Matthew Stibbe argues creators should stop trying to please everyone. When competitors use generic skyscraper photos and safe messaging, he says you win by zagging: pick a distinct tone and look that makes you stand out instead of becoming a forgettable round pebble.
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What I would advise everybody to do if they want to be noticed is avoid being a round pebble. So if you are trying to be inoffensive and not alienate anyone and not say anything controversial or uninteresting for fear that you might lose a potential customer here, or you might irritate somebody over there, that's a very bad place to be. In the words of a former editor of mine, when I used to write for Wired magazine, she said, Matthew, if you want to write about everything for everybody, you're going to be a really lousy writer and you'll be competing with thousands of wannabe freelance journalists who want to write for Word. If everyone's zigging, you need to just zag. And if you've got— everyone has a website that's got pictures of skyscrapers, you need a picture of something else on your website. So you need to find a way that just sounds and looks different.