I once came across an article discussing about why MySpace lost to Facebook.
MySpace was probably the first social network that succeeded. But by 2008, Facebook overtook it.
Why?
That was because MySpace focused on one way communication from celebrities or specific influencers to their fans, as they thought these influencers can bring them more users.
On the other hand, Facebook focused on developing more tools and apps to facilitate the interaction among its users, i.e. making interaction among its users easier.
MySpace might have worked as hard as Facebook and invested as much resources in developing apps and tools, but their focus was wrong.
They had failed to focus on the reason why their users joined them in the first place. Hence their users switched to Facebook.
Myspace failure is a good lesson to me.
LeadsLeap started as a leads building network but then we expanded it by providing a library of tools that our members can use.
The reason for doing that was to increase our member retention rate as well as to make our membership more attractive.
However we realized that some tools were under-appreciated by our members and not helping the growth of our business.
The reason?
Because these tools were not the reason why our members joined us.
People join LeadsLeap because they want more leads. That’s what we are valued for.
No matter how many tools we provide, if we cannot help our members to grow their leads, they are not going to be satisfied.
When I realized this, I started to make sure that the tools that we develop will directly or indirectly grow our members’ leads and increase the exposure of their ads.
Over the years, I have seen online programs went burst because they kept on expanding and had eventually lost focus on what they were initially valued for.
If you run a membership program or build a list, make sure that you keep on asking yourself this question,
“What is the top reason why my members/subscribers join me?”
As you expand, you must make sure that the expansion plan meets this top reason.
