Let us qualify that. We don’t like braggarts, by which we mean people who can’t stop telling you how wonderful they are – and how much better they are than everyone else.
That kind of bragging we do not encourage.
But we hear something a lot from company leaders that we want to at least gently challenge, and it’s some variation of this: “We don’t want to brag in our content. We want to be thought leaders and a resource. We can demonstrate our value that way.”
What this usually means in practical terms is: They want to share their insights on the market or on issues relevant to their market (and we’re all for this), but they don’t want to use content platforms to talk about how effective their products or services are, or about specific great things they have done for specific customers.
That is the “bragging” they don’t want to do. They’re afraid it comes off as too promotional, and they would rather just be seen as smart and knowledgeable.
It’s in response to this that we say: Yes. Brag.
People don’t automatically recoil every time a company says something good about itself, or talks openly about something good it did. To be sure, that kind of content is promotional, but who in business isn’t engaged in self-promotion to some degree?
People won’t begrudge you the need to do something they also need to do. We all want everyone to think well of us and what we do.
What people don’t like is promotional language that doesn’t tell them anything, or sounds like it was focus-group tested by the in-house PR team. People want to know what you actually do, in real life.
When you can tell stories like these, especially in the form of specific case studies that name your customers, audiences find them compelling because they’re real instances of actual achievements that the rest of us can learn from.
That sort of bragging we highly encourage – alongside the thought leadership. When someone does something good, we should all enjoy hearing about it.
And seriously, it’s not really bragging. The mission of business is to help people. If you have actually done that, let’s hear about it. It might provide others who also need help the inspiration to call you – and that’s good for more people.
So yes. Brag! Not like a braggart. But like serious people who do well and think that’s a good thing to share. Because it is.