Back in the 1990s, NBC had this perfect little plan for their super powered Thursday night line up. They’d run Friends, then some other show, then Seinfeld, and then some other show, then ER. The “other show” slots were where they placed their not-so-popular products that hadn’t yet learned to stand on their own. They were incubator spots. And that’s my recommendation to you, if you’re looking to grow your audience.
Find Your Friends / Seinfeld / ER
If you’re a medium sized or small sized blogger or podcaster, find the content that is most similar to what you’re talking about. Start commenting, contributing, finding ways to augment instead of seem like a clone product. Look for the things they’re NOT covering and make that your deeper specialty. Side note: If you feel you’re truly unique, that’s either really awesome, or it’s going to stink for you.
Don’t latch on like a leech, but do see if you can at least establish a conversational relationship.
Be Your Own Show
TV shows that attempt crossovers essentially suffer. So do comic books (ask any comic writer and most fans). Make sure you’re your own product, and that your product stands alone really well. The model at NBC was that the show in between Friends and Seinfeld either succeeded and graduated to its new date and time, or it went dead quickly.
Think About the Landscape
Consider how your blog improves someone’s day. In fact, here’s homework: Look at your blog as if it’s a book on a shelf. Now, imagine that bookshelf is in Barnes & Noble (or Chapters for my Canadian friends), and you’ve got music, and video, and other things to contend with.
Be holistic in this. Think about your audience’s time. Are they reading/watching/consuming you *and* several other blogs? Or do they even have much time for blogs with work, TV, school, kids, spouses, hobbies that don’t involve keyboards (I’ve heard some exist). How can you make your product SO GOOD that it becomes “appointment viewing?”
That’s what you’ve got to target.
The products I stick with, blog wise, are informational and deliver repeatedly. The videoblogs and Internet TV shows I like all hit me hard and keep me wanting more. In all cases, I feel like I’m learning, that there’s little dead weight in the output of the product, and that I’m getting the best return for my time spent.
You MUST think about your own stuff the same way.
Look For Audience Crossover
I mentioned above that your product had to standalone and that crossovers stunk on TV and comics, but what I didn’t say and should is that AUDIENCE crossover is magic. Wherever you can find ways to get a big product’s audience to interact with you, it’s good. Don’t get onto someone else’s blog and just pimp the hell out of your blog. That won’t work. It just comes off as seeming wayyyyy too self-serving. But it doesn’t hurt to write a follow-on topic really quickly that augments a blog whose audience might really love your stuff.
Product crossover is bad (usually). Audience crossover rocks. Know the difference.
Always Seek to Engage
I’ve recently started a personal “side blog”, where I can do “lab” projects, where I can talk about me for my own sake. Why split it out? Only because my goal, first and foremost here, is to deliver value to YOU and that means ruthlessly cutting some of what I feel isn’t of value.
Yes, it’s cool to know more about the people you read/experience, but pound for pound, and “shelf space” in my personal virtual “store,” I want you getting what you come here for, and I want to engage you.
I don’t find telling you about my little twitter experiments engaging, until they are. : )
Friends and Seinfeld May Be Gone
But the lessons NBC gave us live on. See if you can’t figure some of this into your own media making, and let me know what you think. How does your product compare, compete, and complement other products out there? Have you thought about it much? What can you share?
The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.
Get the entire series by subscribing to this blog.
Photo credit, notsogoodphotography
If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.
ChrisBrogan.com runs on the Thesis Theme for WordPress
Thesis is the search engine optimized WordPress theme of choice for serious online publishers. If you’re a blogger who doesn’t understand a lot of PHP, Thesis will give a ton of functionality without having to alter any code. For the advanced, Thesis has incredible customization possibilities via Thesis hooks.
With so many design options, you can use the template over and over and never have it look like the same site. The theme is robust and flexible enough not only to accommodate a site like ChrisBrogan.com, but also to enable the site to run far more efficiently than it ever has before.
- Go on a guided video tour of Thesis and see the amazing things you can do with this theme! Seriously, you’ll love it.
- Check out the Thesis demo site
- See more Thesis-based sites in the gallery showcase
sign up for the 
subscribe to the 
follow Chris on 
