Is your blogging getting a little dry? Perhaps it is time to become a bit more playful as a blogger.
One of the things that I’ve learned over the years is that the more I ‘play’ and experiment with my blog the more I learn that helps me to make my blog better.
Experimentation helps you not only learn what works in the blogging medium – but also what works with your audience.
Notes
- Watch the full sized version at Become a Playful Blogger
- Video shot on a Panasonic Lumix DMC GF1 (aff) – here’s why I use that camera to shoot my videos.
Become a Playful Blogger Transcript
I’ve had this video transcribed below for those who prefer to get it that way. The transcription provided by The Transcription People.
Today I want to talk about being playful. I’m standing in front of some of the artwork that my four year old has done at Kindergarten. It’s been interesting to watch the progression of his artistry over the last couple of years. He’s a very artistic, creative little guy and he loves to paint and he loves to make things and he loves to basically create stuff.
But, the development in the quality and intricacy of his work has been fascinating to watch over the last few years.
What I’ve noticed is that the more he does it, and the more he experiments with different mediums and different ways of holding a brush and using his fingers and different types of paints and cutting up stuff and sticking them on, the more he experiments, the more he learns and the more he develops.
I think this is really true for blogging as well.
One of the things that I’ve learnt over the years is that the more I try and use stuff, the more I discover what works and what doesn’t work for me in my style, but also for my readers, for blogging and the medium itself.
So, I’d like to ask you today:
- how have you played on your blog?
- How have you experimented?
- What have you tried?
- What has worked and what hasn’t worked?
I’d like this to be a discussion. For me, I’ve tried lots of different styles of writing over the years.
For example, I’ve done a few rants on my blogs. I discovered that, you know, me ranting doesn’t really work. Occasionally it does because, I guess I really believe in what I’m ranting about, but as a rule, ranting doesn’t really work for me.
I’ve also tried writing in the third person at times that sometimes has actually worked for me. It’s had a real impact upon people.
I’ve also found asking questions like this video post itself works for me.
It’s just about experimenting with different ways of communicating. With using images, with your design, it translates across your blog in lots of different ways.
So, what have you played with on your blog? How have you been a bit playful? How have you experimented? What have you learnt? What has worked for you in your style and what doesn’t work for you in your style?
I’d love to hear your comments in the comments below this video.
![How to Get Dreams Out of Your Head [And a Video of Me Wearing Tights]](https://problogger.com/wp-content/themes/problogger-redesign/build/placeholder.png)
Hey Darren,
How true is that? I’m always looking for ways to change up in my blog. I’ve seen that asking questions creates a lot of interaction in my blog.
Plus, switching it up from a written post to a video I notice it keeps the readers entertain. Thanks for the insights!
Chat with you later…
Josh
this i the reason that I do video; you’ve got to make it fun and put your heart in blogging, so you wont give up on it; and eventually succeed.
I need to expand my the way that I write my blog. I like the idea of writing in third person. It does seem like so often I get lost in the “what I think my audience wants” rather than trying something new that my audience might like even more.
Hi Darren,
Great video! Thanks for posting! I love little kids for their unfiltered creativity and ability to inspire us. I have a friend who is a piano teacher and says that he learns more about Jazz improvisation from 8 year olds than from accomplished musicians.
I agree with your idea about ranting proving to be instantaneously gratifying but ultimately a hindrance to a discussion. When I feel very strongly about something I try to take a step back, write the post and then edit it at least 12 hours later.
One of the ways that I play, and I believe you do this too, is to always try to engage the reader for their thoughts. Never do I think what I have said in my post to be the be-all-and-end-all on any subject. So, I am always interested in asking others to join the conversation.
Thanks!
Best,
Brian
Hi Darren,
Funny you should post about this right now. This is exactly what I’ve been doing this past week. Instead of talking about how to do something, I’ve decided to start taking on little projects that I do myself and then post the results in my blog.
In less than 3 posts — lol — I’ve discovered it’s been a lot more fun to write and I’ve found my own voice comes much more easily to me.
I’m also becoming less formal. For example, I use slang and light foul language in real life… so no more stifling myself online. Damn! Did I really just say that?
