About that Little Niche
Thinking about the importance of being in a niche.
Reading this article by Chris Anderson got me thinking more about niches and the importance of catering to “a” or hopefully “your” niche. When its broken down, a niche is where you have to start when trying to bootstrap any situation. Think about your favorite band or your favorite entertainer, musician, artist and then research how they’ve gotten to where they are. The level of “where they are” may be megastardom or it may be a smaller but one thing that I can bet is that they’ve found a niche for themselves and they have spent their careers working hard to cater to that niche.
The essence of what I’m getting at is that in the entertainment world; anyone that has the goal of longevity needs to start with a few people and a core audience. For any sort of longevity it needs to start there. Trying to appeal to the masses from the enception of an artist or band does not and will not evolve into longevity or timelessness. If you are trying to reach big goals then pay attention to who you’re appealing to and who your audience is not to who YOU want to appeal to or what YOU want your audience to be. Its not about you, its about everyone else.
A few examples come to my mind. One is Utada Hikaru and she is a pop singer in Japan. Now, Hikaru is not like anyone else in Japan. Her music is original and unique but still concidered pop. Some would say she invented what is called j pop today AND you can tell that she doesn’t pay much attention to musical trends in a way that most people do by copying them. By doing this, and staying true to what she thinks and believes with regards to her musical vision, she created a niche for herself and fans gravitated towards her. Seven or eight years later she is the biggest thing in Japan ever. Trying to copy someone else’s niche doesn’t lead anywhere. Do what your vision is and work hard at finding a niche for that vision to live. Don’t let anyone hold it back.
I’ll save “finding that niche” for another post.
July 12th, 2006 at 9:34 pm
I find the more I talk about the naked truth of my reality, the more that others find themselves inside it. It’s as if the more we recognize our individuality the closer we become to each other. We become the same by being different. In a virtual world I am all but invisible, so I take heart in hearing that you feel that way too.