On Being "Moralistic" about Self Promotion

Here is an excerpt from a more extensive post I made over at e_Marketing. In that post I comment on the tendency for practitioners of internet marketing (including but not limited to marketers, SEO practitioners, and editors of web directories) to get all "moralistic" about their jobs. We are, after all, just ad men, and while I think it is important to be honest about what we do, it is equally important (in my opinion) to be honest with ourselves about the importance of it. In short, it is not very important. Like everybody else we are just trying to make a buck.

This excerpt is from e_Marketing...

What I call the "moralistic" attitude towards self-promotion is reflected in at least two other areas of "earnest" web activity -- getting listed in directories, and chasing after SE rankings (better known as SEO). The moralistic attitude to these things is that there are correct "ethical" ways to do them, and then there are manipulative, unethical ways to do them. And since we all want to be "ethical" that means we should very strictly follow a set of accepted rules that have been laid out by some important authority figure -- like Google, or the editors of DMOZ, or the well-meaning webmasters of some particular article archive sites.

Lest I be accused of promoting unethical behaviour let me say that I agree there are right ways to do things, and wrong ways. But I would just draw the line in a different place. I would propose the important line is the one between truth and deception. In other words, as long as you're not lying or intentionally trying to mislead or deceive, then I say go ahead and self-promote.

For the full article go to Some Thoughts on Writing Articles for Promotional Impact...

I welcome your comments.