The Art of Differentiation: Standing out in a sea of mediocrity

The inevitable has happened. On today’s Internet, the key to success is finding a way to stand out in a sea of mediocre content.

Gone are the days of churning out articles, brute force. Gone are the days of relying exclusively on the long tail of search for monetization.

So what are you supposed to do? I can sum it up for you in two words:

Differentiate upwards.

Your goal as an online professional is to differentiate yourself in a positive way from the vast sea of mediocrity that you see all around you. You should aim to do something that will catch the attention of Main Stream Media. Do something that will establish your site as an authority in its niche; something that’s out of reach for most other competitors.

In other words: look for the real gold at the top of the mountain, not the base.

Steps To Take & Goals to Make

First thing’s first. You should constantly be targeting powerful eyeballs.

Next thing: develop sustainable linkbait. No more of this one-off stuff that dies a quick death.

Go multi-media: that’s audio and video. at minimum, you should do an audio podcast. But aim for a weekly video show.

Be a resource hound: develop the Wikipedia articles that don’t yet exist in your niche…just don’t give them to Wikipedia. Put them on your own site.

Other ways to be a resource hound: build a killer tool, write detailed reviews in a niche that doesn’t have detailed reviews, create a bunch of top 10 resource lists (e.g. Top 10 Online Tools For Accountants)

A Real Life Example

When I got into the celebrity niche about 12 months ago, it wasn’t nearly as crowded as it is today. But people are natural born gold rushers, especially if the gold is laying at the base of a mountain.

The competition in the celebrity niche is fiercer now than when I first entered. The hanging fruits are much rarer. It occurred to me a while ago that I needed to take action and hope that there was a lot more gold up at the top of the mountain than at the bottom, where I’d been playing for the last year or so.

In order to differentiate, I decided to start a video production: The PopCrunch Show.

Warning: The following video contains language that many might find offensive. Watch at your own discretion.

What do you think? Will it help PopCrunch differentiate among the sea of celebrity sites?