Your timing on this post is perfect, kinda reinforces what I’m doing. And I hope many, many bloggers take you up on this idea. The web will get more interesting over night!
Thanks for the post!
Theresa
Thanks for transcribing. I believe that experiments end up with discovering what suits one the best. I always experiment with my layout, widget placement and less often my theme. Since English is my second language, I can’t really play with the style I’m writing in because I’m yet to catch up what style I’m currently in. :D
Sometimes I get lost in traffic stats, experimentin’ with illustration has helped get the creative flow back!…
:]
Content part is a measurable role in bloging experiment like SEO content and without seo
I’ve definitely played around with different styles on my blog. I write about frugality and sometimes the blog posts that I think will be a big hit end up being dead weights, or at least so it seems from the comments.
Other times, I get a million (ok, many, but not millions) comments, but they’re all disagreeing with me.
I’ve played around with getting to know my readership, seeing what works for them, what doesn’t, and often I am able to guess correctly now when something will actually be a big hit and get comments that agree with what I say, and not bashing me for things with which they disagree.
I’ve also experimented with different styles of posts, from musings to lists to recipes to picture posts and discovered that I like informative but fun long posts the best, more than ones that are chock full of information but feel too textbooky.
Darren, thank you for this post. Im lucky because my audience is usually a young relaxed crowd. This means that my way of writing is very casual and conversational. Dont think I am going to change it too soon. I have changed my layout a few times to see what impact it might had on traffic stats. Sometimes very interresting.
I think it can be hard to experiment even for the most abstract or artistic person because after having invested alot of time in making things ‘right’, there is always that risk that the experimentation will not pan out.
So much of the time we get stuck in our ways and use what works for us to grow.
But I agree with you Darren – that sometimes rebooting aspects of a blog or any aspect of ones life certainly can be a growing experience both for the individual and those around he or she who is ultimately influenced by this decision to freshen things up.
I think that always trying new approaches and strategies is what makes blogging interesting for me, especially when you see the different results of each effort. Experimenting on my blog is definitely a huge part of my learning process.
I’m a new-ish blogger working with a relatively new blog, so everything I do kind of feels like an experiment at the moment. The main things I’ve played around with is the content and language I use on my blog, and I’ve already found that being concise in a post is preferred amongst my readers over really detailed and rant-like content.
Trying to create and portray plenty of personality in my writing is another aspect I regularly experiment with, varying the amount of questions I include, the phrasing, and changing up writing styles. I’ve found reading my posts out loud to myself is a great initial indicator of how well an experiment on a writing style has worked and how effectively personality is presented.
Wonderful post!
Over the past few months, I’ve been trying to experiment with different writing styles and advertising companies. So far, I’m testing out Infolinks and different link frequencies to see which combination has the most earning potential. After about a week of testing, I plan to try a week of Kontera.. then move on to Vibrant Media. Once that’s done, I’ll choose the contextual advertising network that works best with my blog.
I was also thinking about making my first video post. It should prove to be interesting and hopefully I’ll get a good response.
I think experimenting is important to the growth of your blog. After all, if you don’t experiment, you’ll never be able to discover what works and what doesn’t. If you never discover additional ways to improve your blog, how is it going to grow? Definitely something to consider.
Christina
I’ve come into Blogging and the internet world with a lack of writing experience, but one of the reasons I have entered, was a way of improving my writing whilst talking about my subjects. A way of learning.
Stuart
http://stuartmcminigal.com
My blog is a month old so I both haven’t played at all and every post has been playful. I guess I mean I’m still trying to figure out what my “normal” post will feel like. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of lists. I like them because it helps corral my thoughts, but I have a feeling too many lists is going to start get boring. I have a post planned for Thursday that I think is very playful, but I guess we’ll see how people react to it. Although it’s more playful in topic than form.
I am going to take this to heart and start to stray from what I’ve been doing and see if I can find other formats that will work for my blog and be different and interesting at the same time.
Thanks for the encouragement.
