Have you ever heard the saying, that when you bad-mouth a competitor, it actually makes you look bad and not them? Well, the same holds true when you decide to invest your time attacking competitors online.
It seems a popular way to gain traffic to YOUR blog, is to attack the top bloggers in your niche. If you piss them off, they may mention you, putting you on their readers / followers radar. If your attack is nasty enough, they may even blog about what you said. This might gain the attacker a short-term traffic spike, but at what cost? I honestly don’t think these people realise just how bitter it makes them look, to try and destroy a competitors credibility or dent the business, which their victim uses to put a roof over their family’s head, just for traffic.
Yes, if you identify that someone is making what you believe to be a mistake, it’s good to let that person know. A while back, Yael Rozencwajg from Yopps.com noticed an error with the way my blog’s email RSS was working, so she emailed me to let me know. She didn’t write a blog post to say what an idiot I was for missing the error or what a smart-ass she was for spotting it. That’s because her intention was purely to help me, rather than attack me in order to get a response that she could convert into traffic.
The law of return
As a person of faith, I have a great deal of respect for the world’s Holy books. In each of those I have studied, there is a belief that we tend to reap what we sow. This is something professional development experts refer to as the law of return. It works on the sound premise, that we tend to get back whatever we put out there.
Negative seeds (actions) produce a negative harvest (results) and positive seeds produce a positive harvest. For example, Yael’s kindness in taking the time to offer me some help, has just resulted in her being highlighted to my readership, in an extremely positive way.
Of course, the negative feelings we have about those who bad-mouth their competitors, are formed by that same law of return. Their attacks tend to damage themselves, rather than their intended victims.
I sometimes see people offering poor or misleading marketing advice. In each case, I write a blog post to ensure my readers avoid making mistakes by following that kind of bad advice. However, I do this without calling out the person. This means my message gets out, is seen in a 100% positive light and is actually more likely to be acted on. If I ever woke up feeling like I needed to attack Seth Godin or Jay Abraham, in order to gain readers, I would like to think I would recognise it as a sign that I ACTUALLY needed to work harder on MY OWN business.
Yes, you can gain traffic by attacking your more successful or better known competitors, but who needs to attract that kind of reputation?
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It always amazes me when I see people bad-mouthing others in public.
It can be very tempting to blow off steam in a very public forum, and whilst this can be appropriate (e.g. if your’ve been seriously let down as a client of a public utility: no names, no packdrill), to have a go at a competitor is madness.
Never mind the morality and the poor rep you get as a result: I’ve personally experienced too many occasions when a one competitor has become a partner.
My first employer had the best advice. “Never slag somebody off on the way up; you might need a favour on the way down”
It’s interesting how there seems to be such a big difference between the way people *think* they look calling out their competitors, and the way we see what they do.
Thanks for the feedback my friend.
AT LAST SOMEONES SAID IT
Nothing makes a blogger look needier or more pathetic than when they attack someone whos 1000 times more successful then them. Period.
I live by this premise as well Jim – and regardless of you believe it or not, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s TRUE.
Our life experience is direct result of what we sow in life. If you’re a miserable person, it’s because you do a great job of spreading misery – if you’re a happy person, it’s because much joy comes from being around you. Everybody blames ‘things’ for their circumstances, rather than just picking up a mirror, realizing the error of their ways and becoming a better human-being… certainly their loss and no one else’s.
It’s certainly true in my experience too Mark.
Couldn’t agree more Jim (love how we tend to think along the same lines). The practice of ‘calling out’ or ‘naming and shaming’ is something I steer away from. I’ve seen so many, supposed, reputable people doing this and the result is inevitably a negative reaction to them (I’ve even seen people lose clients this way).
Respect and integrity are two values I hold dearly, in every area of my life. Calling out shows neither of these, particularly as we ALL make mistakes (anyone that says they don’t are lying).
Hi Gemma. I’m not at all surprised that you have seen people lose clients, because of calling their peers out. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Thank you so much Jim for the kind words.
