Don’t be the first, be the best
It’s very tempting when you’re thinking of a new campaign/website/business idea/anything to rule it out because ‘someone else got there first’. If we all thought like that then nothing would ever get done and nothing would ever change. There are very few, if any, ideas that are truly new. Nowhere is this more applicable than social media, where everything is a mashup of 3 or 4 other things that went before it, you’re competing with millions of pieces of UGC and, given how easy it is to set up a website, you’re competing with everyone that’s capable of creating a username and password. It doesn’t matter if you’re not the first at something, because you have an even bigger opportunity at your fingertips : you can be the best at something.
Take the example of youtube (this case was brought to my attention by Will McInnes in a seminar a couple of years ago). Now widely recognised as ‘the’ video sharing site, you’d kind of assume that they were the first to market. They weren’t, they were just the best and they blew the competition out of the water. Indeed, while youtube was started in 2005, but there were already plenty of other players in the market. One of the first video sharing sites (share your world) was around as early as 1997, so you can’t even argue that they were new to the market. But that didn’t stop them, clearly. What they did was to look at the problems with the other video sites and then set about to improve them. The difficulty of sharing videos was what prompted them to start youtube and this is the key to their success today. It is incredibly easy to share a video on youtube and crucially, every time someone does this, it is a circulation of the youtube brand.
A look at a video page for youtube really drives this home, though admittedly, not all of these sharing options would have been on the original version.
From the top of the page you have a unique url which can be distributed (not seen here), you have the share and embed options on the right hand side bar, they bring up related videos (leading you to more content on the site), new additions such as sharing via Digg etc…, autoshare, or you can send the video from youtube. Sharing has clearly shaped youtube from its inception and that continues to this day as they add new ways to easily distribute their content and their brand. While youtube didn’t spot a gap in the market by being ‘the first ever’, they spotted what was wrong with the existing options, what was personally frustrating them with the current video sites and they went out and made one that was better.
Google and Apple are 2 companies that provide inspiration by their constant ability to blow all the competition out of the water. It doesn’t matter if they weren’t there first. Was Google the first search engine? No. The first email provider? No. Did Apple build the first computer? No. The first phone? No. Are they the best at all of these? Yes. (subjective, obviously). If you think you’ve got the next killer idea for a client project or new website, don’t be put off by the fact that someones already done it. Sure, you might be afraid that you’re seen to be copying, but if you’ve taken the time to research what’s already been done, how they could have done better and you come along and do that, no-ones really going to think that you’re copying as they’ll be too busy being amazed at what you’ve done.
You need to come out strong and convince people that your ‘thing’ is the best thing out there. That no-one’s doing it as good as you are. True, with social media your potential competitors are vast but by investing time and putting passion into your idea, it shouldn’t matter how many people you’re competing with, if what you’re creating is good enough. Build a strong brand around your ‘thing’, give it a personality, shout about what it’s doing that all the others aren’t. Don’t expect people to find it on their own, you need to point them in the right direction, build a community around it, take advantage of the tools of social media. If your product really is that good, then people are going to find that out and pass it on to their followers, fans and friends. Don’t let the fact that others got there before you put you off. Would you rather be remembered for being the first or being the best?