Hi great post Darren, I arrived in the world of blogging from an academic background so I’d been used to writing essays which were rather formal and boring for the purposes of blogging. So in order to adjust my style one of the things I’ve been playing with is recording my posts then transcribing them and using them as a basis to construct my blog posts.
This carries a number of advantages, the main one being that it’s a lot quicker to create the structure of a post which can then be edited. Second, it makes my posts more natural, easier to read and hopefully more entertaining. It also increases the amount of emotion that you can put into the posts, so you’re not left with a dry, academic style essay.
I’ve even started recording my response to blog posts so that my comments are more natural.
Beyond that, I’m always testing and adjusting another aspect of my blog, which from my point of view is part of the attraction behind blogging.
I’ve been blogging a little over a year, and have found a clear difference in visitors on posts that I complain on, and ones that are more upbeat. People don’t like whining and complaining, at least for my niche (mommy blogging) and age group (20’s).
I recently tested this theory by trying to start a Monday link-up specifically for complaining. As you might have guessed, 3 weeks went by and no one joined. That idea is getting scrapped today.
I’ve seen that the best reactions come from posts based on humor, advice, or photos. Everyone loves a silly baby picture.
I’m an innately playful person… I always have been. That comes through loud and clear in my writing as well, and it’s what I think has helped me grow as a blogger and a freelancer.
Granted I probably have lost a few readers and clients that are turned off by my playful “tone” and how I run my business… but in my book they weren’t the right people for me anyway. :)
I am also innately independent and have always pushed my boundaries a bit. So I often use playful innuendo as well, or playful or sexy images for blog posts… it’s not really something I intend to do, it’s something that happens and I go with it.
I’m naturally attracted to unique or sexy or aesthetically pleasing images… or images I feel give a certain message that fits with the post.. and I tend to just go with my gut and what pleases me. Luckily I have some readers that strategy seems to gel with, so I guess I’m on the right track! LOL
Overall though, I think the world in general could use a bit more playfulness. Life’s too short to take it quite so seriously all the time. :)
I have found that the more playful I get with my headlines on my blog the more creative my readership gets when responding.
People don’t want to be lectured at, or just told that they are wrong. Every person is at a different stage in their development.
They want to be entertained and informed at the same time. I have found that rants don’t work well for me either, because I get too preachy. I have found that injecting humor into a valuable topic has been my best formula to date, although I am not always able to deliver as well as I would like.
Definitely got some room to grow.
-Joshua Black
The Underdog Millionaire
Hi Darren ~ I definitely agree with you on the rant thing. Doesn’t work for me either. My entire attitude to life in general is to look for the positive so concentrating on the negative just doesn’t do it for me. Although I know some folks know how to make it work and even make it funny. (Lewis Black springs to mind).
Trying to make a real estate blog “pop” is somewhat challenging, but I try to incorporate as much technology into it as possible to break up the “dryness.” I love maps and am currently trying to figure out how to make video work for me.
The trick is as you know to look like a purple cow in a sea, (field), of brown and white cows. (Yes I read Seth’s blog too).
Thanks for this post. It’s constantly questioning and re-evaluating your blogging efforts that pushes you forward. And questions like the ones you ask help with that re-evaluation.
For now I would say that it is with video. I am not really that comfortable for now with making video’s for my blog but I try to force myself to do at least 1 week to branch out.
I have also been experimenting on and off with a few “attention grabbing” blog headlines.
Being playful. It’s not hard to do or understand. But so few do it well.
Once in a while, I’ll litter a blog post with cultural references obscure and current, ranging between viral videos and Dr. Johnson.
I like to play with rhetoric, chiasmus (obviously) being one of my favorite techniques.
There’s even an obscure reference to a Youtube video in the guest post I did right here on Problogger with Kelly Diels.
However, I do this stuff mostly for my own amusement, and rarely call out specific instances. Since I take care that the prose flows regardless, it seems a harmless diversion.
Hi guys,
I really like it when bloggers provide some personal stories in their blog. To me it makes the blogger seem a bit more real, and often I can relate to their stories. For example, if they are writing about their kids.
I am going to endeavour to provide more personal stories on my blogs and websites.
