If you are interested in learning more about YouTube, Screencasting, Webcasting, Webinars and Podcasting then join our MasterCaster Mail List.
Steve Dotto here. How are you doing? Welcome to our next installment on our journey towards 100,000 YouTube subscribers. Things are going quite swimmingly on my part. We’re getting lots of traction. The channel’s growing and I want to talk to you today about competition. I’ve been thinking a lot about competition lately, mainly because I’ve listened to a few podcasts and other people talking about competition.
I had a conversation with a friend who was asking me about my channel and my plans for turning YouTube into my business and he asked me about my competition. He was concerned about the competition I had because he knows of some very good tech channels and he was asking whether or not that competition was going to affect me. I thought a lot about it and in our conversation I tried to impart to him that I don’t believe that there is a lot of competition for us online.
Now this isn’t ego talking. Don’t get me wrong. Because of the nature of the internet and the nature of how we like to consume content, you just have to think logically about how you like to consume content and you’ll recognize the fact that competition, what we perceive to be the traditional competition is actually fantastic in a place like YouTube. It’s not a negative. Even somebody that does way better than you is still fantastic for you and here are the reasons. Before you think I’m crazy, here are the reasons.
First, good competition, people having success on YouTube verifies your category or your niche. It verifies that people are interested in the content that you’re going to be delivering. Secondly, nobody delivers the same content as you. You might deliver similar content but in your own personal style, your own personal presentation technique. The relationship that you build, how you to respond to your audience, that is unique to you. So you just go about being yourself, creating the best content you can for your channel and don’t worry about the competition’s and don’t worry about trying to be better than them. Just worry about being the best that you can be yourself. I kind of sound motivational today, don’t I? It wasn’t my intention when I started this video but at any rate, I think that is a good, solid piece of advice.
The other factor is just think about how you consume content. When I want to learn about internet marketing, I don’t just look for one source. I look for as many good sources as I can find and every time I find a good podcast or a good video cast that’s giving me good information about this or a good website, I visit it, return to it, subscribe to it and consume all the good content that that channel is willing to deliver to me. It’s things that I’m interested in.
Now it might not be a long relationship. I might be interested in a topic, email marketing, let’s say. I might be interested in that for a year while I’m growing my email list and learning about it. But for that year, I’m going to be a rabid fan of as many different, good communicators of that technology as I can. Even after I’m not using it, even after I’ve kind of learned what I can from them, I’ll return on a regular basis to catch up, to make sure that there’s nothing new that’s happened or to just kind of hone my skills again.
So I don’t believe that if we develop good content and honor our content that there really is any competition. It’s not like television where we have a limited number of slots on the dial and a limited number of hours in a day. These videos are short, for the most part, that we produce. People can consume multiple tracks. They can watch you for a little bit, decide whether or not it’s valuable or not to them and they could go on. But that’s not necessarily negative. They can just say, “Okay, I understand what’s going on there. I got what I want out of it” and then come back a couple of days later to your next offering.
So stressing and worrying about competition are, I think, counterproductive. It’s not something that you have to spend a lot of time on. Having said that, looking at your competition in the honest light of day—again I’m using the word “competition”—but looking at people in the same niche that are doing similar things as you, looking at what they’re doing well, at what you might think that they’re doing poorly, identifying yourself and trying to be unique in that space, I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with that.
I pay attention to the other tech broadcasters. A) I get a kick out of them. I think that they’re awesome. I love all of the work that Leo Laporte does and Chris Pirillo and all of these different people. I follow their content and consume it because I enjoy listening to them. In the internet marketing space, the same thing. Social Media Examiner, I really enjoy people like Amy Porterfield, Mari Smith and David Siteman Garland. I love consuming their content even though in some areas, I probably will end up being perceived as competition to them at some point when I grow a little bit.
But regardless, even when that happens, I will still look at them more collaboratively than competitively because they’re saying things that are slightly different than me. They’re looking at it from a different perspective and even though we’re covering some of the same content, we each are going to bring a lot of value into that space as long as we really attention to what’s important. And you know what’s important—create good, compelling content. Tell your story well. Know your stuff. If we do those things, I think we’re going to be okay. Hey, I’m a motivational speaker today.
I hope you found this particular issue in our journey towards 100,000 subscribers to be valuable. I really appreciate you tuning in and watching these videos and I’m really enjoying the comments and the conversation that’s happening within the chat in YouTube here. I look forward to and read every single post and as you see, I respond to almost everyone or at least give them a thumbs up to let you know that I’ve read them and I’ve been through it. Again, please engage in the conversation. Tell me what you think. Tell me if you think I’m right. Tell me if you think I’m wrong. I love the fact people are filling in the gaps of things that I leave out. I’m going to leave it off here. I’m Steve Dotto. Have fun storming the castle!
