Time to revive the 10 ideas a day streak, to get better at creative thinking!
Today I want to come up with ideas to increase reader participation in the "traditional" blog format.
While blogs had a great importance in the early 2000's, the audience seems to shift more towards video formats. I assume this comes from videos being more fitting for the medium of a 2D screen (blogs as relic of newspaper and early text-oriented Internet), more visually appealing and more "personal", with a stronger connection of reader and author (e.g. Vlogs, Streams, Social Media).
So how can blogs be adapted to be more fitting for the current point in time? How can we make them more visually appealing, interactive and personal? Here are 10 ideas.
1. Involve 2D visual arts (images, video) in blogposts, as they are the dominating medium (will prob change later towards 3D representation & VR)
2. Use headlines & images (other means of providing a clear structure) to make articles easily skim-able
3. If fitting include personal thoughts, experiences and stories to underline points (more personal)
4. For personal blogs, introduce yourself as person (e.g. image, short description or video), not as pure name
5. Provide easy ways for readers to participate by discussing the points highlighted in the blogpost
6. Include specific questions about the topic of the blogpost to spark discussion
7. Provide opportunities for the readers not only to discuss with you, but also with each other. The traditional threaded blog-comment system is probably outdated. Maybe a more "grouped" system as on Youtube would work, but without the upvoting feature.
8. Create "illustrative" cover images (with title text), that summarize the expected content and spark interest
9. Host a regular blog format all focused around discussing a topic or question with the readers/ encouraging them to share their perspective and and experiences
10. Provide more "modern" ways to keep updated with your blog. RSS is great, but most people use Social Media. Or use an email-newsletter, everybody still has an email-address.
So this were 10 (random) ideas to make blogposts more fitting for the current developments. I hope you found some inspiration.