After reading your post I sat a while to think how much in my (young) life I’ve felt surrounded by those negative seeds.
Actually I felt surrounded merely because my competitors were super active in the bad way and that made me focusing on them.
Because of that, I’ve always thought running a business was a kind of fight with others, and if I wanted to achieve my targets I needed to persuade others by being and looking more “agressive” and “damaging”. Of course, this is just an image: but it’s the truth, competition is often assimilate to how you’ll less and less appreciate the work of your competitors.
But I’ve finally discovered that it wasn’t the right way to run a powerful business and to manage a healthy life.
The point is easy to spot, those who “attack” you are surely the ones who try to defense themselves first and make some (bad) noise around them. But trust me, by experience, you can avoid those bad seeds by working more on yourself and giving the best as you can each day you wake up !
It was a pleasure to be able to highlight how kind you were in the post, Yael.
As you say, we make the most progress when we invest in making ourselves better – Rather than trying to make those around us look smaller.
If [you believe] your competitor is wrong about something, you needn’t call them on it publicly. If they are truly in error, they’ll find out about it on their own soon enough.
I also believe that — at least in advertising — when it comes to competition, to attack, or even merely mention a competitor by name is to indirectly give credibility to them. And why waste your ad space/time doing your competitor(s) that favor?
I NEVER worry about what “the other guy” is doing. One of life’s great lessons for me has always been, “Keep your eyes on your own paper.”
Rock on, my man!
Brett – I REALLY wish I had thought to include what you just said in my post: “Keep your eyes on your own paper.”
Excellent advice!
So right, Jim, and Brett’s comment is very true also. In the career industry, fortunately, I have been blessed with wonderful colleagues – they really are not the competition… we all know that there is a limit to how many clients we can handle and we share how-to’s and advice on multiple platforms and networks. But I know this isn’t true of all industries.
Great post Jim. Was wondering where do we draw the line between ‘attacks’ and disagreements. I might not agree with what everything someone says in a post, and I think that critics do help us get better.
On the other side you have businesses like Donkin Donughts who setup sites like http://www.dunkinbeatstarbucks.com/ to directly attack their competition. What’s your take on this?
I think that’s a totally different post John. Nothing wrong with disagreeing with someone. When a small business owner elects to “call out” a competitor by name in an effort to gain traffic, it has little to do with legit disagreements. They can be handled face-top-face or via email / phone, right?
This post is about those, who like I said, use this attack tactic to generate traffic. I have no thoughts either way about big brands acting like muppets.
I think it can work both ways, mate.
Yep, attacking for the sake of traffic or for trying to gain some sort of faux one-upmanship is pretty sad.
But say you’re questioning a post or a tactic suggested by a top marketing blogger, or PR blogger, etc. That person (or agency) is seen as the gospel in the industry because of popularity (either real or perceived). That obviously gives their words more gravitas, so they need to be more correct than others.
If a post could lead to businesses suffering because of what is clearly poor advice, I don’t see anything wrong in questioning it, either in the comments of that post or one of your own.
Sadly, of course, many folks see this as an attack (and there can be a fine line). But sometimes these questions need to be asked.
Great topic, sir.
As you say mate, “attacking for the sake of traffic or for trying to gain some sort of faux one-upmanship is pretty sad”
As I said in the post, I will always try and put the record straight if I see someone offering piss-poor advice, but have never called-out the blogger.
As Gemma said earlier, I (personally) don’t like the trend for calling out. I’d rather email or call them – And have done in the past.
Thanks for the feedback sir!
I fully agree with you both: but I think that everything is about how you do it or in which smart way you choose to do it!
A slightly off-beat response for a Sunday.
Apparently, Napoleon Bonaparte expressed the view that “Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a 1,000 bayonets”. (He said it in French of course).
Bringing this up to date, one can construct the view that your public profile is of paramount importance. It is therefore a bad move to do something that jeopardises that public profile.
Bad-mouthing one of your competitors definitely falls into that category in my opinion.
Have a great Sunday Jim!
A very interesting example there, Gareth. Thanks for sharing sir!