence.
- Five Blondes: 5 blonde sisters blogging about life from five points of view.
*I stole many of these descriptions from Ryan Stephan’s Top 10 Gen Y Blogs.
If I forgot you, how about practice your self promo muscles and promote yourself in the comments!
Interested to know in the comments why you ladies (and guys) think women aren’t so great at self-promo.
PS: A bit of my own self promo (yay!) today Monday is the last day to vote for our SXSW panel submission on Why Gen Y Wants to Work “With†You, Not “For†You. I’d love for you to vote!
I think you just spelled my name wrong to get back at me for ruining yours so many times :) Touche.
Your t-shirt makes me giggle :D Way to promote “las chicas”…
I’m right there with you, Elysa. It feels cheesy and braggy to promote myself. I’m not sure if it’s something all ladies are taught, but I’ve always been encouraged to be modest!
Hey Elysa!
Interesting question. Never really thought about whether I’m good or bad at self promotion. I don’t mind sharing my good fortune with others if I actually have good news to share, but I think I feel uncomfortable trying to “toot my own horn.”
Which truthfully no one should feel uncomfortable bringing up bragging points when it comes to negotiating for a salary or position. Just wouldn’t be attractive to an employer if you came off full of yourself. I think I tend to be more along your lines. Besides, I think it becomes two fold when you help promote others… You make yourself look good while making others look good. Everyone wins.
Elysa, thanks for the kudos! You’ve provided a fantastic list.
You probably won’t be surprised that I definitely feel the same as you. It’s hard for me to tout what I’m doing without sounding too, “me, me, me.” I see my male, blogging friends who are able to promote their blog, their work, constantly invite people to subscribe to their blog, etc.
I think it goes down to our brains and the way we’re wired. We’re often seen as “softer” or a “nurturer” so when we self-promote it looks aggressive or sometimes look down upon. However, I disagree. I also think that women should be able to self-promote and it will simply be different than the way men do it. I added a “Press” section to my blog, just so people know where I’ve been, where I’ve been featured, etc. I also don’t feel afraid to talk about a success I’ve experienced. It’s hard, but it feels good when I do it :)
I’m not one who likes to draw lots of attention to myself (kind of ironic since I have a whole blog about my life haha). Sometimes I’ll “promote” myself but I hate sounding so self centered and braggy. I’m more of a community pusher like you, I think.
Thank you for the link. I’m proud to be featured with such great women in that list :)
Great post! I just read Nisha’s post as well, and I agree with both of on just about every point. I remember almost yelling at guy friends during the election for calling Hillary a bitch or “wannabe-man” and other insults, even though I didn’t vote for her. I feel like women, unconsciously or not, see self-promotion as something we’re “damned if we do, damned if we don’t.” Even when I write (blog posts, e-mails, whatever), when I notice every sentence starts with “I… I… I…” I stop and try to edit because I don’t want to sound so self-centered. With I had some answers, but thanks for helping to raise this topic and giving me something to think about.
Thanks for including us in a list of such great women! I’ll be sure to check out those that I didn’t know about already.
For me, it may be due to my shy personality that I don’t promote as much as I could. However, I’ve had some negative experiences while self promoting as well. On our local newspaper’s blog, I commented with the idea that local blogosphere might make for an interesting story, and naturally provided our URL.
I was rather surprised to see a comment show up not long after saying that no one would be interested in “Erica’s insufferably boring vanity blog”!!
Luckily, there was a gentleman who was a reader of the newspaper blog and a fan of ours who commented shortly after, saying that he thought our blog added “colour and character and distinctiveness to our local blogging community.”
Just when you’ve been kicked to the curb, someone comes along and picks you right back up again.
I voted for your panel!
I just read a post from Marci Alboher on women and money that coincides with this, and truth is, it’s ridiculously hard to be promotional without breaking all the “woman rules.” I think the only thing to help is to keep talking about it though, so thanks! And thanks for the link love too :)
This is a great question! Thank you for talking about it.
Many times when I mention my career successes, it feels like people think I’m something that rhymes with “itch.” When I don’t do a little bragging and I’m being a good, self-effacing woman, I feel approved, but also that they think I might be an impostor. So it’s a no win situation; might as well go with a little bragging! It’s always nicer if someone else tells others of your accomplishments, so bravo for supporting your friends. It’s great for women to support other women–we need more of it.
Letting others know of your accomplishments at work is an essential career strategy. Bottom line–marketing is an important life tool even if it feels a little awkward. You’re helping people understand your contributions, smarts so they know they need to work with you!
I think women baulk at self promotion because of ingrained cultural and social constraints.
For the greatest part of female history we have been the nurturers, like Grace pointed out, and our roles didn’t involve an outward focus that self promotion requires. The way women have been taught to be women includes some degree of inward focus, community building & emotionally sensative instructions. For men the reverse applies they are taught to be outward focused, to put their putsuits first and to be clinical/analytical. Also there are still many sexist biases against women, that sometimes self promotion is simply not enough to overcome it for the collective or the individual.
This is a wonderful post from ‘The women of the round table’ that covers the exact topic that is definately worth a read. http://womenoftheroundtable.blogspot.com/2009/08/cost-of-our-culture-of-modesty.html