Apr
22
Last week I wrote Kill Your Blog Now! to shock you into thinking about your blog in a new way. Honestly, I think I might have scared some people away with a headline like that! 
But you see, I’m on a mission to fight against boring blogs! I see them EVERYWHERE, they are an ocean of mediocrity.
Don’t let your blog be one of them!
I said I’d have more fantastic blogs to show you as examples this week, and they are below. But before I get to them, let me explain my thoughts about this so that you have a framework onto which to build your own thoughts and ideas. As Steven Snell pointed out recently, many bloggers are working in intensely competitive niches. As he rightly pointed out, extending your reach in the blogosphere is a great way to stand out.
Everything Steven said is dead on, but there is an even better way to really stand out, get noticed, and get the most important asset of all in today’s world: attention.
What is this way? The answer is both very simple and highly complex. It is both easy and extraordinarily difficult at the same time:
CREATIVITY
I even have a l simple yet amazingly effective trick I’ve been using myself at Remarkablogger that I will share with you. But first, let’s take a look at these inspirational and highly creative blogs:
Stuff White People Like
Stuff White People Like is one of the most original and funny blogs I’ve seen in a while. I am one of the whitest people on the earth, and enjoy a good laugh at myself. There is some comedic talent here, no doubt. This is a great example of an unconventional idea and a difficult one to pull off. Satire can too easily veer into preaching and criticism, which nobody likes. Stuff White People Like keeps it humorous and light.
Photoshop Disasters
Photoshop Disasters has found a great way to reach the thousands of Photoshop users around the world in a way none of the other hundreds of Photoshop and design blogs have managed to do: By showing the worst commercial work imaginable! The examples are often hilarious and cringe-worthy, especially if you’re adept at Photoshop. This unconventional blog scores high on creativity for its subject matter and its writing.
Dear God
I saved the best for last. Dear God is an idea so simple, so astounding, you’d think someone would have thought of it before. Yes there are confessional sites and there is the famous Post Secret, but this site is a masterstroke, combining great design with both comedy and tragedy. And I don’t exaggerate on that count. I have both laughed out loud and been brought to tears by this blog. This is amazing stuff.
And now the secret…
I hope you had fun visiting and subscribing to these fantastic blogs (you will notice that not a single one is about making money online–yawn), but remember I promised you a simple trick to ultimate creativity? Here it is:
Every time you have a good idea, don’t stop. Keep saying: “Wait — what if we…”
We have a tendency to cease our efforts once we feel happy enough with something, when the truth is we have only just begun to get to the good stuff. So the trick is to keep going. Keep pushing. Keep saying, “Wait — what if we…” until you get the ultimate in creativity from yourself.
How does this work? Let’s say you’re about to write a post, and conceptually, it feels like (and would probably read like) a million other posts on a million other blogs. You want to do something different and creative, but what? Something comes to you, an inkling: instead of writing it like a boring lecture, you will write it out as a story to teach your point. But rather than dive into that you stop and say “Wait — what if I… made each of the people in the story into a type of person we’re familiar with online and when they talk it explains concepts to people.” But you don’t start writing yet! You say, “Wait — what if I… made the story a riff off the classic ‘three men walk into a bar‘ joke?
Or, say you’re about to shoot a video post. You set the camera up in front of you… no, wait! What if you filmed yourself saying parts of your video post at different locations and at different angles, and you edit them together? No more boring talking head videos! What if you were going to talk, but instead, you decide to play guitar and sing?
So there you have it
Inspirational creative blogs as examples, and a trick to help you push yourself deeper into your own creative power! All that’s left now are to subscribe to PureBlogging and then leave a comment below! Wait — what if you…
Imparted your own creativity tips? We could turn this post into a hub of creative blogging tips!
Wait — what if you… wrote a post about your creative tip, linked it back to this post here, and then linked to it in a comment here! You get multiple links back to your own site from the comments and trackbacks!
See how this works?
“We have a tendency to cease our efforts once we feel happy enough with something, when the truth is we have only just begun to get to the good stuff. So the trick is to keep going. ”
That says it all. With blogging, it is so easy to get complacent, but we have to make an effort to keep bettering ourselves. If you keep improving, more and more devoted readers will come your way. Good post!
Thanks, Eric! Complacency avoidance is the key! Keep pushing!
It’s incredible to me that people have this blank canvas and all they can come up with is a few lines about their favorite toothbrushes. I’m not even talking about edited videos, but you don’t need to be a computer wiz to add a couple of images between the lines. Or anything that comes to mind, really. It’s your personal blog–go crazy.
Thanks for the push. I’m afraid my blog is guilty as charged.
I my work I sometimes use a trick I learned back in college. I was a Music major, specifically Composition and Theory. I had run into a problem in a piece of music I was writing. I was stuck. My composition professors told me to come up with the most ridiculous solution possible and then correct it back to the piece I was working on. You end up with some really clever stuff by doing this.
Runs off to add a “Photoshop Impossible Babe Of The Day” to his site……..
I love Stuff White People Like. I’m white and it’s fun to laugh at myself.
Those blogs are really made creatively!
Dear God is pretty cool.
Great Article. I really only started my Blog on April 1st, so it’s really new. For the most part, it was going to chronicle my efforts to “Make Money Online”. However, now that I see that there are millions of other sites out there like this, I’m thinking of starting a different blog that will be more unique. This post gave me some inspiration. Thanks!
- Dave
This post has been featured in FullTiltBlogging.com’s Daily Blog Summary today. Great post!
I find Dear-God.net very interesting. It’s really a true that when more people come to prayer, a better outcome will surely come.
Nice post!
Just to let you know ur blog is all the way to the right and hard to read w/ the white/blue blend behind it.
[...] The Simple Trick to Ultimate Creativity on Your Blog - Michael continues his crusade against mediocrity and gives you a tip that will help you be more creative. [...]
Sharing these unique websites is helpful. I was only previously familiar with one of them.
[...] The Simple Trick to Ultimate Creativity on Your Blog [...]