Why You Should Not Fear “Big” Bloggers

Do you fear the big bloggers?

Admit it or not, when writing a big post or an e-book, you ask yourself at least one time, "What if a big guy does better than this?" or "Many bigger guys have done this before! Why should I do this?"

Here's news for you:

Bigger does not mean better!

Let me tell you a small story. Have you heard the name "Vodafone"? I am sure you have heard it. Vodafone is world's second largest mobile phone operator. It was formed in 1984, as a subsidiary of Racal Telecom Limited. Here's the interesting story behind it:

In 1984, British Government decided to allow companies to start mobile operations in country. The contract was given to BT(British Telecommunications). BT was the only (and hence, biggest!) landline phone operator. Government decided that a competitive market is better and decided to offer a second contract to some private players. RT(Racal Telecom Limited) won the second contract.

At that time, RT knew nothing about mobile networks and had almost zero infrastructure. On the other hand, BT had engineers specializing in mobile networks and infrastructure (telephone exchanges) around the country. BT seemed clear winner at that time. They could easily set up mobile transmitters on their exchanges while RT had to buy land and build towers from scratch!

Fast forward one year, both companies were almost ready for placing towers. While BT decided to go with placing towers on exchanges, RT decided to do some research and bought a software that simulated mobile signals to find optimum location for towers. They experimented like crazy and finally, placed the towers at locations decided by software.

On Jan 1, 1985 the first telephone call in Britain was made(by RT) and RT launched their services. BT launched their services 7 days later. Apparently, RT network was lot better than BT!

And the rest is history. RT became the biggest mobile player in Britain in just 7 months and it's now world's second largest mobile network operator (as Vodafone)

Existing infrastructure seemed an obvious win for BT. But in the end, that turned out to be biggest loss for them.

What We Should Learn From The Story

1. Bigger Is Not Better: So, you are afraid that you won't be able to exist in a niche where there a lot of big competitors? Well, think again! Look from this perspective: bigger blogs mean more management! So, any bigger blogger has to spend some extra time on many extra things like ad management, payments etc. You have none of these tasks and can spend the time for something that matter, "Content".
2. Do Not Be Afraid To Try Something New: See how a software changed the game for RT? They easily made their network better with it. I am not suggesting to buy software! What I suggest is to try new things.

   Experienced bloggers often recycle strategies. So, why not stand out from the crowd and do something new. For example, we are used to bloggers giving away a small free report and offer their "product" after that. While this works, how about getting more attention by releasing full book for free?

   Well, Chris Guillebue did just the same thing by offering his '279 days to overnight success'  for free and got a lot of buzz. Similarly, another marketer(I don't remember his name) had released a 93 page book for free (although it was a pitch for membership site!). But the main point is that, they got the buzz by standing out!

What did you learn? Do tell us through comments!