Cheers
Rusty
Lately I’ve been blogging about matter of fact helpful information. I did tell my story in a post last week and that received more attention than other posts. I haven’t done a sit down in front of the camera/show my personality video yet though. I’ll be thinking about this today. Thanks for the post.
I have a personal blog, so I’m kind of all over the place when it comes to my writing. I have blogged about strange gadgets to blogging tips to conversational issues and more serious issues like the loss of a child. I’m very playful when it comes to blogging, though I have been told I’m too safe when blogging & i need to get out there more.
I think you are showing us one right here. Using video to changes things up.
I started adding video into my posts to bring more of my personality into what I was writing about. I found sometimes my writing was dry, but by adding a short video, people could see how passionate or enthused I was about a certain top.
I also find making video, much more enjoyable than simple typing out any idea.
My blog is about horse riding and it gives some solutions to problems people have with their horses. It is in Polish as it is written for Polish readers. Apart from giving advice I try to post a horsey game for my readers at least once in to weeks. I call it a game for Sunday. People seem to love it.
I wish I could blog in English for a wider audience.
if you treat your blog as a hobby and add your personality into it, it will be more successful then just trying to make money from blogging
Experimenting is really fun. I also think by experimenting, you’re improving your writing by getting out of your comfort zone!
I was just writing a post about this having started my blog one year ago today. It reminds me about negotiating with myself. Absent feedback from others (comments, traffic, etc) there is a tendency to want to change things up for change sake. I’m looking for a new look, but am not a coder so am stuck with existing templates. My experimentation will begin by learning how to develop my own website.
Hi Darren,
I have done a lot of experiment with my blog. One of it was what you’ve mentioned. I always learn from others way of writing so that my message can be digest by the audience. After a while, I realize that the most powerful solution is to be myself!
Other experiment would be on how my post would effect page rank. Well, you can have all the SEO gurus in the world pointing you different direction…the best way is trying out and better, creating our own way doing it.
I’ve never been experimenting with other medium such as videos or podcast…hem…maybe it will be more fun!
Sometimes the playfulness comes out only when you stop caring so much about how “good” the content is.
“This is going to be such a stupid post” is a thought that motivates me to just get it done. It relieves anxiety and gets my ego out of the way. Counter-intuitive, I know.
Of course, there’s a risk that what seems like a stupid idea really is a stupid idea. You have to be willing to take that risk.
I completely agree that making something fun is great to re-energize a blog, especially if it only increases the added value for the site, just like copyblogger.
I’ve been tossing around some ideas to not only make my my website fun and full of life, but to also make learning fun. I really want my readers to go away from my website/blog having learned something new, practical and live changing.
I’m trying to work with a video camera, but I’m having trouble editing! Once I figure this out halleigh, I can really implement some directed change.
I’ve put the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 on my wish list (not the amazon one, but maybe I should). Your video blogs look superb. I had to start with something well priced and good. Forward I go…
Hi Darren,
I was inspired by your blog to make a committment to make sure I had a photo on each posting I make.
Sometimes I snap a picture of something unusual and I put it in a posting like one time I found a BUS stop on the top of a mountain! The link to the image is here.
http://thewondertechnique.com/expect-the-unexpected/
Another time, I saw Yaks on the road in Italy.
That image is here
http://growyourwellnessbiz.com/prepare-for-the-unexpected/
LIfe is full of fun stuff to remember,
Cheers,
David
I’m a bit like you Darren and have an introverted personality. My blog is very new and I’m still trying to figure out what type of approach I’m going to take on my blog. I’m currently doing Ed Dale’s Challenge training and in there they teach a free writing technique that has changed the way I look at writing. I used to dread sitting down to write content and turned green every time I pushed the publish button! Now I really enjoy the writing process and have more content than I know what to do with. It’s like your recent post said, ‘just do something’ and it’s amazing what can happen.
I need that playfulness in my posts. Uptill now I have been writing in pretty much one style either a post of a list. I tried doing some slide show but the response was not that woh…
Soon trying to upload some videos and see how that works.
I have certainly felt that changing the writing style, or writing an unusual headline gets good reaction.
