I always focus on creating new content. So are the majority of bloggers. And that is what majority of the blog advice sites suggest. Write great content consistently and grow your blog and audience that way.
And great content is usually seen as text. A lot of text. I have now written 108 posts with some 500+ words on average per post on this blog since late October 2008.
Informing, entertaining, inspiring
People follow blogs to be informed, entertained, and inspired. Your content must clearly address at least one of these needs. My blog, and majority of blogs, are here to inform and inspire people. But have we neglected entertainment too much?
I have already written about how video blogging can give you unique perspective into a saturated world of text blogging. But there is a new trend - picture blogs. Picture blogs with an aim to entertain the visitors.
Picture blogs to the top
Several picture blogs have been launched, made it big and got book deals in a record amount of time. The bloggers of picture blogs are usually relying on the readers to contribute the majority of the content.
The blogger comes up with a good idea, puts it online on a blogging platform, and then lets the readers be contributors, and lets them provide the majority of the content. The blogger is basically the editor that compiles all the best material and publishes it on the blog.
These picture blogs are very viral and do very well in social media and get thousands of visitors from Digg, StumbleUpon etc. It is not unusual that they get millions of visitors just weeks after the creation of the blog.
Getting book deals
The viral popularity of these blogs gets them on the radar of the publishing industry and at least 8 books created from user-contribution, picture blogs would be published during the year.
One of the first releases, “I Can Has Cheezburger?”, a book of cat photos with bizarre captions, has sold more than 100,000 copies. And the blog domain name was registered as late as January 2007. Examples of popular picture blogs:
- I can has cheezburger? – http://icanhascheezburger.com/
- Pets who want to kill themselves – http://petswhowanttokillthemselves.com/
- This is why you’re fat – http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/
Think of pictures for your future projects
Looking at these blogs, they get lots of comments, lots of reader interaction, tweets and diggs. There definitely is a huge interest and a huge audience for the entertainment blogs. And the job seems easier than writing a lot of text several times a week.
So my advice is, whatever your next blogging project is, try to think a bit out of the “writing a lot of text content” box. Can something be said better with pictures? Maybe with video? Is your audience willing to contribute with the content?
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m wondering how the blogger gets the traffic originally. How do viewers/readers find out this blog exists? I can see how they would go viral once discovered – just wondering how they get discovered in the first place.
Thanks for all comments! Great points!
@MJ Doyle @Mike – I am not sure what they do to get the initial traffic. I would think it is mostly done via social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and StumbleUpon.
I like these words: Informing, entertaining, inspiring. Noted, Marko!
Sure, a picture (or even a video) can tell the story much more than 1000 words. Right? lol
Thanks for reminding that points!
In this generation, we like to watch news on television instead of reading the newspaper. Nowadays, we learn best when information is combined with entertainment. In some of my classes, we do Jeopardy to prep for quizzes and tests, and I would remember the information a lot better than studying from textbook.
I would also like to know how they get discovered. This was the first page of your blog I’ve read so I’m hoping to find the answer to my question.
Adding pictures and videos gives much needed diversity. It’s not just that we should move away from text, we should move to as media rich of an experience for our site’s visitors as possible. Some people like to read, some like to watch, and some like to listen. Providing access to your content in all three mediums is the best way to maximize your site’s usefulness.
I think Reddit and Digg play a very large part in sites like these getting traffic. Twitter and the like might help get the word out, but if the site happens to hit it big on Reddit or Digg with hundreds or even thousands of Diggs or upvotes, that translates into huge numbers, traffic-wise.
With sites like I Can Has Cheezburger, the content is small and easily digestible, so people are probably more willing to subscribe to RSS, bookmark, etc.
@Chris – Definitely Reddit and Digg have a bit part in creating the buzz and sending the traffic. My blog was on Digg front page for a short period of time and it still sent me several thousand visitors. It is not uncommon to get tens of thousands of visitors from Reddit or Digg front page.
Hey Marko,
Great post, again.
I’ve just written a post which kinda goes hand in hand with this one.
Check it out here:
http://imsecretsrevealed.com/2009/05/07/what-is-blogging-and-why-should-it-matter-to-you/
Marko,
What an excellent blog you have! Thank you for such wisdom, and for helping the rest of us understand how to have a better blog, and internet presence.
So glad to have found you on twitter!
Take care, and keep up the great work,
Lisa (MsFit)
@Lisa @NoTimeForRecess – Thanks for all the nice words. I am glad you found my blog and I am glad it is useful to you.
Thanks for all the help. I found this site by accident, when setting up a new blog for my father and I to do, and it’s helped tremendously. One thing about pictures, is I always want at least ONE in each article. Referring to the content, of course, and then if I can get one, that sparks humor.