Climbing the Long Tail
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| The Long Tail | The Bell Curve |
The long tail. For a relatively simple chart, it appears a lot of additional explanation and rumination is needed to really understand it. And of course, what is more illustrative than a helpful chart?
Rewind back about 10 years ago, and a similarly iconic graph was getting a lot of attention: The bell curve. Here, too, a relatively simple diagram was tossed out like a life-saver the hapless reader, drowning in a sea of information. You can infer much from a bell curve, but apparently its mysteries, like the long tail, are only revealed through extensive research.
Personally, I got the concept just by looking at the chart (in both cases). I think this is perhaps why these two ideas are so catchy.. we want to try to apply these concepts to any novel situation we encounter.
Basically, in the book The Long Tail (summary here), says that there is a market for less popular products but one that requires a different marketing strategy in order to address and work successfully with. For example, you can immediately apply Amazon.com as an example of selling to the long tail. They have an enormous number of different products (your local Wal-Mart would have to be as big as a small town to have all those products in one place), and they don’t expect to sell out of every item. However, the selection makes them a very popular first stop for people looking for something specific.
I tend to think of the long tail from the bottom up, though. As a product, a concept, I know that I’m well into niche territory. This isn’t a surprise and in fact I started my blog deliberately fairly narrow so that I would not be competing with bigger, better funded, and (let’s face it) better blogs out there.
Why, then, do I catch myself time and time again feeling anxious and competitive? Or feeling envy at those who are achieving some measure of success through their own efforts? Occasionally, it’s enough to put me off blogging altogether.
One of these times recently, I posted with exasperation to FriendFeed,
“I’m in a blogging slump. I can’t even get myself to blog about it. Ha.”
Thankfully, the response I got was encouraging and sincere, and I really need absorb some of the advice (like exercise and taking walks). One of the simplest bits of advice came from Louis Gray, who said,
“It’s not a contest. Just be yourself.”
So now, my right brain will repeat that advice like a mantra to my left brain:
It’s not a contest. It’s not a race. My niche is my home, not my silo.
The success I am seeing with others? Sure, some of it may be due to deal-making, lucky breaks or other factors, but would I read writers that were in it just for the money? Probably not. The people who are willing to step on others? No, not after I found out they did.
The people I follow have their own thoughts, their own passions. They do different things well. Sometimes, they know this about themselves and they capitalize on those strengths. Other folks, well, they are writing to make a point, or in order to understand something, or help me understand. A million reasons.
But the folks that are in for the long term, the ones that have a following, and are still one-person operations? They love to write. They do it because they enjoy it. They would write if it paid the mortgage or an occasional dinner at the local Greek restaurant. Even if it was an expense out of their own pocket.
When I think about why I am writing, that is what motivates me. Because it comes naturally to me, and I enjoy it. I like to know if people respond to what I am writing.
Let me bring this back around to the long tail. How does my motivation for writing have any bearing? In my opinion, it has all the bearing. Personally, I can’t write if I feel like I am just doing it to compete. If I go down that road, I will get burned out and I will never ‘win’ whatever nebulous price I think awaits me at the end.
Somewhat ironically though, if I write for me, if I write because I love it and on things I find interesting, I know that this will resonate and those articles will carry me slowly up the long tail to success. Whether I ultimately want success or not, I can’t tell you right now. But I know if I focus on it too much, it will slip away, like trying to squeeze an ice cube.
We knew the world was ready to receive the heirs to The Who. All we had to do was to keep doing what we were doing and we would become the biggest band since Led Zeppelin, without a doubt. But something just didn’t feel right. We felt we had more dimension than just the next big anything, we had something unique to offer. The innovation was what would suffer if we went down the standard rock route. We were looking for another feeling.
— Bono on The Unforgettable Fire’s new direction. (via Wikipedia)
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Long Tail, The, Revised and Updated Edition: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson |
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Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (A Free Press Paperbacks Book) by Richard J. Herrnstein, Charles Murray |