The rant does not work for me either !
You are definitely right with that idea of “being playful” with blogging. Sometimes when things get a little bit “routinary”, the essence of the blog is lost, so the need to spice things up is really a must.
It also gets to a point that somehow, the author, loses interest due to routine (maybe loses just a little bit of interest) with the blog and in turn he loses his passion and drive as well. When this happens, readers will be swayed to not be interested and just not read the blog anymore.
I get your point that being playful is synonymous to being creative and also a risk taker.
Thanks for this great tip!
We are born creative, Darren. And as we grow up, we forget to be creative in the true sense of the word.
One of the key messages I took from this video is to unlearn the conditioning over the years – and go back to what I was like during childhood when it comes to experimenting and trying out new things.
Great video. (actually the transcription is what works for me…) You always hit the nail on the head. I needed a “Go For It” push from my nephew to post a nearly totally unrelated post on my blog for the fun of it. It was playful, fun and so me. It’s good to play once in a while!
http://www.inmyfourwalls.com/2010/08/truth-and-chatter/
I blog home products – furnishings and fixtures – which can get somewhat dry after a while. So I keep experimenting with my posts. I used to do poetic stuff. Then I switched to a more personal approach and I really like it better.
Thanks for your great tips!
I have used reverse physiology many times in my blogs and has worked really well for me.
I have also used sarcasm but isn’t that the same? :)
Ramit over at i will teach you to be rich is doing just this, asking his readers to give him back handed compliments. I have found that telling my readers to do something then come back and leave me a comment about the results to work really well.
Give me some tips or trick to give energy in my blog.And also my Blog traffic very low and no body come on blog to read my informative.
In one example, I cut loose for Christmas and wrote up some “Lessons Learned from Santa” and, while it didn’t generate a lot of comments, it did generate a lot of email and a lot of smiles.
To experiment and change things up, periodically, I ask friends, “if you were me, what might you do on my blog?” … and then I act on their suggestions. A friend of mine suggested that I do a brief post on “What 16 Movies Can Teach Us About Life and Leadership.” It was a 10-minute post, but it hit a sweet spot and went viral fast.
The irony was that I wrote the post to prove him wrong, and test the assumption that a quick and dirty dump of movie lessons would catch fire.
I’m glad I took action and did the test. It showed me once again that it’s not the time you spend or the work you put into it … it’s the impact it makes … and value is always in the eye of the beholder.
Thanks for posting! I love little kids for their creativity and ability to inspire us.Experimenting is really fun. I also think by experimenting, you’re improving your writing by getting out of your comfort zone!, thanks for sharing us such valuable information…
waiting for next blog…
What works best for me is writing immediately when I get a good idea. I’ve tried jotting down notes and creating schedules around them (eg: I’ll think of something now then schedule a different time to write it), but when I get down to actually doing it, my writing tends to suck because I’m, not in the moment of the idea anymore.
My general rule is to always write and write and write when I get an idea. No excuses, because I know I know I’ll wind up with better material in the end.
Very true Darren!
I was more scared of experimenting but now I found that it’s actually pretty funny and interesting to try new stuff. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work.
I started experimenting with video on youtube which is cool.
for my niche, Gyaru Fashion (Japanese gal fashion), I created its first Blog-sa (blogging circle) as a play on the social groups they cal gal-sa but for only online. It’s been a big hit. I did an open invite with a few rules as i have about 11 gals in this circle. It’s been quite difficult getting everyone to do a post weekly, but when they do I hear their readership soars. My creating this blog-sa has introduced a lot of Gal bloggers together and created relationships within our network. (this is sometimes difficult to come by).
I find that when I just write instead of worry what people will think, I have the most fun. Recently I wrote a post called “Comment Vomit” about the bad types of comments people leave. At first I worried I’d offend, but then I decided to have fun with it. It seemed to have worked as I have over 50 comments!
Like Noel said above, it also helps when I write as soon as I have the idea, even if it’s just scribbling some notes on a piece of paper. I always find that I can’t remember those “fun” ideas later (baby brain lasts forever).