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Anyone who read Clive Thompson's article "Blogs to Riches: The Haves and Have-Nots of the Blogging Boom" in last week's New York Magazine could be excused for thinking that it's near-impossible for a newbie blog to move from the C-list to the A-list without the help of an experienced PR handler. Sure, it's theoretically possible to go it alone and rely on word-of-mouth approval, but a mathematical reality known as the Power Law Distribution makes it highly unlikely. According to the dynamics of the Power Law Distribution, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer:
Blue Ocean Strategy.jpgHowever, using a Blue Ocean Strategy, it may not be as hard as you think to move to the B-list, if not the A-list. (more on that below) For those who may not be familiar with it, Blue Ocean Strategy is a value innovation strategy pioneered by two French business school professors at INSEAD (W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne). Their book, Blue Ocean Strategy, was ranked as one of the Top 10 business books of 2005 by Amazon and has already been printed in 30 different languages by Harvard Business School Press. The book has been a runaway hit in the business community since it answers the one question all CEOs want to answer: How do I break out of my competitive niche to become an undisputed market leader? Many of the most innovative companies in the world - including Samsung, Apple, Swatch, Callaway Golf, and Southwest Airlines - have become market leaders as the result of executing on blue ocean strategies. According to the authors of Blue Ocean Strategy, even in a highly-competitive and over-saturated marketplace, it's possible to pull away from your competitors and make the competition irrelevant. This is called moving from the Red Oceans of cut-throat competition to the Blue Oceans of uncontested market space. In doing so, it's possible to gain customers (i.e. readers) and become an undisputed market leader (i.e. an A-list blog). Below, I've sketched out the five basic steps for creating a Blue Ocean blogging strategy.
Step #1 is to draw a strategy canvas of the industry. This is easier than it sounds. Just think about the 5-10 key factors that influence the ultimate success of any blog, and rank each of these factors on a continuum from high to low. In the case of blogging, there are several obvious factors that influence success (defined here as either # of inbound links or # of visitors), such as "frequency of posting," "writing style" and "ability to generate word-of-mouth buzz." Not surprisingly, most A-list blogs execute well on each of these factors. If you re-read Clive Thompson's article, it's possible to isolate approximately 10 success factors that jump off the page, such as "distinctive online style," "speed and frequency of posting," "news nuggets, trivia and photos you can't find anywhere else," "first-mover advantage," "relationships with other A-listers," and "sexy niche."
Step #2 is to draw your value curve for the blogging industry. In other words, how do you compare vs. what the A-listers do? Are you low or high in all of these factors - or just in a few categories? In some categories ("frequency of posting"), it's possible to equal or out-compete the A-listers. In other categories, however, the A-listers are untouchable (e.g. "relationships with other A-listers"). In short, it is impossible for a C-list blogger to outcompete an A-lister along every single success factor. Otherwise, of course, the C-lister would be an A-lister and we wouldn't be having this discussion. Either that, or you've completely screwed up when it comes to mapping the industry success factors: having an extra blog widget on your blog (Look! I have a Technorati profile!) isn't a key success factor.
Step #3 is to think about ways to REDUCE, INCREASE, ELIMINATE or ADD to each of the industry success factors so that your value curve no longer resembles that of your blog competitors. For example,you might want to INCREASE your relationships with other A-listers and ADD daily blog postings that generate conversation. But what do you ELIMINATE or REDUCE? (Hint: this is the hard part, since the traditional way of competing in any industry is adding to the cost structure by adding and increasing things instead of thinking about a more elegant solution that reduces things). The key is to reduce costs (i.e. time at the PC), while simultaneously increasing buyer utility (i.e. making the site more interesting for users).
As an example of how to do this right: in the construction of its Blue Ocean Strategy, Cirque du Soleil ELIMINATED circus animals, ELIMINATED the three-ring circus structure, ELIMINATED aisle concessions, ELIMINATED star circus performers, ADDED "a unifying theme to the performance" and ADDED "artistic music and dance." The result was something that might sound like a circus but, in actuality, was something very different... (If you've never seen Cirque du Soleil live in performance, it's worth ordering a DVD like "Alegria" or "Varekai" from Netflix).
TO BE CONTINUED…
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