How to Avoid Irreparably Destroying Your Reputation Before You Even Have One

Congratulations, SocialPog! You’ve ruined your chances at running a successful website.

Today I came across a story on Digg touting a “Facebook competitor” and a “Facebook killer” called SocialPog.com. According to the (absolutely awful) YouTube video, SocialPog is “BIGGGER” than Facebook and apparently revolutionary. If you take a look at SocialPog.com–and I refuse to link to it, so you’ll have to type it in if you really want to see it–you’ll notice that they have well over 6 users and it’s a clone of MySpace circa 2004.

Some revolution that is.

But the worst of it isn’t that the site is an outdated, ugly, useless piece of crap. It’s that SocialPog has irreparably destroyed its reputation before it even had one by gaming Digg and manipulating its way in front of thousands of eyeballs.

Though SocialPog is a social networking site, there’s much a blogger can learn from this mess of a launch.

You better deliver on your promises.

SocialPog claims to be revolutionary, but it’s not. SocialPog claims its launch was highly anticipated, yet only has 6 users. SocialPog says it’s “biggger and better” than Facebook. No way. It just doesn’t deliver on its loudest promises.

As a blogger, its much better for you to be honest and mediocre. As long as you let people know you are trustworthy and genuinely helpful, they’ll look past your flaws. Besides that, you’ll always be evolving and growing as a blogger. Successful bloggers might start mediocre, but they never stay that way.

But if you make incredible promises that you absolutely can’t deliver on, people will remember that and they won’t excuse it. Even if you transform the site into the most mindblowingly useful website ever created, people will still ignore you as that dick that lied to them. You only get one shot at a first impression.

Don’t pay spammers to pretend your blog is bigger or better than it really is.

How did SocialPog get to the front page of Digg with over 200 votes? A ton of accounts created specifically and exclusively for the purpose of digging the video and leaving “positive” comments.

Check out these gems:

“Dreaming to join this lovely site.”

“HUH! I never think in that way.”

“I simply love the way they are providing their services.”

“I am impressed with their effective working.”

“This website is going to be the turning stone in social networking.”

Those aren’t even things I’d want people to say about my site if I hadn’t paid them. This is dishonest and ridiculous.

Your blog should be able to stand on its own merits. If you have to pay people to talk about it, you’ve lost. If you have to pay people to share it, you’ve lost.

Your blog should be grown through genuine relationships and true fans.

If your concept depends on you being compared to a bigger and better site, find a new concept.

In their video, SocialPog describes itself as a Facebook competitor. The spammers describe it as a Facebook killer. This is a no no. Why?

Think about it this way. If I described Blog Design Guy as a ProBlogger competitor and a ProBlogger killer, whenever you visited you’d automatically see it through that lens. You’d ask yourself, “Is this site a better ProBlogger than ProBlogger is?”

The answer will always be “No” because this is not and will never be ProBlogger.

You want to carve out your own space and find your own audience. That’s not to say everything you do has to be 100% original (because that’s impossible), but as long as you are doing it your way its going to come across as fresh, interesting and authentic.

The Bottom Line

The principle underlying all this advice? Don’t cheat. Don’t try to be a success faster than you deserve to be. Whatever shortcuts you take will only push you further from lasting success.

What do you think about this SocialPog debacle? What would your advice be?

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