Two New Kids at School

If you haven’t had a chance to read the previous article about how the web is like high school, you might want to take a quick glance.

Two New Kids at School

A new kid can become popular.  If they were popular at their last school, it was always easier. If you ever watched this type of new kid, you could always tell. They walked the right way. They had the right look. They knew they had the right stuff; they just had to prove it. And from the moment they walked off the bus (if they dared to take it) they got to work on becoming popular.

The new kid who tripped coming off the bus, wore thick glasses, etc. was just as “doomed” at this school, as they were at the old school. What made these two different?

The Inside Track

This is a truth both in High School, and on the web.  A site created by an existing legend (someone popular before) can use that knowledge, and influence, to tell their legions of followers to help make them popular again.  If a “legend” like Scoble or Matt Cutts were to shut down their sites today, they could be back up and running, as popular as ever in a matter of weeks, if that long.

Others, who are popular, but not as popular at the “legends”, will still be able to replicate their success. It may take longer, but knowing the right people, the right things to do, etc. always helps.  They already have an “inside track.”

If you don’t have a popular website already, don’t worry.  We all start somewhere. Don’t get down when you see someone who starts a site and claims 1000 new users in one week.  Odds are, they raided one of their previous sites by publicizing there the new site, and just got people to follow them.  This type of “success” isn’t normal.

Bringing it Back to the Web

So how does this relate? If you have a popular website then you know how to be popular. You already know what to do, and how to do it. So the next couple of articles in this series aren’t going to be for you.

Maybe you were the kid who was learning how to be popular, and were just getting there, but now have a new site. This is to let you know, it is possible to take what you know, and what you have learned from those experiences, and make something of site in the new arena. Use your past to your advantage.

Just start with a clean slate, and move forward. Just don’t make the mistakes of the next kid – The Rebel.